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About The Journey Prize Stories 16
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Anar Ali, "Baby Khaki's Wings" (filling Station)
Kenneth Bonert, "Packers and Movers" (Grain)
Jennifer Clouter, "Benny and the Jets" (TickleAce)
Daniel Griffin, "Mercedes Buyer's Guide" (The Dalhousie Review)
Michael Kissinger, "Invest in the North" (Prairie Fire)
Devin Krukoff, "The Last Spark" (Grain)
Elaine McCluskey, "The Watermelon Social" (The Antigonish Review)
William Metcalfe, "Nice Big Car, Rap Music Coming Out the Window" (PRISM international)
Lesley Millard, "The Uses of the Neckerchief" (Prairie Fire)
Adam Lewis Schroeder, "Burning the Cattle at Both Ends" (This Magazine)
Michael V. Smith, "What We Wanted" (PRISM international)
Neil Smith, "Isolettes" (The Malahat Review)
Patricia Rose Young, "Up the Clyde on a Bike" (Room of One's Own)
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From the jury:
"We were looking for nerve-scraping suspense and bone-deep pleasure. We
wanted to read stories that were heartbreaking or hilarious, or
stylistically brazen. Gorgeous, emotionally driven writing, shot through
with wit. We wanted to find what we half-suspected, and what we could
not have previously conceived. We were looking for moral complexity,
questions with no easy answers, all the answers. . . . "And we were
thrilled whenever we came across these elements of the story. We were
thrilled by glimpses into new worlds thoroughly realized and
ultra-fresh. We found stories in which every word was in the right
place; words with no choice but to be exactly where they were." -
Elizabeth Hay, Lisa Moore, and Michael Redhill, from their Introduction
Among the stories this year:
A luckless ayah is forced to take
extraordinary measures when the baby under her care is born with wings.
In a chilling story of quiet suspense and terrible inevitability, the
compulsions of a troubled boy push him too far. Tensions between
suburban supermoms are revealed when a community gathers for a
watermelon social at the local elementary school. After he is sent on a
business errand, a South African boy learns how to negotiate his way
through the half-truths and hypocrisies of the adult world. When
colleagues gather at the boss's house to watch fireworks on a summer's
night, mounting frustrations lead to explosions of an entirely different
sort. A teenager comes face to face with the surprising turns a life can
take when he accompanies his father on a job for the most powerful man
in town.
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Journey Prize Winner Announced
Toronto, Ontario (Thursday, March 10, 2005)
On March 9, 2005, The Writers' Trust of Canada announced the winners of
its fourth annual Great Literary Awards. As part of this prestigious event,
the $10,000 Writers' Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize
was presented to Regina writer Devin Krukoff for his story "The Last Spark."
In recognition of the vital role literary journals play in discovering
new writers, McClelland & Stewart also gave its own award of $2,000 to
Saskatoon-based Grain Magazine, the magazine that first published and
submitted Devin Krukoff's story.
Of the winning story, jury members Elizabeth Hay, Lisa Moore, and
Michael Redhill had this to say:
"'The Last Spark' unfolds like a beautifully choreographed play. On a
summer's night, a small cast of characters provides an explosive
counterpoint to the fireworks they've gathered to see. The story's power
derives from tightly controlled language; masterful, subtle dialogue;
fine comic timing; mounting tension that spills into violence; delicacy
of detail and perception. Throughout, the author moves effortlessly into
the minds of each character in turn, then out again into the larger
world. An exceptional story."
Devin Krukoff was born and rasied in Regina and now lives in Victoria,
where he is pursuing graduate studies in Creative Writing. He is a
current member of The Malahat Review's editorial board, and is at work
on a collection of short fiction. "The Last Spark" is his first
published story.
The finalists for the Journey Prize are Elaine McCluskey for "The
Watermelon Social," first published in The Antigonish Review, and
Kenneth Bonert for "Packers and Movers," first published in Grain.
Now in its sixteenth year, and given for the fourth time in association
with The Writers' Trust of Canada as the Writers' Trust of
Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, The Journey Prize is awarded
annually to a new and developing writer of distinction for a short story
or excerpt from a fiction work-in-progress published in a Canadian
literary journal. The prize is made possible by James A. Michener's
donation of his Canadian royalty earnings from his 1988 novel, Journey.
The winner of The Journey Prize was selected from a long list of
thirteen stories published in the sixteenth edition of The Journey Prize
Stories: From the Best of Canada's New Writers.
The contributors to the 2005 edition of The Journey Prize Stories will
be announced in August 2005. Keep checking this site for the latest news
on The Journey Prize and The Journey Prize Stories.
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Finalists Selected
Toronto, Ontario (Tuesday, February 1, 2005)
The Writers' Trust of Canada announced today the finalists for the
fourth annual Great Literary Awards, to be presented on Wednesday, March
9, 2005. Among these were the finalists for the 2004 Journey Prize.
Now in its sixteenth year, and given for the fourth time in association
with The Writers' Trust of Canada as The Writers' Trust of
Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, the $10,000 prize is awarded
annually to a new and developing writer of distinction for a short story
or excerpt from a fiction work-in-progress published in a Canadian
literary journal in the previous year. The journal that published the
winning entry receives $2,000. McClelland & Stewart annually publishes
The Journey Prize Stories, the contents of which constitute a long list
for the prize. The prize is made possible by James A. Michener's
donation of his Canadian royalty earnings from his 1988 novel, Journey.
The finalists for the 2004 Writers' Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart
Journey Prize are:
Kenneth Bonert for "Packers and Movers"
Published in Grain
After he is sent on a business errand, a South African boy learns how to
negotiate his way through the half-truths and hypocrisies of the
adult world.
Kenneth Bonert was born in South Africa and is now a Toronto-based
freelance writer. "Packers and Movers," his first published fiction,
also received an honourable mention at the National Magazine Awards.
His novella, A Spy In The Valley, was recently first runner-up in
The Inconundrum Press's Melville Novella Contest. He is currently at
work on a novel.
Devin Krukoff for "The Last Spark"
Published in Grain
When colleagues gather at the boss's house to watch fireworks on a
summer's night, mounting frustrations lead to explosions of an entirely
different sort.
Devin Krukoff was born and rasied in Regina and now lives in Victoria,
where he is pursuing graduate studies in Creative Writing. He is a
current member of The Malahat Review's editorial board, and is at work
on a collection of short fiction. "The Last Spark" is his first
published story.
Elaine McCluskey for "The Watermelon Social"
Published in The Antigonish Review
Tensions between suburban supermoms are revealed when a community
gathers for a watermelon social at the local elementary school.
Elaine McCluskey lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She is a former Bureau
Chief for The Canadian Press news agency. She has had short stories
published in The Antigonish Review, The Gaspereau Review, and
Pottersfield Portfolio, which named her story "Bad Boys" the winner of
the sixth annual Pottersfield Portfolio compact fiction contest. She is
currently working on a story collection set in Atlantic Canada. In 1998,
her novel Going Fast won the Bill Percy Award in the Writers' Federation
of Nova Scotia's contest for unpublished manuscripts. She is a former
tutor at the University of King's College in Halifax, and a graduate of
Dalhousie University and the University of Western Ontario.
The finalists were selected from among the thirteen stories published in
the sixteenth edition of The Journey Prize Stories: From the Best of
Canada's New Writers. The finalists and the stories included in the
anthology were selected by writers Elizabeth Hay, Lisa Moore, and
Michael Redhill from a pool of over eighty stories submitted by journals
from across the country.
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Keep checking this site for the latest news on the Journey Prize and The
Journey Prize Stories.
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