Literary arts

On November 17, the Canada Council for the Arts announced the 2021 winners of the Governor General’s Literary Awards (GGBooks). Inuk writer, Dr. Norma Dunning, who is based in Edmonton, Alberta, has been awarded the English-language fiction prize for her short story collection Tainna: The Unseen Ones.

About the writer

On top of being a writer, Dr. Norma Dunning is also a scholar, researcher, professor and grandmother. Her previous short story collection, Annie Muktuk and Other Stories (University of Alberta Press, 2017), received the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, the Howard O’Hagan Award for short stories and the Bronze Foreword INDIES award for short stories. 

About the book

Six powerful short stories centred on modern-day Inuk characters are woven together in Tainna. Dr. Dunning drew on both lived experience and cultural memory, to write Tainna—meaning “the unseen ones” and pronounced Da‑e‑nn‑a.

Read more about Tainna.

About the GGBooks

The 14 best books of 2021 published in Canada, were selected by peer assessment committees that chose award winners from 70 finalists in seven categories, in both English and in French.

• Jenna Butler (Barrhead, Alberta) was listed as finalist for Revery: A Year of Bees under the English-language non-fiction category.

Founded in 1936, the Governor General's Literary Awards are among Canada's oldest and most prestigious prizes for literature. There are seven categories, awarded in both French and English, with $25,000 going to each winning book.

More information

Read more on CBC News.

Like the rest of the world, Alberta is navigating a new reality brought by a pandemic that is changing public life and re-shaping our economy. Organizations in the arts, culture, sports, recreation, tourism and hospitality sectors, all which rely on live, group experiences, are grappling with new challenges. Organizations need to be prepared for a change in audience behaviour. The question is what that will look like, now and over the coming months.

The Alberta Foundation for the Arts is pleased to be a funding partner in this collaboration with Stone-Olafson and other community leaders to develop a long-term research investigation and evaluate how current conditions will reshape Albertans’ attitudes and behaviours towards social and group activities, across a variety of sectors. The purpose of this work is to give leaders of community sports, recreation, arts and culture, professional sports, active living, heritage, tourism or hospitality sectors relevant facts about local audiences that they will need to bring life back to our communities.

The initiative is being funded by: 

• ActiveCITY Collective
• Alberta Foundation for the Arts 
• Angus Reid
• ATB
• Calgary Arts Development 
• Calgary Foundation
• Edmonton Arts Council
• Edmonton Community Foundation
• Rozsa Foundation
• Stone-Olafson
• Travel Alberta

​This research is being conducted in six waves over the course of the next year with the first wave of results (based on surveys conducted between May 21 and June 2, 2020) now available.

This is a community resource that is FREE to access and results from the first wave of research are now available.

Download the reports:

• Alberta Report
• Calgary Report
• Edmonton Report

You can subscribe to receive notifications when the new reports are available by visiting stone-olafson.com. 

This research is being conducted in six waves over the course of the next year. This is a community resource that is FREE to access and results from the third wave of research are now available. 

Findings for Alberta organizations from Wave 3 results include:

• Community attitudes on comfort are becoming entrenched.
• Risk tolerance provides a richer understanding of how Albertans will approach engagement.
• Right now audiences indicate they need to hear experiences will be safe and fun.
• Capitalize on desire for shared experiences but with a focus on innovation and intimacy.
• The intersection of cohorts, shared experiences, and risk tolerance means audiences will engage, but appear to be doing so with their cohorts in mind - "will this put my friends/family at risk?". 

What are the implications for Alberta organizations?

