There may be no red carpet or Hollywood starlets, but, for two local authors nominated for Canada’s biggest literary award, that doesn’t detract from the prestige.

Midland’s Alma Fullerton and Port McNicoll’s Douglas Hunter are finalists for the 2008 Governor General’s Literary Awards.

Fullerton is one of five authors up for the award in the children’s literature category, while Hunter has made the short list for non-fiction.

Fullerton’s book Libertad, released in September, follows the lives of two boys from the Guatemala City dump as they travel in search of their father after an accident kills their mother.

The inspiration came about while conducting research for another book online, noted Fullerton.

“I came across a story that was similar,” she recalled. “Then, while I was researching, I found a whole bunch more stories like this.”

The book, said Fullerton, is based on a lot of true stories and several years of research and interviews, including much back-and-forth with an organization called Safe Passage that bring kids out of the dump area and into the classroom in Guatemala.

This is the first time Fullerton has been nominated for such a prestigious award, and she said the news came as a huge surprise.

“It still hasn’t sunk in. This is the biggest award in Canada. It’s a high honour,” said the mother of two. “Words can’t describe it – I am a writer and I can’t get the words to describe how I feel.

“It’s like being nominated for an Oscar or something.”

A win for Fullerton – which would include $25,000 in prize money and a specially bound copy of her winning book – would allow her to write full time. She currently writes between shifts at the Midland Zellers store and raising her two children.

“(To write) means really late nights and really early mornings. I’m very busy, so I don’t have a lot of free time.”

This is her third published book. She said she is always in the process of writing a new book – most of which tend to have a more serious topic.

“I’m drawn to this style because I think I have lot to say. I don’t preach to teens, but I want to reach that one child who might need to be reached,” she said.

This isn’t the first time Port McNicoll author and newspaper columnist Douglas Hunter’s God’s Mercies: Rivalry, Betrayal and the Dream of Discovery, has garnered attention in the literary world. It was a finalist earlier this year for a Writers Trust Award for non-fiction.

His book, published last October, follows the convergence in the careers of 17th-century explorers and rivals Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain.

Much like his fellow nominee, Hunter’s book also grew out of another project.

“I’d started working on a book about the Canadian Shield – one chapter focused on Champlain,” said Hunter, adding it was while researching that chapter that he discovered the connection between Hudson and Champlain.

While he acknowledged the book has received good critical response, he said he considers a book to be an intangible thing that can’t be measured by the number of copies sold.

“You just hope you do good work,” he said, adding awards, while a great honour, are also very subjective.

“The Governor General’s Awards is the grand ol’ dame of the literary awards in this country. They have a few hundred books to plow through, and (to be) one of the five finalists (for this category) is nice,” he said. “If I win, it is even greater, but you don’t bank on these things…. You have to take out of it as much as you have received so far.”

The winners will be announced Nov. 18 at 10 a.m. at the McCord Museum of Canadian History in Montreal.

nmillion@simcoe.com