Shaughnessy Cohen Prize to be awarded next week

A top award for political writing in Canada will be handed out next week and Maclean’spolitical editor Paul Wells is among the nominees.

Wells, along with four others, has been nominated for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for The Longer I’m Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada, 2006-. The $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize will be awarded during the The Writers’ Trust of Canada annual Politics and the Pen gala. All finalists will be awarded $2,500.

The black-tie Politics and the Pen event, held at Ottawa’s Fairmont Chateau Laurier, is one of the premiere political social events of the year, held to celebrate literary culture in Canada and to raise funds for the Writers’ Trust, an organization which seeks to advance, nurture, and celebrate Canadian writers and writing.

You can read an excerpt from Wells’ nominated book, here.

Other nominees include:

• Graeme Smith for The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan, Published by Knopf Canada. Smith spoke with Maclean’s about his work in September.
• Margaret MacMillan for The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, Published by Allen Lane Canada. MacMillan spoke with Maclean’s about her work in October.
• Charles Montgomery for Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, Published by Doubleday Canada.
• Donald J. Savoie for Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher? How Government Decides and Why, Published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.