Lisa Ray Instagram – Put this on your reading list. It’s on mine. Not only because it’s important to support #Canlit but I am partial to poets who free form into fiction (think @ocean_vuong @tishanidoshi @karunaezara and hey, @therealmargaretatwood just released a book of poetry so the muse flows both ways) Language is best when it’s a bit loose, not stifled. Poets – their orchard souls- just know how to gather life’s gestures in a single line. Posted @withregram • @cbcbooks Congratulations to Souvankham Thammavongsa, winner of the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize for her short story collection How to Pronounce Knife. • The $100,000 prize is the richest in Canadian literature. Thammavongsa is a Toronto writer and poet. She was born in the (Lao) Nong Khai refugee camp in Thailand and was raised and educated in Toronto. Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in Harper’s, Granta, The Paris Review and Noon. She has published four books of poetry, including 2019’s Cluster. How to Pronounce Knife, her first work of fiction, is a collection of idiosyncratic and diverse stories that explores the tragedy and humour of the daily lives of immigrants. CBC Books named Thammavongsa a 2020 writer to watch. “I’ve been writing poetry for 25 years. I wanted writing to feel new to me. Nobody was waiting for the fiction — I wanted to surprise people. I decided to try fiction and see how everything that I learned with poetry would translate into fiction,” Thammavongsa told CBC Books. • Head to cbcbooks.ca to read more about How to Pronounce Knife.