UNews - Danny Ramadan

Bridge Prize short story competition continuing to attract country’s most talented post-secondary writers

trevor.kenney — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:22:34 +0000

A total of 184 submissions from 36 universities and colleges across nine provinces have been received for the 2024 Bridge Prize post-secondary short story fiction writing competition.

The biennial competition, the largest literary cash prize event for post-secondary students in Canada, is open to both undergraduate and graduate students who are a registered student at the time of the submission deadline. This year’s submissions include representation from some of Canada’s biggest post-secondary schools, such as McGill ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto, as well as smaller universities and colleges across the nation.

“The Bridge Prize continues to grow in popularity as a meaningful national prize recognizing excellence in short story writing at the post-secondary level,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s School of Liberal Education. Wismath was dean of the school when the Bridge Prize initiative was launched with the support of lead donor Terry Whitehead (BA ’94), ULethbridge’s current Chancellor.

“Since its inception in 2020, over 1,000 short stories have been written and submitted, which suggests students are excited by the short story genre as a form of storytelling.”

Over the next four months, a local jury, comprised of 28 volunteers from ULethbridge and local cultural communities, will evaluate the 184 entries. Each story will be read by a minimum of four jurors. The author’s identity and school are not shared with jury members. The local jury will identify up to 10 short stories that will be elevated to the main jury who will read and adjudicate over the summer.

Dr. Shelly Wismath says students continue to show their enthusiasm for the short story form.

The main jury is comprised of established authors from across Canada. A winner will be determined by late July, and the winning author will work with a professional editor to arrive at the final version. The winning author and three finalists will be announced in September and the winning short story will be published on the Bridge Prize website.

“The Bridge Prize and the students who participate benefit from the support of our jurors who value the work of the next generation of storytellers in Canada,” adds Wismath. “We are grateful for the ongoing commitment from our local and main jurors, and to our sponsor, Munro’s Books of Victoria, for their continued support.”

The winner of the Bridge Prize receives $7,500 and three finalists each receive $1,000 and a $200 gift card from Munro’s Books. A $500 award goes to the top story written by a ULethbridge student. The winning author also receives a bronze sculpture, created by artist and sculptor, Niall Donaghy, of the ULethbridge Faculty of Fine Arts. More than $11,000 is awarded each competition, and since its inception, over 1,000 student stories have been submitted and $22,000 in prize money awarded.

2024 Main Jurors

Michelle Good (Saskatchewan) — author of Five Little Indians (winner of Canada Reads and Amazon First Novel; Giller Prize finalist in 2022)

Nicholas Herring (PEI) — author of Some Hellish (winner of Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize)

Sheena Kamal (Quebec) — Award-wining crime fiction writer and young adult novelist

George Murray (Newfoundland and Labrador) — Poet and author. Former Poet Laureate for St. John’s

Danny Ramadan (British Columbia) — Activist and author of The Foghorn Echoes and several children’s books. Finalist in the 2020 Bridge Prize

Madeleine Thien (Quebec) — Novelist and short story author. Winner of the Giller Prize and Governor General’s Award for the novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Main jury identified for 2024 Bridge Prize national short story competition

trevor.kenney — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 16:21:49 +0000

The main jury for Canada’s largest literary prize for post-secondary students has been chosen — and it features influential literary voices from across the country.

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s biennial Bridge Prize short story competition, presented by the School of Liberal Education, is now entering its third competitive cycle. Following highly successful competitions in 2020 and 2022 that have established the Bridge Prize as a significant national literary event, the 2024 edition has attracted another esteemed group of jurors.

“It’s exciting to announce another stellar national jury who will adjudicate the 2024 installment of the Bridge Prize,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, dean of the School of Liberal Education. “The main jury includes award-winning authors of international renown and new and emerging literary voices representing different literary genres and regions across Canada. This is truly a national literary endeavour, and we are grateful for the jurors’ commitment to supporting post-secondary students and the next generation of Canadian literary artists.”

The jury consists of Michelle Good (Saskatchewan), Nicholas Herring (Prince Edward Island), Sheena Kamal (Quebec), George Murray (Newfoundland & Labrador), Danny Ramadan (British Columbia) and Madeleine Thien (Quebec).

