The Journey Prize Stories 25
Read The Journey Prize Stories 25 Online
Authors: Various
1989: Holley Rubinsky for “Rapid Transits”
1990: Cynthia Flood for “My Father Took a Cake to France”
1991: Yann Martel for “The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios”
1992: Rozena Maart for “No Rosa, No District Six”
1993: Gayla Reid for “Sister Doyle’s Men”
1994: Melissa Hardy for “Long Man the River”
1995: Kathryn Woodward for “Of Marranos and Gilded Angels”
1996: Elyse Gasco for “Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby?”
1997 (shared): Gabriella Goliger for “Maladies of the Inner Ear”
Anne Simpson for “Dreaming Snow”
1998: John Brooke for “The Finer Points of Apples”
1999: Alissa York for “The Back of the Bear’s Mouth”
2000: Timothy Taylor for “Doves of Townsend”
2001: Kevin Armstrong for “The Cane Field”
2002: Jocelyn Brown for “Miss Canada”
2003: Jessica Grant for “My Husband’s Jump”
2004: Devin Krukoff for “The Last Spark”
2005: Matt Shaw for “Matchbook for a Mother’s Hair”
2006: Heather Birrell for “BriannaSusannaAlana”
2007: Craig Boyko for “OZY”
2008: Saleema Nawaz for “My Three Girls”
2009: Yasuko Thanh for “Floating Like the Dead”
2010: Devon Code for “Uncle Oscar”
2011: Miranda Hill for “Petitions to Saint Chronic”
2012: Alex Pugsley for “Crisis on Earth-X”
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“Megan’s Bus” © Steven Benstead; “The Egyptians © Jay Brown; “In the Foothills” © Andrew Forbes; “Gulliver’s Wife” © Philip Huynh; “Team Ninja” © Amy Jones; “Mrs. Fujimoto’s Wednesday Afternoons” © Marnie Lamb; “How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?” © Doretta Lau; “It’s Raining in Paris” © Laura Legge; “Ossicles” © Natalie Morrill; “Sleep World” © Zoey Leigh Peterson; “My Sister Sang” © Eliza Robertson; “Cinema Rex” © Naben Ruthnum.
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The $10,000 Journey Prize is awarded annually to an emerging writer of distinction. This award, now in its twenty-fifth year, and given for the thirteenth time in association with the Writers’ Trust of Canada as the Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, is made possible by James A. Michener’s generous donation of his Canadian royalty earnings from his novel
Journey
, published by McClelland & Stewart in 1988. The Journey Prize itself is the most significant monetary award given in Canada to a developing writer for a short story or excerpt from a fiction work in progress. The winner of this year’s Journey Prize will be selected from among the twelve stories in this book.
The Journey Prize Stories
has established itself as the most prestigious annual fiction anthology in the country, introducing readers to the finest new literary writers from coast to coast for more than two decades. It has become a who’s who of up-and-coming writers, and many of the authors who have appeared in the anthology’s pages have gone on to distinguish themselves with short story collections, novels, and literary awards. The anthology comprises a selection from submissions made by the editors of literary journals from across the country, who have chosen what, in their view, is the most exciting writing in English that they have published in the previous year. In recognition of the vital role journals play in fostering literary voices, McClelland & Stewart makes its own award of $2,000 to the journal that originally published and submitted the winning entry.
This year the selection jury comprised three acclaimed writers:
Miranda Hill
won the 2011 Writers’ Trust of Canada / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her story “Petitions to Saint Chronic.” Her debut collection of short fiction,
Sleeping Funny
, was published by Doubleday Canada. She is currently at work on a novel that weaves a story of Pittsburgh’s fine houses and steel mills with Muskoka’s cottage country. Hill received her BA in drama from Queen’s University, and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She is also the founder and executive director of Project Bookmark Canada, an initiative that installs text from stories and poems in the exact physical locations where literary scenes are set. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario. Please visit
www.mirandahill.com
.
Mark Medley
is the
National Post
’s Books Editor and oversees the paper’s books blog,
The Afterword
. His work has appeared in magazines and newspapers across Canada, including the
Globe and Mail, The Walrus, Toronto Life, This Magazine, Spacing
, and
Taddle Creek
. He currently sits on PEN Canada’s board of directors and serves on the advisory committee of the Humber School for Writers. He lives in Toronto.
Russell Wangersky
’s most recent fiction collection,
Whirl Away
, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the BMO Winterset Award, and the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. He is also the author of
The Glass Harmonica
, winner of the BMO Winterset Award;
The Hour of Bad Decisions
, a finalist for the regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book; and the memoir
Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself
, winner of the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the Rogers Communications Newfoundland and Labrador Non-Fiction Book Award, and the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction. It was also a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize. Wangersky lives and works in St. John’s, where he is an editor and columnist with the
St. John’s Telegram
. Please visit
www.russellwangersky.com
.
The jury read a total of eighty-one submissions without knowing the names of the authors or those of the journals in which the stories originally appeared. McClelland & Stewart would like to thank the jury for their efforts in selecting this year’s anthology and, ultimately, the winner of this year’s Journey Prize.
McClelland & Stewart would also like to acknowledge the continuing enthusiastic support of writers, literary journal editors, and the public in the common celebration of new voices in Canadian fiction.
For more information about
The Journey Prize Stories
, please visit
www.facebook.com/TheJourneyPrize
.
FROM THE AUTHORS
“I was naturally thrilled to have a story included in the
Journey Prize
anthology. Particularly when you’re just starting out, being accepted in an anthology – an actual book instead of a magazine, something with a spine, something that people might buy in a bookstore – feels like donning a tiara. But it wasn’t until I sat on the Journey Prize jury myself, fourteen years later, that I realized how tough the competition is, how many stories are submitted, and how many good ones aren’t included for lack of space or jury consensus. If I’d known this back then, I probably wouldn’t have settled for that tiara feeling. I’d have gone around with the darned book strapped to my head.”
–Caroline Adderson
“The
Journey Prize
anthology does many things: it gives affirmation to a work, it piques the interest of agents and publishers, but most importantly, it creates an opportunity for emerging writers to be recognized and it supports our Canadian literary magazines. It searches out fresh and daring voices trying to gain ground and gives them a boost. We need
The Journey Prize Stories
now more than ever.”
– Théodora Armstrong
“Way back in 1989, I got lucky with my first published story when it was selected for the
Journey Prize
anthology. Then I got lucky three more times. It is astounding to see how many
writers published in the anthology have gone on to publish great story collections and novels. The anthology is a windfall for both writer and reader.”
– David Bergen
“Reading
The Journey Prize Stories
helped me grow as a writer, gave me a sense of permission, threw down a stylistic gauntlet, and then, when I found my own stories in its pages – oh, glorious day! – gave me a fantastic sense of accomplishment and confidence.
It’s true that developing writers need
The Journey Prize Stories
, but really, we all need the
JPS –
to show Canada and the world that our short story writers just keep quietly, keenly, creating; to show discerning readers that the whole world can haunt and glow in a few pages, that a small shift in a character’s consciousness can be as thrilling as any sprawling saga, and that size really
does
matter, but never quite in the way that you might think.”
– Heather Birrell
“A great jolt of electricity startles the heart and jump-starts the writing career when you get the nod from the Journey people. It’s a thrill to find your name included amongst some of the leading new voices in short fiction.”
– Dennis Bock