The 3-Day Novel Contest: The Series – Who Will be Canada’s Next Literary Superstar?
Airs Sundays at 9:30pm ET on BookTelevision, starting February 4th Encore Presentations on ACCESS Tuesdays at 8:00pm MT and CLT Wednesdays at 9:00pm ET
Step aside, Atwood! BookTelevision and Indigo-Chapters reveal Canada’s next literary superstar as The 3-Day Novel Contest: The Series, an exciting eight-part reality series, airs Sundays at 9:30pm ET, starting February 4th.
Twelve writers sit down in the middle of Edmonton’s biggest Chapters bookstore – cameras and customers following their every keystroke – to try to write a novel in just three days. Eating, sleeping, and living in the bookstore, the would-be novelists face diabolically challenging contests, the dreaded “Thirteenth Machine,” and utter exhaustion as they compete to attain literary heights and get published.
These 12 finalists were chosen from 150 applicants from across Canada, all hoping to undertake the most grueling marathon of their careers. The finalists include: literary novices, a 40-year journalism veteran, a mother of five, a tattooed cook who grew up on the streets, a crown representative, and an unemployed perpetual student – their backgrounds as diverse as the books they write.
Judging the contests and the novels are Todd Babiak (Edmonton Journal columnist, and Giller Prize-nominated author of The Garneau Block and The Book of Stanley), Minister Faust (Philip K. Dick Award-nominated author of The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad and the soon-to-be-released From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain), and Jenn Farrell (International 3-Day Novel Contest judge and editor, and author of Sugar Bush and Other Stories). And guiding everyone through the event is host Kim Clarke Champniss (KCC) (host/producer of BookTelevision’s The Word This Week).
Since 1977, thousands of participants have competed in the International 3-Day Novel contest, hoping to write a book over the Labour Day long weekend, score fame, and get published. During the 2006 Labour Day long weekend, BookTelevision partnered with the International 3-Day Novel Contest and Indigo-Chapters to bring the event to national television, broadcasting brief updates of the BookTelevision-Indigo-Chapters contest from Edmonton throughout
the weekend.
Now the event culminates in The 3-Day Novel Contest: The Series: part literary marathon, part reality show, part behind-the-scenes look at the writer and the writing process. It’s a spectacle unlike anything in Canada’s literary history. The finalists battle crowds, cameras, fatigue, each other, and themselves as they compete to become Canada’s next literary superstar. The broadcast winner will receive a week-long mentorship at a prestigious writer’s workshop, courtesy of The Writers Guild of Alberta, and publication in WestWord, one of Alberta’s premiere writing magazines.
For more on The 3-Day Novel Contest: The Series and to view the three-minute trailer, log on to www.booktelevision.com/3Day.aspx.