The Bridge Prize, initiated by ULethbridge alumnus Terry Whitehead (BA ’94), has elicited more than 500 short story entries over the first two competitions. The first prize winner earns $7,500, while three additional finalists garner $1,000 apiece, making it the largest cash prize for any student writing competition in Canada. Munro’s Books, based in Victoria, B.C., is the returning major sponsor, and hands out $200 gift cards to all four winners. The winner also has their short story edited by Shirarose Wilensky, an editor with the House of Anansi Press.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto graduate student Chido Muchemwa won the 2022 Bridge Prize and was recently awarded a scholarship from the prestigious Miles Morland Foundation in the United Kingdom. The grant supports first-time novelists as they embark on writing their first novel. In addition, Muchemwa is presently in discussions with a Canadian publisher to publish a collection of her short stories.

"Winning the Bridge Prize gave me the confidence to pursue opportunities that I had previously felt I wasn’t ready for yet. I am so grateful to the Bridge Prize for taking student writers seriously and I encourage anyone eligible to apply. It really could be you,” says Muchemwa.

Submissions for the 2024 competition open January 23, 2023, and will close January 22, 2024. For more information, visit The Bridge Prize web page.

Following are short biographies of the jurors for the 2024 competition.

Michelle Good

Michelle Good is a Cree writer and member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. After working for Indigenous organizations for 25 years, she obtained a law degree and advocated for residential school survivors. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia while managing her own law firm. Her poems, short stories and essays have been published in magazines and anthologies across Canada, and her poetry was included on two lists of the best Canadian poetry in 2016 and 2017. Five Little Indians, her first novel, won the HarperCollins/UBC Best New Fiction Prize, the Amazon First Novel Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Award, the Evergreen Award, the City of Vancouver Book of the Year Award and Canada Reads 2022. It was also longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a finalist for the Writer’s Trust Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes.

Nicholas Herring

Nicholas Herring is a carpenter and writer whose work has appeared in The Puritan and The Fiddlehead. He graduated from St. Jerome’s ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Ontario with an Honours in English Literature and attended the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto where he completed a Master of Arts in Creative Writing. He received the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize in 2022 for his debut novel, Some Hellish. Herring lives in Murray Harbour, Prince Edward Island.

Sheena Kamal

Sheena Kamal is the author of four novels. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts (HBA) in Political Science from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness. Her debut novel, The Lost Ones (US)/Eyes Like Mine (UK), won the 2018 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, a Strand Magazine Critics Award and Macavity Award for Best First Novel. It has been sold in 15 countries and was a Globe and Mail Bestseller, a Time Magazine Recommended Read, an iBooks Best Book, a Bustle Best Book and a Powell's Pick. Her debut YA novel, Fight Like a Girl, was shortlisted for the White Pine Award. Kamal lives in Montreal.

George Murray

George Murray is the author of 10 books, including seven books of poetry, two best-selling books of aphorisms and a book for children — his latest being Problematica: New and Selected Poems, 1995 – 2020. His work has been widely anthologized and published in magazines, journals and newspapers all over Canada, as well as internationally, including: The Drunken Boat, Granta, Iowa Review, Jacket, London Magazine, Mid-American Review, New American Writing, New Welsh Review, The Puritan, Radical Society and The Walrus. Raised in rural Ontario, Murray currently lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Danny Ramadan

Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author and advocate for LGBTQ+ refugees. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, longlisted for Canada Reads and named a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. Danny’s children’s book, Salma the Syrian Chef, won the Nautilus Book Award, The Middle East Book Award and was named a Best Book by both Kirkus and School Library Journal. His latest novel, The Foghorn Echoes, was released in 2022. His upcoming memoir, Crooked Teeth, will be released by Penguin Random House in 2024. Danny has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. In 2020, he was a finalist for the inaugural Bridge Prize award for his short story On the Miraculous Return of Khalid from the Dead. Ramadan lives in Vancouver.

Madeleine Thien

Madeliene Thien was born in Vancouver. She is the author of four books of fiction, including Dogs at the Perimeter and Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which received the 2016 Giller Prize and The Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction. Her books have been shortlisted for The Booker Prize, The Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The Folio Prize, longlisted for a Carnegie Medal and translated into more than 25 languages. Madeleine’s essays and stories can be found in The New Yorker, Granta, Brick, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Review of Books. She has taught literature and fiction in Canada, China, Germany, Nigeria, the United States, Zimbabwe, Singapore and Japan and currently teaches writing and literature at the City ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of New York.

