Cape Breton author shortlisted for Giller

Cape Breton author Alexander MacLeod's collection of short fiction has been shortlisted for the prestigious Giller Prize.

MacLeod's Light Lifting was one of five finalistsunveiled in Toronto Tuesdayfor the $50,000 award honouring the best Canadian novel or short story collection of the past year.

MacLeod was born in Inverness and is the son of acclaimed writer Alistair MacLeod.

'I work on the sentences a long time and I try to make them sound right.' Alexander MacLeod

The son, now based out of Dartmouth,says his stories are different than his father's, but he has learned from him.

"The one thing that I did get from Dad is concern for trying to do the best that you can at it," said MacLeod. "So I think that maybe that's a sound that people hear, that I work on the sentences a long time and I try to make them sound right. What sounds right to me would be different than what sounds right to him or to other people."

Light Liftingwas published by Biblioasis, out of Emeryville, Ont., just one day before the Giller longlist was announced in September.

MacLeod joins four other 2010 Giller Prizefinalists:

• Toronto-based author and creative writing teacher Sarah Selecky's debut short story collection This Cake is for the Party, published by Thomas Allen & Son.
• Montreal-based writer and poet Johanna Skibsrud's first novel The Sentimentalists, published by Gaspereau Press.
• Montreal writer Kathleen Winter's first novel Annabel, published by Anansi.
• Winnipeg writerDavid Bergen's The Matter with Morris, published by HarperCollins.

The winner will be announced Nov. 9 at the Giller Prize gala in Toronto.

The Giller Prize was established in 1994 by Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch to honour the memory of his wife, literary journalist Doris Giller.