• Comfort with conditions and other people has dampened willingness to actually engage in their usual activities. It is likely this variable is an additional barrier impacting final consideration of participating in activities.
• The benefits you offer and the messaging you broadcast must overcome that broader interpretation of risk. Whereas risk used to be overcome simply by appealing to the motivations of the individual, now we will have to assuage safety/health concerns that impact the people around the individual (i.e. safety measures are not just for you; they are for those around you.)
• Knowing who you can reach, what to offer them and what to say will be critical as organizations plan how to engage audiences in the coming months.
• Right now audiences indicate they need to hear the experiences they will have are safe and fun. This is critical for building confidence and organizations need to reinforce those dual messages of safety/comfort with enjoyment. The weight of each type of message will vary depending on how risk tolerant the audience is.
• Audiences need to hear they will be able to have the desired shared experiences but that the experience is safe (for them and their cohort). To balance those needs of social, safety, and fun, organizations will need to develop and continuously reinvent (often many times over) the types of small group offerings that deliver this.
• Opportunities exist for organizations in the experience economy to engage Albertans by balancing the notion of cohorts with shared experiences. Show them how to engage with their entire cohort or at least show the activity will not put their cohort at risk.

Download the reports:

• Alberta Report
• Calgary Report 
• Edmonton Report

You can subscribe to receive notifications when the new reports are available by visiting stone-olafson.com. 

About the project

The Alberta Foundation for the Arts is pleased to be a funding partner in this collaboration with Stone-Olafson and other community leaders to develop a long-term research investigation and evaluate how current conditions will reshape Albertans’ attitudes and behaviours towards social and group activities, across a variety of sectors. The purpose of this work is to give leaders of community sports, recreation, arts and culture, professional sports, active living, heritage, tourism or hospitality sectors relevant facts about local audiences that they will need to bring life back to our communities.

The initiative is being funded by: 

• ActiveCITY Collective
• Alberta Foundation for the Arts 
• Angus Reid
• ATB
• Calgary Arts Development 
• Calgary Foundation
• Edmonton Arts Council
• Edmonton Community Foundation
• Rozsa Foundation
• Stone-Olafson
• Travel Alberta

The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Foundation is proud to announce that artist Faye HeavyShield (Blood Reserve, Kainaiwa Nation, AB), writer and filmmaker Cheryl Foggo (Calgary, AB), and dance choreographer Vicki Adams Willis (Calgary, AB), have been selected to receive the 2021 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award.

Arlene Strom, chair of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Foundation said, “Albertans can be proud of these three whose contributions have pushed the boundaries of art to reflect Indigenous identity and expression; present a more inclusive and diverse view of Alberta’s history; and define the province as a beacon for jazz dance artists. Each has contributed immeasurably to the development of the province’s artists, arts communities and expanding art disciplines.”

Faye HeavyShield, Visual Arts

Over the past 30 years, Faye HeavyShield is one of Canada’s pre-eminent artists within Alberta and the Blackfoot Confederacy. Currently living on the Blood Reserve in southwestern Alberta, Faye studied at Alberta University for the Arts in Calgary. 

Honouring her Kainaiwa (Blood) Nation, the striking landscape they dwell within and the Blackfoot language which she speaks, Faye HeavyShield’s legacy of three-dimensional art and sculpture, including recent installations incorporating photography and delicately constructed paper figures, make her a senior figure in the artistic and cultural renaissance of Indigenous nations in the country. 

Cheryl Foggo, Playwright, screenwriter, film maker, author

Creating a more inclusive and diverse view of Alberta’s history through her plays, films, books, articles and multi-media presentations has been Cheryl Foggo’s life work. Profiled in Who’s Who in Black Canada and the recipient of the 2008 national Harry Jerome Award for The Arts, Foggo has applied her talent as a researcher and writer to uncovering the compelling but overlooked stories of Alberta’s Black settlers and cowboys. Most recently, the award winning National Film Board feature-length documentary, John Ware Reclaimed (2020), highlighted an earlier thriving Black community in the province often left out of the history books.

