Alberta Anthology: The Best of Alberta Anthology for 2005 from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta. He is
the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

CBC Radio in Alberta has run a literary program for 26 years, a worthy
enterprise. For the province’s centennial, the producers held a
contest in categories of short fiction, poetry, essays, and (a very odd
form nowadays) dramatic monologues. The contest was made fair by
dividing each category into amateur and professional classes. The
results vary considerable in quality, though it is good to see so much
literary activity in the province. The best works are perhaps the poems
of Douglas Elves, an Edmonton writer. An unusual feature of the
anthology is the inclusion of works by the four judges, all winners of a
Governor General’s Literary Award: Gloria Sawai, E.D. Blodgett, Vern
Thiessen, and Karen Connelly. Connelly wrote an interesting piece on why
she would not celebrate the Alberta centennial: she could not celebrate
a wealthy province in which so many people are deprived. But she
doesn’t spoil the party represented by this anthology because the
authors are not smug or insensitive.