I am late in this, but late or not I want to add my voice to those congratulating Geist magazine’s Stephen Osborne for some recent recognition. Well-deserved. Stephen has been an inspiration to many — including me — during his years spent laboring in Vancouver’s literary salt mines, and it is good to see him in the spotlight.

Stephen was one of seven honorees chosen as part of the inaugural Vancouver Arts Awards, presented last Friday. In addition, his piece “Girl Afraid of Haystacks: a tale of travel and exile” was chosen as the winner of a CBC Literary Award for 2003. The piece is published in this month’s edition of enRoute (Air Canada’s inflight magazine) — you can read it here.

Each Vancouver Arts Award recipient selected an emerging artist to receive a commission; Brad Cran, poet and publisher of Smoking Lung Press, was Stephen’s choice in the category of Writing and Publishing; a good example of the mentoring process at work. Which is appropriate, since Stephen is also one of three mentors at The Writer’s Studio, the creative writing certificate program offered by Simon Fraser University.

And since I’m offering Osborniana: check out Phototaxis, Stephen’s words-and-pictures blog. Check it out while listening to Bill Richardson’s CBC radio interview with Stephen Osborne here (24 minutes, RealAudio) for an even richer sensory experience.