Winners 2006 Laura Langston is the author of several books for children and adults, including No Such Thing As Far Away, which was a Children’s Choice pick by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, The Fox’s Kettle, which was nominated for a Governor General’s Award for Illustration, and Pay Dirt!, a non-fiction book for junior/young adult readers, which was nominated for the Red Cedar and Silver Birch awards. A former writer and broadcaster for CBC, she currently writes for Canadian Gardening magazine. Lesia’s Dream is a novel for young readers. It follows Lesia and her family, forced to leave their beloved Baba in their Ukrainian hometown when they journey to a better life in Canada. Dreaming of wealth, dignity and fields of golden wheat, Lesia looks forward to a life free from poverty and rumors of war. But the 160 acres of hardscrabble prairie look nothing like the wheat fields of her dreams; and even though there is no fighting in her new country, the First World War follows them there. While Lesia’s Dream is a work of fiction, events within it are based on fact, most notably the unjust interment of some 5,000 Ukrainians, including women and children, during Canada’s first national interment operations of 1914-1920. Danny Schur, dubbed “Canada’s Andrew Lloyd Webber” by the CBC, was raised in Ethelbert, Manitoba, and demonstrated musical talent at an early age. A gifted pianist, he studied composition at the University of Manitoba before pursuing a career as an eight-time Juno-nominated composer/producer. In 2000, Danny embarked upon his current career path of composer/producer of original musicals with his first, The Bridge, commissioned to celebrate 100 years of Ukrainian settlement in Canada. His third, STRIKE! – The musical, premiered in Winnipeg in May 2005. Rick Chafe, a Winnipeg playwright and dramaturge with more than a dozen productions to his credit, collaborated with Danny Schur on the final production-ready version of the script of STRIKE! – The Musical. STRIKE! - The Musical - In May and June of 1919, the eyes of North America were fixed on Winnipeg, Manitoba as the third largest city in Canada came to a total halt due to a general strike that lasted six weeks and resulted in sympathetic strikes across the country. The great strike, so hot on the heels of war, occurred in a climate of xenophobia, paranoia and overt discrimination directed towards the immigrants of Winnipeg’s North End, of which Ukrainians were so much a part. And when this setting is the story of Mike Sokolowski, the Ukrainian immigrant, everyman who finds himself at the epicenter of Canada’s most famous labor uprising.