vancouver sun: 2008 ones to watch
Way back at the end of 2007, the Vancouver Sun published some predictions on talented unknowns set to blow up in Aught Eight. (Notice how I imply that Aught Eight is some kind of trendy new way of referring to 2008, therefore firming up my hipster-cred. It could be, for all I know.) Anyway, on the list of people we need to keep an eye on, is my fellow alumna (TWS ‘06) Gurjinder Basran:
A regional manager with Bell Mobility and a mother of two, north Delta’s Gurjinder Basran squeezed a creative writing program at Simon Fraser University into her life. There she wrote a novel about a young Indo-Canadian woman trying to assert her independence in a strict Punjabi Sikh community. She’s calling it Everything Was Goodbye.
Apart from Ranj Dhaliwal’s Daaku, not many novels have been written about the Indo-Canadian experience. Few books speak to “the first generation that grew up here,” says 35-year-old Basran, who is seeking an agent and a publisher. “I’m hoping it will resonate with all kinds of people.”
Not only that, but the novel is a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition, one of 100 entries out of 5,000 chosen by Penguin editors for the final read-through to narrow the field to ten books, which will then be chosen by Amazon readers… and presumably will be published by Penguin, although there’s no information about that on the Amazon site that I could find. Check out the excerpt of Everything Was Good-bye for as a free download from Amazon.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Good for her, I hope she goes far. That link to amazon doesn’t work.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Sorry about that. They pulled the link after the contest ended. Gurjinder made it into the top 100 titles before the final cut, and things are happening for her as a result. Good job, G.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:17 am
[...] The 500 were evaluated by Publishers Weekly editors, and Penguin’s editors used those evaluations to pick a group of 100 semi-finalists, which were voted on by the hoi polloi to choose three finalists. A panel of guest editors picked the winner, the mystery novel Fresh Kills, by Bill Loehfelm. Last year TWS alumna Gurjinder Basran made it to the semi-finals. [...]
December 11th, 2009 at 8:03 am
[...] who was named “one to watch” in 2008 by the Vancouver Sun, also had her novel short-listed for the Amazon Breakthrough [...]