Tanya Talaga chooses Alicia Elliott for $10K RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award

Tanya Talaga, journalist and author of the 2018RBC Taylor Prize winnerSeven Fallen Feathers, has chosen Brantford, Ont. writer Alicia Elliott as the recipient of the $10,000 RBCTaylor Emerging Writer Award.

The recipientof RBCTaylor Emerging Writer Award is selected annually by the winner of theRBCTaylor Prize. Talagawill mentor Elliott as part of the prize, which is intended to support a writer as they work towardthe first draft of a book.

"Alicia is the voice of our youth, the next generation. She is lyrical, heart-felt and she tells searing truths of Canada today, truths we all need to listen to,"said Talaga.

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Elliott is aTuscarora writer who has been published in the Malahat Review, the Globe and Mail,CBC Arts and many other publications. In 2016, she won a National Magazine Award for her essay,A Mind Spread Out on the Ground.She is currently nominated for a 2018 National Magazine Award for her piece,On Seeing and Being Seen: The Difference Between Writing With Empathy and Writing With Love.

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"I've been in a bit of a daze since I heard the news. It's incredibly humbling to be honoured with the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award and especially to be chosen by someone I admire as much as Tanya. What a gift," said Elliott in a news release.

Talaga is the 2017-2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy and will be delivering the 2018 CBCMassey Lectures.

Past recipients of theRBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award include Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Adnan Khan and Iain Reid.