The Kouhi Award

The Kouhi Award was established by NOWW in 1999 to recognize “outstanding contributions to the literature of Northwestern Ontario.” It is named in honour of poet Elizabeth Kouhi.
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Eligibility
  • The recipient should be living when selected to receive the award.
  • Current members of the NOWW Executive are not eligible to receive this award.
  • The recipient is not required to be a NOWW member.
Nominations
  • The call for nominations should be widely publicized.
  • Nominations may be made by anyone, including non-members of NOWW and including members of the Selection Committee.
Selection Criteria and Process
  • Recipients should have a significant history of contributing to the literature of Northwestern Ontario and should be evaluated on the breadth and depth of their full body of work.
  • Nominees will be respected members of the literary community and will have been recognized as such by their peers, generally through publication of works, receipt of grants, and other such achievements.
  • If the committee feels there is no worthy nominee in a given year, the award will not be made.
  • The recipient will be informed in advance of the award, but asked to keep the matter secret. This allows the recipient to prepare a response after receiving the Kouhi Award at the annual Literary Awards Party, while preserving the secrecy of the award until its announcement.
  • Recipients may receive this Award once.
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Recipients
The first recipient of the Kouhi Award was Elizabeth Kouhi. Since then, Elinor Barr, Charles Wilkins, the Thunder Bay Writers Guild, Rosalind Maki, Penny Petrone, Mary Frost, Jean E. Pendziwol, Dorothy Colby, Joan Skelton, Hazel Fulford, Bill MacDonald, Sharon Irvine, John Pringle, Richard Wagamese, Michael Christie, Joan M. Baril, Ruby Slipperjack, H. Leighton Dickson, Joe Fiorito, Roy Blomstrom and Marion Agnew have been honoured.
​NOWW offers two awards intended to recognize achievement in the field of literature and writing in Northwestern Ontario.
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Nominations open in January of each year. The awards are presented at the annual Literary Awards Party. To submit a nomination, send a brief (two pages maximum) statement describing why the person or organization you’re nominating deserves the award to [email protected].

The Margaret Phillips Award

(Previously the Burnford Award)
 
This Award was first established in 2009 to recognize a “builder,” either a group or individual who has made outstanding contributions to publishing, promoting, or supporting the literature of Northwestern Ontario. The intent is to recognize those who support the practice and community of writing, as distinct from the Kouhi Award which recognizes writers.
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Eligibility
  • If the nominee is an organization, the organization should be active at the time of selection. If the nominee is an individual, the recipient should be living at the time of selection.
  • Current members of the NOWW Executive are not eligible to receive the award.
  • Past NOWW members who are nominated must have made important contributions to the service of literature and writing in Northwestern Ontario beyond their time on the NOWW Board. 
  • The recipient does not need to be a NOWW member or affiliated with NOWW.
  • Recipients, whether an individual or organization, may receive this Award once.
Nominations
  • The call for nominations should be widely publicized.
  • Nominations may be made by anyone, including non-members of NOWW and including members of the Selection Committee.
Selection Criteria and Process
  • Nominees will be judged on their specific and important contributions in the service of literature and writing in Northwestern Ontario, or continuing and ongoing support of the literary community of the region.
  • If the Selection Committee feels there is no worthy nominee in a given year, the award will not be made.
  • The recipient, or an appropriate representative of the recipient organization, will be informed in advance of the award, but asked to keep the matter secret. This allows the recipient to prepare a response after receiving the Phillips Award at the annual Literary Awards Party, while preserving the secrecy of the award until its announcement.
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Recipients
The first Burnford Award was given to the Thunder Bay Public Library. Other recipients include the Sleeping Giant Writers Festival (2010), Barb Matousek and Wendy MacDonald (2011) and the founders of NOWW (Deborah de Bakker, Rosalind Maki, Charles Wilkins and Jim Foulds) (2012).
 
2016 marked the first year of the renamed Margaret Phillips award. Recipients since 2016 include Elinor Barr, Cathy Macdonald, Latitude 46 Publishing and Entershine Bookshop.

​ Nominations for the Kouhi and Margaret Phillips Awards
open January 1 of each year, with a deadline of  March 31.
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If you feel there is a deserving candidate for either award, put KP Awards in the email subject line and submit to:
 [email protected]