Five Canadian authors are in the running for the 2012 Giller Prize, with one writer set to receive the coveted trophy and $50,000 at a glitzy gala in Toronto on Oct. 30.

Founded by Jack Rabinovitch in 1994 in memory of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller, the annual award has become one of the country’s most prominent and lucrative fiction-writing honours.

U.S.-based Montrealer Alix Ohlin is a Giller nominee for her contemporary novel Inside, which explores the intertwined fates of several characters over the course of a decade.

In the video above, Ohlin tells CBC about how much of herself went into her characters, which colours she had in mind when writing Inside and why she'd tell other young writers to take it slow.