Local author wins national award

Cochrane author and blogger Lynn Dove has won a national writing competition for her poem “Dragonfly Dance.”

It's her second Word Award that celebrates Christian writers across Canada and she's been shortlisted several times in the past. 

"It's really exciting, especially for this one, because I was writing out of my comfort zone a little bit," she says. "I submitted a poem, and I don't normally do that. I generally write books and short articles and things like that. So to have a poem win was quite a surprise."

She is well-versed in writing poetry, though. She taught poetry as a school teacher, in poetry classes, and as a volunteer at her children's schools.

"Poetry is something I really enjoy, but last year and this year, I decided I needed to write differently, so I decided that I would step out of my comfort zone and write some poetry."

Typically, she writes about family, but while in the garden one day, two dragonflies caught her attention.

"They were just so mesmerizing to watch, so I thought I needed to write something down about this and it just sort of developed into a poem and its freestyle. I'm not one that likes to rhyme too much."

You can find the poem and her other blogs here. 

Lynn and her husband have resided in the Cochrane area for about 30 years. She says they're blessed to have all three of their children and their grandchildren living here. She takes great joy in spending plenty of time with her grandchildren, and it has inspired some of her writing.

"I wrote one blog where my youngest grandbaby kept leaving nose prints and handprints all over the windows and mirrors. I called it grandbaby art because that's what they do. They tend to leave their mark everywhere. Not exactly where we expect," she laughs, "but it's all good."

The Word Guild hosted the 35th annual awards event on Sept. 16 and was held online for the fourth consecutive year. The event recognized unpublished work by new writers as well as work published in 2022 for both Christian and mainstream audiences.

There are over 60 award categories including non-fiction books, novels, articles, columns, poems, blogs, and song lyrics. The Word Awards were established to encourage the pursuit of excellence in the art, craft, practice, and ministry of writing and to help raise the profile of Canadian writers who are Christian. 

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