VIDEO: Giller contender Lynn Coady

Six Canadian authors are in the running for the 2011 Giller Prize, with one writer set to receive the coveted trophy and $50,000 at a glitzy gala in Toronto on Nov. 8.

Founded by Jack Rabinovitch in 1994 in memory of his late, literary journalist wife Doris Giller, the annual award has become one of the countrys most prominent and lucrative fiction-writing honours.

Edmonton-based writer and editor Lynn Coady made the cut for her epistolary novel The Antagonist, about a tormented hockey bruiser-turned-teacher.

In the video above, Coady talks to CBC about seeingher character Rank as a kind of Frankenstein, being moved by a documentary about sports brain injuries and how she really feels about hockey and its culture.