Her seminal, autobiographical book, Pourin’ Down Rain: A Black Woman Claims Her Place In The Canadian West was reprinted in 2020 to commemorate its 30th anniversary. In addition to her books, Cheryl Foggo has published prose in more than 40 journals and anthologies. Two new productions of Foggo‘s plays are scheduled in 2021 with the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton and the Urgency Collective in Calgary, and her short play The Sender is currently available through Toronto’s Obsidian Company’s 21 Black Futures Project. As a cultural activist, mentor and volunteer she advocates for writers and Black artists.

Vicki Adams Willis, Performing Arts: Dance  

Vicki Adams Willis has changed the face of jazz dance in Alberta and Canada. A co-founder nearly 40 years ago of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (DJD), she is foremost a teacher and choreographer of more than 35 original productions. Jazz dance is a misunderstood art form. Born of African parents and of the Black American experience, Vicki Adams Willis acknowledges herself as a guest in this form and has demonstrated her deep understanding of, and utter respect for, the authentic roots and history of jazz through her research, teaching and choreography. She is recognized as a true leader in the world of jazz; an acclaimed ground-breaking choreographer who created one of the most unique jazz dance companies in the world, and the key person to ensure Calgary, Alberta as a viable dance centre for serious jazz artists. 

“These three ground-breaking women have offered important contributions to the arts in Canada. Their creativity has brought new light to their respective disciplines and created countless opportunities for us all to learn, grow and explore fresh ideas. Artists like this are essential to the vibrancy of our communities and we are truly fortunate to have them as cultural leaders in our province and country as a whole.” Her Honour, the Honourable Salma Lakhani, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta 

Ceremony

The awards patron, the Honourable Salma Lakhani Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, will present the awards at a celebration hosted by the Community of Lac La Biche and Portage College, Lac La Biche campus, at an awards event June 10 and 11, 2022. This celebration in 2022 will also include recognition of the 2022 Emerging Artists.

The 2021 Distinguished Artists were chosen from nominations received and reviewed by a jury of experts overseen by the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Jurors for the 2021 Distinguished Artist Awards were Mary-Beth Laviolette, visual arts curator and author; John Estacio, 2017 Distinguished Artist and JUNO nominated composer;  Seika Boye, scholar, writer, artist and Assistant Professor, University of Toronto, Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies; Jordan Abel, Nisga’a writer from Vancouver and Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta teaching Indigenous Literatures and Creative Writing.

The Alberta Foundation for the Arts is pleased to be a funding partner in this collaboration with Stone-Olafson and other community leaders to develop a long-term research investigation and evaluate how current conditions will reshape Albertans’ attitudes and behaviours towards social and group activities, across a variety of sectors. The purpose of this work is to give leaders of community sports, recreation, arts and culture, professional sports, active living, heritage, tourism or hospitality sectors relevant facts about local audiences that they will need to bring life back to our communities.

The initiative is being funded by: 

• ActiveCITY Collective
• Alberta Foundation for the Arts 
• Angus Reid
• ATB
• Calgary Arts Development 
• Calgary Foundation
• Edmonton Arts Council
• Edmonton Community Foundation
• Rozsa Foundation
• Stone-Olafson
• Travel Alberta

​This research is being conducted in six waves over the course of the next year. This is a community resource that is FREE to access and results from the second wave of research are now available. The second wave of research builds on the baseline established in May and June by delving into attitudes on comfort, spending, the impact of media, and audience expectations.

Findings and implications for Alberta organizations through Wave 2 results include:

• Support for the pace of re-opening grows but there are still lingering pockets of disagreement.
• Comfort levels are creating a new baseline of engagement.
• Increasing gaps are appearing between audience segments on the pandemic.
• As restrictions lift, Albertans are pulled by their social motivations and perceptions of safety outdoors.
• Engagement is (potentially) perishable.
• Staying connected will mean the development of innovative and hybrid experiences.
• In a crowded media space, audiences are still listening.
• Spending is obviously being impacted

The report makes the following recommendations for organizations:

