b'The inaugural KOBZAR Literary Award Ceremony was held in March 2006 To encourage young and emerging writers to pursue their passion and sharein Toronto where it found a home and a devoted audience through eight their stories, the Foundation offered writers workshops across Canadaawardings. All the lavish ceremonies through 2020 were organized by a team featuring KOBZAR award winners and established Canadian writers. of dedicated volunteers led for seven of those events by Alla Shklar, while the most recent in 2020 was chaired by Janice Taskey.In 2018, the name of the award was changed to KOBZAR Book Award to better reflect the works being submitted for award consideration.In 2020, the Emerging Writers Short Prose Competition was introduced setting the groundwork for new writers to explore the short prose form and to one day aspire to submit an entry to the KOBZAR Book Award.2016 KOBZAR Literary Award Winner Maurice Mierau, Adjudicator Karen Connelly and TSF President Andrew HladyshevskyThe 2020 KOBZAR Book Award ceremony marked a shiftin the programs evolution. The time had come for the award to be introduced to new audiences. As such, it bid farewell to Toronto embarking on a national journey. It was also one of the last public events prior to a two-year pandemic lockdown and in 2022 is one of the last virtual events as pre-pandemic activities resume. The 2022 ceremony originally scheduled to be held in person at the Winnipeg Art Gallery was instead filmed at the Art Gallery.'