Elliott wins non-fiction book award.
James Elliott,a 65-year-old retired journalist from Hamilton, has won
the non-fiction book award at the 17th annual Hamilton Literary Awards, held on Nov. 15, for his
non-fiction work, Strange Fatality.
Submitted photo
PERTH - Hard work, perseverance and a piece of Perth’s history is paying dividends for James Elliott.
The 65-year-old retired journalist from Hamilton has won the non-fiction book award at the 17th annual Hamilton Literary Awards, held on Nov. 15, for his non-fiction work, Strange Fatality.
The book describes a pivotal battle from the War of 1812 that took place in Stoney Creek. The book goes on to discuss the lives of the soldiers of the war, and how many of them left the Stoney
Creek area and settled where Perth lies today.
The book has been praised in both Canada and the U.S. as a well-written description of how a largely unknown battle changed the course of the war and possibly saved the future province of Ontario.
The book was published in 2009.
“The book has done quite well,” Elliott said. “It’s been widely reviewed in Canada and the U.S. and
won the Arts Hamilton Award for non-fiction. It has done much better than I thought. When I was done with it I was relieved to be done, but it seems to have some legs, I feel gratified by that.”
Elliott quit his job as a journalist for the Hamilton Spectator to focus on writing the book.
“I was a reporter for the Hamilton Spectator for 17 years and wrote a lot of the local history stuff and did a lot on the Battle of Stoney Creek,” Elliott said. “I ended up quitting my job and it took me five years to finish the book. You spend an awful lot of time going through things, unproductive things, eliminating things. When you’re dealing with primary source material it’s almost always handwritten. You often spend lots of time deciphering. You’re usually dealing with a microfilm of an original document, sometimes it can take days just to get through a single letter.”
Elliott said that he has a few ideas for another book, but nothing has been set in stone.
“I have a few ideas that I’m kicking around, history-related. There are a couple of things I could do fairly quickly on the war of 1812, everything is in the past.”
For more information on Strange Fatality, visit www.strangefatality.com
The Perth Courier