Writing instructor Madeline Sonik wins City of Victoria Butler Book Prize

Department of Writing sessional instructor Madeline Sonik is the winner of the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize for her acclaimed memoir, Afflictions & Departures. She received the $5,000 prize at a sold-out gala on Oct. 10 at Victoria’s Union Club, emceed by CBC Radio All Points West host Jo-Ann Roberts (who will also be the writing department's 2013 Southam Lecturer). The jurors cited Afflictions and Departures as, “a wonderfully generous book that returns us to one of literature’s touchstones: intensely personal revelation rendered universal. Sonik’s tone—cool and wry—manages to be simultaneously humane and funny.” 2012 also saw Sonik nominated for the $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction and the $40,000 BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction for the same book.