TORONTO – Kerry Lee Powell’s celebrated book “Willem de Kooning’s Paintbrush” is among a short list of nominees for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award.

The award recognizes the best first collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in English.

The winner gets $10,000 while two runners-up each receive $500.

Powell’s short story collection (published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.) makes the cut after last year making the short list for the Governor-General’s Literary Award and the long list for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

It faces competition from Kris Bertin’s “Bad Things Happen” (Biblioasis); Lyse Champagne’s “The Light that Remains” (Enfield & Wizenty); Andre Narbonne’s “Twelve Miles to Midnight” (Black Moss Press); and Laura Trunkey’s “Double Dutch” (Astoria).

The winner will be announced June 3 at the OnWords Conference in Vancouver.

The Writers’ Union of Canada says the short list was drawn from 30 submissions.

The jury this year included authors Caroline Adderson, Judy Fong Bates and David Bergen.