WINNIPEG-Turnstone Press is pleased to announce that Fear Not by Maurice Mierau has won the 2009 ReLit Award for poetry.
The ReLit Awards, founded in 2000 to honour "Ideas, not Money," are Canada's most prestigious awards given for short-fiction, novel, and poetry produced by independent Canadian publishers. The awards will be presented at the Ottawa International Writers Festival on Sunday, October 25, 2009.
Mierau will appear at the Festival and awards ceremony, with his second full poetry collection, Fear Not. The book, which Turnstone Press released in 2008, was also short-listed in two categories at the 2009 Manitoba Book Awards: the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, and the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry.
Fear Not has been described by reviewers as "wonderfully humorous" (Prairie Fire) and "haunting" (Winnipeg Free Press). "I've been fascinated with the Bible for a long time," says Mierau about the book. "My family background is Mennonite and we grew up saturated in Biblical text. I studied New Testament Greek in college. However, my father was a linguist and a critical reader of the Bible, so my influences were more intellectual than evangelical."
Ranging in subject from suicide to divorce, unemployment to gratitude, Afghanistan to Gethsemane, Fear Not attempts consolation, all the while mocking its own failure to lessen human pain. This collection is lyrical, political, raunchy, blasphemous, and deeply engaged with ethical questions.
The ReLit win comes on the heels of Mierau's appointment as Writer-in-Residence at the Winnipeg Public Library for the 2009-2010 session. Mierau is active in the Winnipeg writing community as an editor for book publishers and periodicals, and is past president of the League of Canadian Poets.
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If you would like to arrange an interview with Maurice, to obtain a review copy of Fear Not, or require more information, please contact: Christine Mazur, Marketing and Submissions Coordinator at Turnstone Press by phone: (204) 947-1555 or by email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
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