JJ Lee had no idea he'd just been named a finalist in the Governor General's Literary Awards.
The New Westminster writer was in Calgary for the WordFest writers' festival. With neither cellphone nor computer on hand to connect him to the wired world, he was out of touch with the news.
So, when he headed off to a morning meeting Tuesday - to talk about the WordFEAST fundraiser he'd be MC'ing on Tuesday night - he was surprised when one of the organizers congratulated him.
"I said thank you," he says. "I had no idea what she was talking about."
He quickly learned that she was congratulating him on the Governor General's nomination.
"'Don't tease me,' I think I said," Lee says with a laugh.
But no, it wasn't a joke.
It took a fellow writer to look it up on her computer, and another to search on her iPhone, before Lee could be shown that yes, the news was real.
"I'm very happy," Lee says, though he admits that he didn't get outwardly excited. "I'm not a cool cucumber, I'm just in shock right now."
The Governor General's Literary Awards recognize Canada's best work in English and French in the categories of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, children's literature (text and illustration) and translation.
Lee is one of five finalists in the non-fiction, English category for his book The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit, recently published by McClelland & Stewart.
Also nominated in the same category are Charles Foran for Mordecai: The Life & Times, Nathan M. Greenfield for The Damned: The Canadians at the Battle of Hong Kong and the POW Experience, 1941-45, Richard Gwyn, for Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times, Volume Two: 1867-1891 and Andrew Nikiforuk for Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing North America's Great Forests.
Lee has no idea what to expect from the nomination or how it will affect his marketing of the book.
He notes that, up till this point, he has focused on personally reaching people, one-on-one, to get his book into people's hands.
"I have really taken on the responsibility of sharing my book with people," he says. "I'm happy that there's another way to reach people, but I don't know what it means."
Lee will be in Calgary until Friday, with a reading from The Measure of a Man on Wednesday and a panel on social media, with authors Lynn Coady and Emma Ruby-Sachs, on Thursday.
For more about WordFest, see www.wordfest.com.
For a full list of Governor General's Literary Award winners, see www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla.
