Okanagan College Media Release - July 20, 2007

The Wolves at Evelyn – Journeys Through a Dark Century, written by Harold Rheinisch, is this year’s winner of the George Ryga Award for Social Awareneness in B.C. Writing and Publishing.

The award will be presented to the Penticton-born author at a gala ceremony July 27 at Vernon’s Powerhouse Theatre. The Wolves at Evelyn is a book that maps the author’s family history as they migrated from Germany to British Columbia’s interior, blending social commentary and analysis with imagination, popular culture, literature and history. As the book’s publisher, Brindle and Glass, describe it: “Sifting through the ashes of personal experience, family anecdotes, literature, art, history, and the land itself for clues to a great untold story, Rhenisch assembles a collage of images and ideas that becomes a whole much greater than the sum of its parts.”

Runner-up manuscripts in the fourth annual contest were Nobody’s Mother, edited by Lynne Van Luven with foreward by Shelagh Rogers (published by Touch Wood Editions) and Red Light Neon, A History of Vancouver’s Sex Trade, by Daniel Francis (Published by Subway Books).

This year’s final judge was Professor Sharon Josephson, who teaches Communications and Media Studies at Okanagan College.

"Harold Rhenisch is one of the best writers in the country,” says John Lent, Okanagan College’s Regional Dean for the North Okanagan, and a respected author himself. “I'm not surprised at all that he won. And so many readers here will be fans of Harold's work. Sharon has made a wonderful choice.”

Lent was one of the preliminary judges of the 20 books submitted by publishers from across western Canada.

The award ceremony, at 8 p.m. on the 27th, will be hosted by CBC Daybreak’s Marion Barschel. The fourth Annual Ryga Award presentation will celebrate George Ryga’s 75th birthday! Featured entertainers for this special evening will be the Okanagan’s very own musical maestros Rob Dinwoodie & Dogwood Road. The winner will once again be presented with The Censor’s Golden Rope, a unique piece of sculpture recreated annually by Armstrong sculptor Reg Kienast.

The George Ryga Award is sponsored by The George Ryga Centre, Okanagan
College, BC BookWorld and CBC Radio One, Kelowna.

Tickets for the event are available at The Bean Scene in Vernon (558-1827) and The Brown Derby Café in Armstrong.
(546-8221).