• Comfort levels are not rebounding just because restrictions are lifting. Organizations need to temper expectations about reconnecting with audiences. You will not be reengaging them in the same you used to. It will take time and it will look different. Plan on it and prepare.
• Getting audiences comfortable enough to attend is vital. Some of this will rebound over time, and some will be addressed by government, but there are opportunities to build confidence in what you are doing to safeguard their health. Show the steps you are taking and the tools being employed to protect audiences. Building confidence with what you are doing will help increase comfort and, in turn, consideration.
• Audiences and markets are changing. There are new barriers to address and consider. Organizations will need to understand shifting mindsets of different target audiences in order to engage effectively. This could be a deep opportunity to engage for many organizations who can capitalize on their motivations and expectations.
• Find your voice. Audiences are listening closely for news around the pandemic and are eager for updates, information or promotions. They want to know when experiences will be available again and are receptive to traditional marketing messages again. In fact, they expect it.
• Adapting means developing new product and experiences to consume. Staying put or offering what you used to won’t necessarily work. Organizations that can move into hybrid offers (not simply digital alone or in-person alone) that still leverage intrinsic motivations will be well positioned to protect their revenue from competition.

Download the reports:

• Alberta Report
• Calgary Report
• Edmonton Report

You can subscribe to receive notifications when the new reports are available by visiting stone-olafson.com. 

This research is being conducted in six waves over the course of the next year. This is a community resource that is FREE to access and results from the fourth wave of research are now available. 

Findings for Alberta organizations from Wave 4 results include:

• Public perceptions reflect the low point of the pandemic at this time.
• Albertans are adapting to and following the rules.
• Change in habits during the pandemic appears to be additive, not alternative
• Contexts frame marketing in this environment - messages will need to be shifted, media strategies evaluated, and some types of voices changed.
• Engagement is on hold.
• Travel within the province is an option. 

What are the implications for Alberta organizations?

• When conditions permit, recognize you will be reconnecting with a weary population who are more anxious than before. Messages and offers will need to adjust to reflect this reality.
• As Albertans accept and get used to the restrictions, they expect others to follow them too. A large percentage of those surveyed indicate others not following protocols will dissuade them from attending events/participating in activities. The same applies for not seeing sufficient safeguards in place.
• As restrictions start to lift, Albertans are likely to start figuring out how to balance a new set of activities they enjoy with their usual activities they want to get back to. And for organizations, that means breaking through a larger competitive set to capture the attention of their audiences. For those that offer registered or directed experiences this may be an even bigger challenge now that people are also adding in more self-directed experiences.
• Organizations are likely going to need a multi-layered media strategy that can reach influencers who can help propel the message. To be clear, an influencer strategy doesn’t mean a pure social media strategy. It means a strategy of messages and media that are repeatable to others.
• Organizations have to be prepared to re-engage in stages. When current restrictions lift there will be some appetite to explore and potential opportunities to meet them online or outdoors. In a post-pandemic environment, audiences are very likely to get active again.
• Focusing on broad messages that reflect a drive to escape everyday stresses and deliver on social motivations will work well to help motivate intra-provincial travel. Reinforcing these main messages with reassurances about flexibility in booking and safety will also be helpful to finalize a decision.

Download the reports:

• Alberta Report
• Calgary Report 
• Edmonton Report

You can subscribe to receive notifications when the new reports are available by visiting stone-olafson.com. 

About the project

The Alberta Foundation for the Arts is pleased to be a funding partner in this collaboration with Stone-Olafson and other community leaders to develop a long-term research investigation and evaluate how current conditions will reshape Albertans’ attitudes and behaviours towards social and group activities, across a variety of sectors. The purpose of this work is to give leaders of community sports, recreation, arts and culture, professional sports, active living, heritage, tourism or hospitality sectors relevant facts about local audiences that they will need to bring life back to our communities.

