Graeme Smith is a former Globe and Mail foreign correspondent.CHARLA JONES/The Globe and Mail
Twelve books, including three by former Globe and Mail writers, have been named to the long list of nominees for the 2014 RBC Taylor Prize, formerly the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.
The long list, from which five finalists will be chosen early next year, was announced Wednesday in Toronto. The winning author, who receives $25,000, will be named by a three-person jury at a ceremony March 10, 2014, in the Ontario capital.
The long-listed titles are: The Juggler's Children: A Journey into Family, Legend and the Genes that Bind Us by former Globe science writer Carolyn Abraham (this title was also nominated earlier for the Governor-General's Literary Award for excellence in non-fiction); The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Country by Charlotte Gray; Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark: The West versus the Rest since Confederation by former Globe editorial writer Mary Janigan; The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King (previously nominated for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-fiction); The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As it Is, As It Could Be by J.B. MacKinnon (another Writers' Trust Prize nomination; MacKinnon also won the 2006 Taylor Prize); The War That Ended the Peace: The Road to 1914 by Margaret MacMillan; How Architecture Works: A Humanist's Toolkit by Witold Rybcynski; The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan by former Globe foreign correspondent Graeme Smith (this title recently won first prize at the $60,000 Weston Writers' Trust awards); David Stouck's Arthur Erickson: An Architect's Life; Rob Tripp's Without Honour: The True Story of the Shafia Family and the Kingston Canal Murders; Confessions of a Fairy's Daughter: Growing Up with a Gay Dad by Alison Wearing; Little Ship of Fools: 16 Rowers, 1 Improbabley Boat, 7 Tumultuous Weeks on the Atlantic by Charles Wilkins.
Each runner-up from the short-list of five will receive $2,000. The first Taylor awards ceremony was held in 2000, and the prize was presented every two years until 2004 when it became an annual event. The 2014 jury is 2012 Taylor Prize winner Andrew Westoll (The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary), academic-critic Coral Ann Howells and editor-author James Polk.