Emergent Voices: CBC Canadian Literary Awards, Stories, 1979-1999 [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

“Tell me a story” — Emergent Voices presents 13 stories to satisfy the yearning no one outgrows. Selected by Robert Weaver from CBC Canadian Literary Awards winners, these stories helped to launch the careers of some of Canada’s best-known authors. Recent stories are abridged for the 15-minute Between the Covers program, whereas earlier stories vary in length up to the full 28 minutes of Anthology. Among the stories in Emergent Voices are “Satya,” by Shauna Singh Baldwin, narrated by the author herself, a former PBS radio host; “The Passions of Lalla,” by Michael Ondaatje, narrated by Henry Kromer; and “Mrs. Putnam at the Planetarium,” by Janice Kulyk Keefer narrated by Nonnie Griffin.

What do Michael Ondaatje, Gwendolyn MacEwen and V.D. Valgardson have in common? They are all recipients of a CBC Canadian Literary Award for fiction. Emergent Voices brings together recordings of eleven award-winning stories from the twenty-year history of the awards. Listeners will be delighted to hear Daphne Goldrick’s reading of “The Girl with the Bell Necklace,” by Gail Anderson-Dargatz; Shauna Singh Baldwin’s own reading of her story, “Satya;” and Seana McKenna’s stirring interpretation of “Hoodlums” by Irena Friedman Karafilly; as well as stories by Janice Kulyk Keefer, Bill Gaston, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Ernst Havemann, W.D. Valgardson, Carol Windley, Gayla Reid, and Michael Ondaatje. Robert Weaver, the godfather of the modern Canadian short story, has organized the CBC Canadian Literary Awards since their inception in 1979. The readings included in this audiobook were originally produced for a variety of CBC Radio programs, including Anthology, Morningside, Between the Covers, and The Arts Tonight.

Robert Weaver was Canada’s pre-eminent literary impresario. He joined the CBC in 1948, and for almost four decades he guided the most significant cultural programs in the country. His radio programs, especially Anthology, provided an encouraging yet rigorous forum for story-writers, as did the Tamarack Review, of which he was a co-founder and the inspiring force. In 1979, he founded the Canadian Literary Awards, co-sponsored by the CBC and various partners, including the Canada Council for the Arts and Saturday Night, which since 1994 has published the winning stories. As well as organizing the Canadian Literary Competition, Robert Weaver was fiction editor of Saturday Night. He edited many anthologies, including six editions of Canadian Short Stories and The Anthology Anthology: A Selection from Thirty Years of CBC Radio’s “Anthology.” He co-edited two editions each of The Oxford Anthology of Canadian Literature and The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English, and he was the editor of Mavis Gallant’s collection The End of the World and Other Stories.