Strange Places

AWARDS

Posted by Daniela Elza on May 22 2010

2024

I was delighted and honoured to hear this week that I was awarded the 2024 Colleen Thibaudeau Award for Outstanding Contribution. This award is given by the League of Canadian Poets for contributions to poetry and the literary community and comes out in time to celebrate National Volunteer Week from April 14th to 20th!

I was asked to write a statement. That was hard and on a short deadline. But I tried. Here is an excerpt:

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 It often feels that the work we do daily is never done and never enough, but it is. Rebecca Solnit says: “To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” I volunteer because I want to keep building the world I want to live in. Hope is never misplaced when you are actively working on what is life giving, what creates spaces where one can belong. David Orr puts it nicely, “Hope is a verb with its shirtsleeves rolled up.”

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To read the whole thing: click here. 

Thank you to the people who took time to write letters to nominate me.
To all the volunteers out there: Happy National Volunteer Week 2024.  Celebrate all volunteers this week during National Volunteer Week and every week of the year.

2016

• Whistler Independent Book Awards 2016
  the book of It took part in the Whistler Independent Book Awards 2016. It was super excited to come home with an Honorable Mention.
  
  Thank you to the judges for their comments and recommendations. They loved the concept of the book. They made recommendations I can embrace and agree with. And they recommended using this book as a starting point for creative writing exercises in schools. I always delight when the book ends up in the hands of young people.

2014

• Distinguished Poet Award for 2014 from Writers International Network Canada Society.
  Excerpt from letter:

  “Your poetry is elegant, musical and visionary. Its delicate and deeply philosophical messages compel us to explore imagination, logic and metaphor beyond conventional boundaries. Your poetry touches our hearts and resonates with every person that hears your words.”

2012

• I have been awarded a Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal.
  (The Medals are awarded to the student(s) who achieved the highest level of academic excellence in his/her graduate program and had one or more reviewers who deemed the project or thesis as exceptional.)

Dean’s Convocation Medal Press Release (2012)

Dr. Daniela Elza’s dissertation addressed not only the long standing epistemological split between the philosophic and poetic but attempts to heal that very split.

According to her colleagues, Dr. Elza’s writing doesn’t just provide information, it provides a formation — she has the capacity to create a beautiful pedagogical space which allows readers to be changed profoundly.

Her senior supervisor, Dr. Heesoon Bai, states that she has never seen anyone with such an unusual combination of talents and capacities who can be so inventive and inspiring with their writing.

Dr. Elza was the recipient of the 2010 Pandora’s Collective Citizenship Award, given to an individual who has excelled in their commitment to support writers in the community. In 2012 Dr. Elza launched her debut poetry collection the weight of dew published by Mother Tongue Publishing. Her second book is forthcoming with Leaf Press in the Fall of 2013.

On behalf of SFU, we congratulate Dr. Elza on her outstanding achievements which are being recognized by her being awarded the Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal as one of SFU’s most outstanding graduate student from the Faculty of Education.

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• My doctorate thesis was nominated for 2011 CAGS UMI Distinguished Dissertation Award Competition from the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies.

Thank you so much to the people who deemed my work important and put it forward.

2010

• Recipient of 2010 Pandora’s Collective Citizenship Award ( Awarded to recognize an individual who Pandora’s Collective feels has excelled in their support of writers within our community.)

Executive Director Bonnie Nish says at the Summer Dreams Awards Ceremony, August 20, 2010:

“I would like to take a moment to announce the recipient of this years Pandora’s Collective Citizenship Award. This is one award that is not voted on but that I get to pick. This is an important award because it goes to someone that I feel has contributed to the writing community in a significant way. And this person has certainly done that. About 8 years ago I met a woman on a playground and we started to talk about poetry. Then there she was at the Surrey Writers Conference approaching me at our table. Since that time she has become a friend, a colleague, an inspiration to myself and so many. In her quiet way she supports as many writers as she can to submit work, to read, to push ourselves. She encourages us and she puts herself out there so that we may find a space where we are safe while trying to go beyond what we thought we were capable of. To me that is one of the best qualities an educator and a mentor can have. It is with great pleasure that I give to you the recipient of this years Pandora’s Collective Citizenship Award to an individual who has excelled in their commitment to support writers within our community. The regional rep of the Federation of BC Writers, an amazing poet herself, a PhD student, a mom and wife and wonderful spirit; Daniela Elza!”

Thank you Bonnie, and Pandora’s Collective Team.
I am deeply honoured to receive this award.