Kathy Page, Elizabeth Hay among 2018 Writers’ Trust Awards winners
TORONTO — British-Canadian author Kathy Page choked back tears as she thanked her parents for the love letters that inspired her book, “Dear Evelyn,” which won the $50,000 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize on Wednesday night.
The wartime romance, published by Biblioasis, tracks the 70-year union between the working-class Harry Miles and the strong-willed Evelyn Hill as their relationship is tested by global conflict, the challenges of child rearing and the pursuit of individual meaning in a shared life.
Page, who lives in Salt Spring Island, B.C., told the crowd at CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto that it took her eight years to write “Dear Evelyn,” partly because of her struggle to wrestle with its unusually personal subject matter.
In an interview after accepting the award, Page said that in a sense, she felt she was sharing the honour with her parents.