Bill Gaston wins city of Victoria Butler Book Prize

This Wednesday at the 15th annual Victoria Book Prize Gala, Bill Gaston was awarded the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize for A Mariner’s Guide to Self-Sabotage.

Established in 2004, the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize is a partnership between the City of Victoria and Brian Butler of Butler Brothers Supplies. This year, Mayor Lisa Helps and co-sponsor Brian Butler presented Bill Gaston with the $5,000 prize.

Gaston is a novelist, short-story writer and playwright. The Mariner’s Guide to Self Sabotage is a set of 10 cautionary tales showcasing Gaston’s range and narrative versatility, moving seamlessly from the funny to the poignant to the surprising and absurd. Gaston has a gift for making ordinary moments feel transcendent.

Gaston’s earlier book Gargoyles won the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize in 2007, and was also short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award, and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and won the ReLit Award. In 2002, Gaston was a finalist for the Giller Prize with Mount Appetite, and the inaugural recipient of the Timothy Findley Prize, awarded by the Writer’s Trust of Canada.

The awards gala was held at the Union Club of British Columbia and was hosted by CBC Radio’s Gregor Craigie. Victoria’s Poet Laureate Yvonne Blomer opened the evening with a reading from her recent works.