UBC graduate student wins inaugural Bridge Prize national short story writing competition

trevor.kenney — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 15:22:41 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia (UBC) graduate student Sara de Waal is the inaugural winner of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Bridge Prize national short story writing competition, earning a $7,500 first-place award from a pool of 340 story submissions.

Winning author Sara de Waal

Her touching and poignant tale, Cecilia and Richard, won the favour of the jury panel and elicited praise for its construction and detail.

“The most carefully constructed story we received, beautiful deployment of metaphor, especially when we’re told that the father has no energy for metaphor. This is a language story, filled with effective detail, colours painting words and consequences," adds juror Aritha Van Herk, an Alberta-based author.

The Bridge Prize was established in 2019 by the U of L’s School of Liberal Education and Vancouver-based alumnus and donor Terry Whitehead (BA ’94). It is Canada’s only national short story competition open exclusively to post-secondary graduate and undergraduate students studying at Canadian universities and colleges. It’s $10,500 in prize money make it the richest student writing competition in Canada and among the largest for any short story competition in the country.

In addition to de Waal’s work, three finalists received $1,000 for their entries. Ahmad Danny Ramadan, also of UBC, was recognized for The Miraculous Return of Khaled from the Dead; Evan Neilsen, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary, for Harriet; and James Cawkwell, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta, for his work Tadpole.

“Congratulations to Sara and the finalists for their creative and memorable stories,” says Whitehead. “A special thank you to our local jury and main jury for their energy, time and enthusiasm to support the next generation of Canadian literary talent. The support of The Walrus and Munro’s Books was so instrumental in generating awareness and excitement of the Bridge Prize. We look forward to a long partnership.”

De Waal is a writer and teacher from Abbotsford, B.C who will graduate from UBC’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing in November. Her first picture book, 48 Grasshopper Estates, is projected for release through Annick Press in April 2021. When she’s not busy writing, de Waal works as a primary music and art teacher where her students constantly inspire her to keep making art.

“When I began my Master of Fine Arts degree at UBC, I resigned from teaching music and returned to my high school job on a dairy farm, hoping all those early hours in the milking parlour would provide more time for daydreaming up stories — and they did,” she says. “The job also allowed me, on occasion, to help with the birthing of calves. Every time a calf took its first steps, I thought, I’ve never seen anything as beautiful or as unsteady. When I entered the Bridge Prize, I had just begun my last term as a creative writing student, and I felt similarly about most of my work: half in love with it, half afraid it would fall flat on its face. The contest was very much a first-steps experience for me, and I was both surprised and delighted to see Cecilia and Richard stand on its own outside the safety of my imagination. Though I’ve now resumed the tricky balance of writing while teaching, the Bridge Prize has given me the motivation and confidence to continue nudging my stories out into the world.”

Dr. Shelly Wismath, dean of the School of Liberal Education, says the Bridge Prize competition exceeded expectations.

“We are so pleased to congratulate Sara de Waal as the inaugural winner of the Bridge Prize. Her story stood out among stiff competition from across the country, as deeply moving and beautifully written,” says Wismath. “We are also grateful for the tremendous support the Bridge Prize has received from our sponsor and from authors and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ across Canada, in support of a new literary competition.”

Submissions for the 2022 Bridge Prize competition will be accepted beginning January 21, 2021. The main jury for the 2022 competition will be announced in November.

About the Bridge Prize

• Established in 2019 and first awarded in 2020, a new competition will run every second year.

• Total prize money for the Bridge Prize is $10,500, with $7,500 to the winner and $1,000 each to three finalists.

• 340 stories from students attending 61 post-secondary institutions in nine provinces across Canada were entered for 2020.

• An initial group of 18 local jurors, comprised of campus and community-based ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and cultural leaders, read all 340 stories. Each story was read by a minimum of three jurors, after which the field was narrowed to the top 70. Every local juror then read each of the 70 stories before 10 were sent on to the main jury.

• The five-person main jury was comprised of authors Thomas King (head juror), Charles Demers and Aritha Van Herk; Shelley Ambrose, former executive director of The Walrus magazine; and Leslie Hurtig, artistic director of the Vancouver Writers Fest.

UNews - Danny Ramadan

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