The initiative is being funded by: 

• ActiveCITY Collective
• Alberta Foundation for the Arts 
• Angus Reid
• ATB
• Calgary Arts Development 
• Calgary Foundation
• Edmonton Arts Council
• Edmonton Community Foundation
• Rozsa Foundation
• Stone-Olafson
• Travel Alberta

Dates

Application Deadline: April 16, 2025
Program Dates: September 08 - September 19, 2025

Overview  

Science Fiction is a self-directed residency that provides writers with the time and space to focus on their work away from the constraints of everyday life. During the two-week residency science fiction writers can take advantage of one-on-one mentorship opportunities with faculty, group discussions, and a community of artistic peers.
Faculty include Premee Mohamed, Ai Jiang, Amal El-Mohtar, and professional guest Ali Fisher.

Description

This two-week self-directed residency provides participants with individual accommodation and a small private studio for writers to focus, reconnect, and re-energize their writing practice. In addition, participants will be able to engage with other science fiction writers on the program.
As a flexible self-directed program with optional elements, the Science Fiction residency allows you to choose the amount of support you are looking for. 
Optional program elements include:

• thematic teachings from science fiction specialists Premee Mohamed, Ai Jiang, Amal El-Mohtar, and professional guest Ali Fisher.
• one-on-one mentoring sessions with faculty to discuss ideas, experiences and obstacles.
• Q & A sessions. 
• public readings.
• workshops to discuss useful techniques, devices and aspects.

Requirements

The residency is designed to cater to experienced, professional writers with a publication record looking to explore the future of Science Fiction writing and focus on works in progress.
Participants will benefit most if they are comfortable working autonomously in an unstructured environment. The residency suits those focused on:

• working on a specific project.
• creating new works.

This program is run in English and only accepts projects that are being written in English. English is the language of Banff Centre correspondence.

For more information and to apply.

The AFA is supporting a two-year research project conducted by Stone-Olafson on current engagement of arts audiences in Alberta. We are pleased to share the second set of results ("Wave 2").

This work was developed for the arts sector exclusively and is designed to provide specific, relevant, and reliable facts to support the leaders in the arts sector as they seek to understand their audiences and grow attendance.

Key topic areas for Wave 2 include:

• Exploring arts audiences' engagement and general perceptions
• Understanding audiences’ preferences for content, programming, and ticket purchasing
• Understanding opportunities for increasing support and engagement through fund development

Results

Watch the team from Stone-Olafson report on the findings from the first wave of research in the Spotlight on Arts Audiences project

Download the reports:

• Alberta
• Calgary Report
• Edmonton Report
• Regional Alberta

About the project

The AFA has partnered with the Rozsa Foundation, Calgary Arts Development, Calgary Foundation, Edmonton Arts Council, and Edmonton Community Foundation, to support the Spotlight on Arts Audiences research project. The work will survey arts-inclined audiences in Calgary, Edmonton, and across the province to provide data that is useful and timely for arts leaders and organizations three times per year over the next two years.

The AFA is supporting a two-year research project conducted by Stone-Olafson on current engagement of arts audiences in Alberta. We are pleased to share the first set of results ("Wave 1").

This work was developed for the arts sector exclusively and is designed to provide specific, relevant, and reliable facts to support the leaders in the arts sector as they seek to understand their audiences and grow attendance.

Key topic areas for Wave 1 include:

• understanding current behaviours, habits, and patterns
• understanding current attitudes and perceptions towards the arts
• understanding barriers to engagement and support
• exploring programming and communication preferences
• understanding perceptions of value

Results

Watch the team from Stone-Olafson report on the findings from the first wave of research in the Spotlight on Arts Audiences project

Download the reports:

• Alberta Report
• Calgary Report
• Edmonton Report
• Regional Alberta

About the project

The AFA has partnered with the Rozsa Foundation, Calgary Arts Development, Calgary Foundation, Edmonton Arts Council, and Edmonton Community Foundation, to support the Spotlight on Arts Audiences research project. The work will survey arts-inclined audiences in Calgary, Edmonton, and across the province to provide data that is useful and timely for arts leaders and organizations three times per year over the next two years.