Winners announced for Canada's largest self-publishing awards

TORONTO, Nov. 17, 2014 /CNW/ - The Association for Art and Social Change (AASC) announced today the winners of The Creation of Stories: Canada's Self-Publishing Awards sponsored by Blurb Inc., the world's leading indie-publishing platform for creating, printing, and selling self-published books, magazines and e-books.

The winners were chosen from among nearly 300 submissions and selected by a panel of six Canadian literary experts and awarded a total of $50,000 in prizes. In addition to the cash prizes, winners also received 100 printed copies of their book, a professional marketing consultation and a full marketing campaign from Blurb.

"We were blown away by the creative Canadian talent that we received from across the country. The three winner's stories really stood out with their approach to subject matter, creative use of language and overall design." said John Calabro, President of the Association for Art and Social Change (AASC) which administers INSPIRE!. "We hope the awards inspired more independent Canadian authors to publish their work".

"Canada is a hotbed of literary talent; we were delighted to see so many authors participate in the awards," said Eileen Gittins, Founder and CEO of Blurb, Inc. "It's an honor and a privilege to be involved with the largest award in Canada celebrating creativity and excellence in self-publishing. I hope that these awards inspire more authors to publish."

The judging panel included popular literary personalities Rosemary Aubert and Karen Connelly (Adult Audience Category), Richard Scrimger and Emily Pohl-Weary (Young Adult Audience), Hanoosh Abbasi and Helaine Becker (Children's Books).The judges selected final winners in the following categories: Books for an adult audience (Age: 19 and up), Books for young adult audiences (Age:12-18) and books for children (Age:0-11). The public was also invited to vote for a special People's Choice Award.

The winners of Canada's largest self-publishing awards are:

Adult Audience Category (Age 19+)

• Jason Savedoff – Ad Lucem: The Art of a Felon

Young Adult Audience (Age 12-18) 

• Michael F. Stewart – Assured Destruction: Script Kiddie

Books for Children (Age 0-11) 

• Madeline Neff – Little Penguin's Big Adventure

People's Choice Award

• Julie Hockley – Scare Crow

Blurb.ca offers a range of services to assist independent authors, professionals and personal bookmakers in creating, publishing and selling professional quality books, with 2.8 million unique titles published using Blurb to date.

ABOUT BLURB, INC.
Blurb's indie publishing platform is simple yet flexible enough to make everyone an author — every blogger, cook, designer, photographer, entrepreneur, poet, everyone. Founded by Eileen Gittins in 2005, the Blurb platform enables everyone to independently publish, share, market, and distribute their work. Blurb's portfolio of free software tools include Blurb's BookWright, BookSmart, and Bookify in addition to a plug-in for Adobe InDesign® plus full integration into Adobe Lightroom®. With over one million book creators and more than 2.8 million unique titles published to date, Blurb is re-imagining what books can and should be in the 21st century – and who gets to create them.

Find Blurb on Facebook: Facebook.com/BlurbBooks and Twitter: @BlurbBooks

ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION FOR ART AND SOCIAL CHANGE
AASC is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to promoting and incubating cultural and artistic projects in Canada. AASC produces INSPIRE! Toronto International Book Fair, Canada's newest book exposition for all things print and digital.

SOURCE: Blurb Canada

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