Firefighting memoir scoops non-fiction award
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 | 12:44 PM ET
CBC News
Russell Wangersky is winning further accolades for Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself. (CBC)St. John's editor and author Russell Wangersky has scored another literary honour for his memoir Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself.
Wangersky, whose celebrated book recounts his experiences as a volunteer firefighter, has won the $10,000 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction.
"The ironic title captures the camaraderie and dark humour of the firehouse, and its cautionary subtitle warns of the psychological price of serving society as an emergency rescue worker whose skills are absolutely essential and absolutely impossible to leave behind when the shift is over," juror and professor Tanis MacDonald said in a statement.
Burning Down the House also won British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction in February and the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for non-fiction in May.
Writer and literary journalist Edna Staebler established her namesake award in 1991. The prize is administered by Wilfrid Laurier University and honours a writer for a first or second work with a Canadian locale or significance.
Wangersky, a former editor of the St. John's Telegram and currently the paper's editorial page editor, will receive the award at an evening reception at the university's Waterloo, Ont., campus on Nov. 30.
