Alice Munro, Douglas Coupland in running for Writers Trust

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Alice Munro, Douglas Coupland in running for Writers Trust

The Canadian Press Published Wednesday, September 30, 2009 12:45PM EDT

Alice Munro, winner of the 2009 Booker International Prize, attends a press conference at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, Thursday, June, 25, 2009. (AP / Peter Morrison)

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TORONTO - Alice Munro may have removed her name from contention for this year's $50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize, but she could still nab at least one lucrative literary honour this fall -- a Writers' Trust Award.

The renowned author, who lives in Clinton, Ont., was named a finalist for the $25,000 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize on Wednesday for her short story collection "Too Much Happiness."

Industry watchers are now buzzing over whether the title will also make the short list for the $25,000 Governor General's Literary Awards, set to be unveiled Oct. 14.

"I think it's an interesting thing to think about in terms of what does that say about the Giller winner this year? If Alice does happen to win everything else, what does that say?" remarked Don Oravec, executive director of the Writers' Trust of Canada.

"So it's going to be a fascinating process to follow. I think the public will be very interested in this."

Munro announced in August that she wouldn't compete for this year's Giller because she wants younger authors to get a crack at the award.

She has already won the Giller twice, in 1998 for "For The Love of a Good Woman" and in 2004 for "Runaway," which won the Writers' Trust the same year.

Other finalists for this year's Writers' Trust fiction prize include Douglas Coupland for "Generation A" and Annabel Lyon for "The Golden Mean," which is also on the long list for this year's Giller. Both titles are published by Random House Canada and both authors hail from Vancouver.

Also making the cut is Montreal's Nicole Brossard for "Fences in Breathing," translated by Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood (Coach House Books), and Andrew Steinmetz of Ottawa for "Eva's Threepenny Theatre" (Gaspereau Press).

Winnipeg native Miriam Toews, who won the Writers' Trust prize for fiction last year for "The Flying Troutmans," was on the jury for this year's award, along with writers R.M. Vaughan and Marina Endicott.

The three read more than 140 books over a period of six months and made their decision around the time the Giller long list was announced last week, said Vaughan.

"The three of us are very different sorts of writers and I was worried it would be a kind of a battle royale for us to come to a short list even," he said.

"But it actually happened very quickly and we got along really well and we found that we had similar interests and similar tastes."

Also announced Wednesday were finalists for the $25,000 Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize, which, for the second year in a row, doesn't have a sponsor -- something Oravec chalked up to the tough economic climate.

Those finalists are:

Brian Brett of Salt Spring Island, B.C., for "Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life" (Greystone Books)
Wade Davis of Washington and northern B.C. for "The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World" (House of Anansi Press)
Regina's Trevor Herriot for "Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds" (HarperCollins Publishers: A Phyllis Bruce Book)
Erika Ritter of Toronto for "The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships" (Key Porter Books)
Montreal's Eric Siblin for "The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece (House of Anansi Press)"

Organizers also revealed finalists for the $10,000 Writers' Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, which recognizes the best short story or excerpt from a novel-in-progress by a new and developing writer that had its first publication in a Canadian literary journal in the previous year.

They include Daniel Griffin of Victoria for "The Last Great Works of Alvin Cale" (The Dalhousie Review); "The Wisdom of Solomon" by Regina's Dave Margoshes (The Dalhousie Review); and Yasuko Thanh of Victoria for "Floating like the Dead" (Vancouver Review).

The Writers' Trust of Canada is a charitable organization that awards almost $150,000 in various categories. Each finalist for the fiction and non-fiction prizes receives $2,500.

This year's winners will be announced at the ninght annual Writers' Trust Awards event on Nov. 24 in Toronto.