Press Release

On November 12th two Montreal literary organizations — Les Filles électriques and Wired on Words Productions — will be presenting the first “The Voice Electric” award — a $2000 prize for achievement in literature in performance.

The award is designed to honour a spoken word performer for personal achievement, originality, contributions to the aesthetics of the genre, and contributions to the national and international scene for spoken word. The award will be presented to an English performer one year and a French performer the next. Spoken word perfomers from Canada’s First Nations communities are eligible at any time.

This year’s inaugural $2000 prize winner is the poet and performer Fortner Anderson, a man whose career has spanned the rise of the North American spoken word movement. Mr. Anderson is being honoured for an international career as a poet and performer, and for his ongoing contributions to the genre.

• Read the press release

[7516] News posted Monday, November 12, 2007.