Stuart Ross wins the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize

above/ground press author Stuart Ross has been announced as the winner of the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize! Congratulations, Stuart! above/ground press has been fortunate enough to publish two (so far) Stuart Ross titles: ESPESANTES (2018) and NINETY TINY POEMS (2019), both of which are, of course, still in print. And have you seen the Forty Proper Tales blog, celebrating Ross and his forty years of continuous activity as an editor/publisher through Proper Tales Press? Oh, and I should mention we're part of a roundtable discussion on small press activity at Harbourfront together on October 26th (will we see you there?). As the press release for the prize (which you can find here) reads:

2019 Prize Winner

The 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize, which includes a $10,000 cash prize, was awarded to Canadian poet, editor and small press activist Stuart Ross. Author of 20 books of poetry, fiction and essays, Ross is a founding member of the Meet The Presses collective, has taught writing workshops across the country and was the 2010 Writer-in-Residence at Queen’s University. He's the winner of, among others, the 2017 PoetryNOW: Battle of the Bards competition, the 2017 Jewish Literary Award for Poetry and the 2010 ReLit Award for Short Fiction. Ross' micro-press, Proper Tales, is in its 40th year.

A jury composed of Quill & Quire's Alison Jones, Toronto Star's Books Editor Deborah Dundas and the Director of the Toronto International Festival of Authors Geoffrey E. Taylor was tasked with awarding the 2019 Prize to Ross.

About the Prize

Established in 1984, the Harbourfront Festival Prize (C$10,000) is presented annually in recognition of an author's contribution to the Canadian literature community, based on the merits of their own published work and/or the time they have invested cultivating the next generation of voices. The recipient is selected by a jury process and presented with the Prize during the Toronto International Festival of Authors every October.
Past Winners

2018 Lee Maracle

2017 Joseph Kertes

2016 Miriam Toews

2015 Avie Bennett

2014 Margaret MacMillan

2013 Alice Munro

2012 Austin Clarke

2011 Seth

2010 Peter Robinson

2009 Helen Humphreys

2008 Wayson Choy

2007 Christopher Dewdney

2006 Dionne Brand

2005 Guy Vanderhaeghe

2004 Jane Urquhart

2003 Linda Spalding

2002 Paul Quarrington

2001 Daniel David Moses

2000 Victor Coleman

1999 Matt Cohen

1998 Marty Gervais

1997 Ken Gass

1996 Timothy Findley

1995 Douglas George Fetherling

1994 M.G. Vassanji

1993 Graeme Gibson

1992 Alberto Manguel

1991 Nicole Brossard

1990 Howard Engel

1989 Tomson Highway

1988 Michael Ondaatje

1987 Barry Callaghan

1986 Margaret Atwood

1985 John Robert Colombo

1984 Dennis Lee