September 23, 2015 • Toronto, Ontario: For immediate Release
RBC Taylor Prize announces 2016 Jurors
Award-winning author, distinguished scholar, and well-known broadcast executive
join to select year’s best literary non-fiction
The Trustees of the Charles Taylor Foundation are pleased to announce that the
jurors for the 2016 RBC Taylor Prize are: Susanne Boyce, Steven Galloway, and
Stephen J. Toope. Diverse and accomplished, this year’s decision-making team will
approach their reading list with a varied perspective to determine the best works of
literary non-fiction for the fifteenth awarding of the prestigious annual Prize.
Publishers are reminded to submit their titles for consideration and to take note
that no books will be accepted after the final submission deadline of November 2,
2015, per the details outlined at this link: www.rbctaylorprize.ca/submissions.asp
The Prize longlist is set to be revealed on Wednesday, December 9, 2015. The
shortlist will be shared at a press conference on Wednesday, January 13, 2016. The
shortlisted authors will be celebrated and the winner announced at a gala luncheon
on Monday, March 7, 2016.
Noreen Taylor, Chairman of the Charles Taylor Foundation and Founder of the Prize
commented: “I am thrilled at the calibre of this year’s jury. Canadians from coast to
coast, their varied and many accomplishments inform their understanding and
wisdom. Everything begins with the jury and I can’t thank them enough for their
exceedingly hard work. I look forward with great anticipation to their selections for
the 2016 Prize.”
About The Jury:
Susanne Boyce is one of North America’s most respected TV broadcast program
chiefs. She has been a producer, a programmer and an executive at both public and
private networks. Most recently she was President, CTV Creative, Content and
Specialties. A champion of Canadian production and nation-building shows with a
world-wide reach, she was responsible for one of the most watched original
programming slates in Canadian television. Prior to this, she held production and
management positions at both CBC (The Journal, Midday, Newsworld) and BCTV
(Webster!/Newshour). She lives in Toronto.
Steven Galloway is Acting Chair of the Creative Writing Program in the Faculty of
Arts at the University of British Columbia. The winner of numerous awards for his
writing, his most recent book is The Confabulist. His previous novels are Finnie
Walsh, Ascension, and the international bestseller The Cellist of Sarajevo, which The
Guardian called ‘the work of an expert’. He has won the Borders Original Voice
Award, the OLA Evergreen Award, and the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness
in Literature and has been nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary
Award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Richard & Judy Book of the Year Award, the
Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, the Canadian Booksellers Association Fiction Award, and
the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. His work has been published in
over thirty countries and optioned for film. He lives in New Westminster.
Stephen J. Toope is a distinguished scholar, prize-winning author, and Director of
the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. His book Legitimacy
and Legality in International Law: An Interactional Account (with Jutta Brunnée)
won the American Society of International Law’s 2011 Certificate of Merit for
Creative Scholarship, the highest award for a book on international law. He most
recently co-edited After the Paris Attacks: Responses in Canada, Europe, and Around
the Globe (with Prof. Edward M. Iacobucci). In his current research, he is working on
issues of continuity and change in international law and the origins of international
obligation in international society. Prior to joining the University of Toronto, he was
President of the University of British Columbia (2006 – 2014), President of the
Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, (2002 – 2006), and Dean of McGill University’s
Faculty of Law (1994 – 1999), among numerous other appointments. He lives in
Toronto.
The RBC Taylor Prize is awarded annually to the author whose book best combines
an excellent command of the English language, an elegance of style, quality of
thought, and subtlety of perception. The Prize consists of $25,000 for the winning
author and $2,000 for each of the runners up. All of the shortlisted titles receive
extensive national publicity and marketing support.
Earlier this year, Plum Johnson won the 2015 RBC Taylor Prize for They Left Us
Everything: A Memoir, published by Penguin Canada. Ms Johnson selected Iain Reid
as this year’s recipient of the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award, which was
established in 2013 to provide recognition and assistance to a Canadian published
author who is working on a significant writing project in literary non-fiction.
The trustees of the Charles Taylor Foundation are: Michael Bradley, Vijay Parmar,
David Staines, Edward Taylor, Nadina Taylor, and Noreen Taylor.
The presenting sponsor of the RBC Taylor Prize is RBC Wealth Management; its
media sponsors are The Globe and Mail (exclusive newspaper sponsor), CNW Group,
The Huffington Post Canada, Maclean’s, and Quill & Quire; its in-kind sponsors are
Ben McNally Books, Event Source, IFOA, The Omni King Edward Hotel, and Toronto
Public Library.
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To download high-resolution images of the trustees and the jury please go to:
www.rbctaylorprize.ca/2016/2016_trustees+jury.zip
Media contact: Stephen Weir & Associates
Stephen Weir: 416-489-5868 | cell: 416-801-3101 | sweir5492@rogers.com
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