Early in June this fabulous news came through from the editors, Dr. Rita Bode and Dr. Jean Mitchell, that their essay collection (inspired by an international biennial L.M. Montgomery Institute conference at the University of Prince Edward Island) and published by McGill-Queens University Press in 2018, has won the Gabrielle Roy Prize (English) for all of Canada.  I am thrilled, as one of the contributors to the volume, and delighted that the judges made a special point of commenting on Montgomery’s relevance to current scholarship and life:

” _LMM and the Matter of Nature(s)_ has been awarded the Gabrielle Roy Prize_. This is an award for each and every one of us for the outstanding work that makes up the volume. This is a wonderful recognition of our collective hard work and a superb recognition of Montgomery’s important place in cultural and literary history.

Here is more information on the award including the criteria of evaluation:http://alcq-acql.ca/prizers/gabrielle-roy-prize-regulations/

The citation for the volume includes the following comments from the jury: members:This well-curated collection of essays approaches the intersection of humanity and “nature” from diverse and exciting perspectives.  Although the individual essays come from a variety of fields, including (but not limited to) literature, animal studies, and law, the collection is both concise and coherent.  These excellent analyses of familiar texts and figures provide new and useful insights into individual works and the larger field of ecocritical studies generally.  L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s)illustrates what anyone familiar with the orchard in Anne of Green Gables already knows–that Montgomery’s flair for pastoral writing is among her finest attributes as a serious writer.  However, the conceptual underpinnings of the collection shed new light on how this relation between place and character is part of a more sophisticated ecology of beliefs and behaviours that are urgently needed in a world facing widespread environmental degradation, accelerating climate change, and mass extinctions of flora and fauna.”