We’re so pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Creative Non-fiction Contest, as chosen by judge Sharan Dhaliwal.
As Sharan writes, “with each of these submissions, we are taken on their journeys in a way that serves only to their memory—so eloquently expressing their uneasiness with the path but still guiding us safely along.”
Grand Prize
“And Begin” by Rachel Lindley-Maycock
Rachel Lindley-Maycock is a self-taught queer writer on the autistic spectrum, who lives in Edmonton with her lovely British wife. She first began novel-writing at the ripe old age of 8. She was once lucky enough to work with the late, great Timothy Findley as her editor for a never-published manuscript, until she became decidedly unlucky and ended up with a brain tumour, which put a slight damper on the whole writing thing for a decade or two. She has since been shortlisted for a CBC literary prize and the Montreal International Poetry Prize, and has been published sporadically in an eclectic variety of places, but most notably in a good friend’s hallway.
First Runner-up
“The Body Does Not Flee” by Shelley Pacholok
Shelley Pacholok is a researcher, writer, and sociologist whose work explores social relations in post-disaster settings. Her writing has appeared in juried print and online social science journals, as well as edited editions. Her book, Into the Fire, was published in 2013 by the University of Toronto Press, and funded by a fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her current manuscript is a work of creative non-fiction in which she narrates both a personal journey and a sociological expedition of brain injury.
Second Runner-up
“Half Scissor” by Tabitha Siklos
Tabitha Siklos is currently completing an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London. After practising as a lawyer for ten years in London, UK, she became a freelance writer specializing in ghost-writing autobiographies. She is also working on a biography of her great grandmother, who one-hundred years ago was a missionary’s wife in Burma. Tabitha was shortlisted for The White Review Short Story Prize 2018 for her story “Foetus” and her work has also appeared in LossLit and the Huffington Post.
Please join us in congratulating these winners! Our next contest, the Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize, closes on October 15.