History. Past Awards & Grants

Carrie's stories have been short-listed on four occasions for the CBC Literary Awards, culminating in a win announced live on the radio on February 23, 2007. Described by the judges as "sophisticated and elegant," her story Red Rover, Red Rover placed second in the 2006 competition, and as part of the prize was recorded for radio and was published in Air Canada's enRoute magazine, August, 2007.

While skimming through an old section of The Globe and Mail one ordinary day in April, 2005 (to read an article on Joseph Boyden, who shares Carrie's editor at Penguin Canada), the words "Hair Hat" popped out. "Hey honey," Carrie said to her husband, "guess what's been nominated for the Danuta Gleed Award for Short Fiction." "The what?" was her husband's reply. David Bezmozgis's Natasha: And Other Stories was to be the eventual and deserving winner of this prize administered by the Writer's Union of Canada; but Carrie was rapt with excitement to be included in this group of engaging, fresh writers.

In 2004, a short story called Trespassers was plucked from oblivion (literally from a pile of thousands of stories) and awarded a prize by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association.

In 2002, an early draft of Hair Hat received a works-in-progress grant from the Ontario Arts Council, a significant affirmation during a tough period in Carrie's writing life, when she was pregnant with her second child and caring full-time for her one-year-old.