Conor Kerr lands ReLit Award for novel Avenue of Champions

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Novel follows Daniel, a young Métis man as he navigates a world of violence and systemic racism

Publishing date:

May 20, 2022 • 0 minutes ago • 2 minute read

Conor Kerr, executive director of Indigenous Education & Services at Langara College, has won the ReLit Award for his novel Avenue of Champions.
Conor Kerr, executive director of Indigenous Education & Services at Langara College, has won the ReLit Award for his novel Avenue of Champions. Photo by Zachary Ayotte

The award follows the announcement that Kerr, a Métis/Ukrainian educator, and a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta made the shortlist for the Amazon First Novel Award.

According to a release, the Avenue of Champions follows Daniel, a young Métis man, “searching for a way to exist in a world of violence and systemic racism.

“Hitting obstacles at every turn — whether in the child welfare system, at university, or in government jobs, he observes and learns from the lived realities of his family members, friends, and teachers. The narrative unfolds through stories told from the perspectives of various people in Daniel’s life, including Granny, a moonshiner turned pot grower; Charlie, Daniel’s hardened yet big-hearted brother; and Jason, a boy that Daniel lived with in foster care.”

Kerr lives in Vancouver and in 2019, received The Fiddlehead’s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize and in 2021 The Malahat Review’s Long Poem prize. His writing by him has been published widely in literary magazines and anthologized in Best Canadian Stories 2020, Best Canadian Poetry 2020. He has a forthcoming poetry collection due out in 2023.

Avenue of Champions by Conor Kerr.
Avenue of Champions by Conor Kerr. Photo by Courtesy of Nightwood Editions

The ReLit Awards are given to books published by independent presses. In Kerr’s case the publisher of Avenue of Champions is BC’s Nightwood Editions. Shortlists and winners in three categories — poetry, short fiction and novels — are made public throughout the month of May.

This year, two other Nightwood Editions authors were shortlisted in the other categories: Marion Quednau in the short fiction category for Sunday Drive to Gun Club Road (2021); and Dallas Hunt in the poetry category for Creeland (2021). Nightwood Editions also published the ReLit Award winner in the novel category last year: Fake It So Real (2020) by Susan Sanford Blades.

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