PRISM international is proud to announce the winning pieces from our Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction along with Waubgeshig Rice’s judge’s essay.
Judge’s Essay
I’ve always appreciated the precise power and beauty of a short story, and reading the entries for the 2023 Jacob Zilber Prize was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with a storytelling medium that I love and admire. Each of the submissions took me on an emotional journey of awe and illumination in just a handful of pages. It was an honour and a pleasure to read them all, and although it may be a cliché to write this, it really was very difficult to determine the winner and runners-up. They all deserve great praise! Nonetheless, I feel very fortunate that I was invited to have a close look at these finely-crafted offerings.
I read these stories in the waning days of the northern Ontario winter, and they comforted me as I anticipated the long-awaited melt to come. I spent days deliberating the ones I would pick for the top three. Ultimately, like with anything I read, I gravitated towards the stories that pulled me out of my own world and took me somewhere else entirely. And at the core, there’s a spirit of humanity in each of these short stories that resonates with our own individual realities, no matter how different we may be.
To me, “Because We Buy Oatmilk” was perhaps the most resonant of the submissions, skillfully tapping into ongoing anxieties of a chaotic world beyond our control. Told through the profound internal monologue of a young mother, the story examines the onerous challenges around keeping a family afloat in the midst of major crises, from the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change to widespread economic uncertainty. Too often in the family unit, it’s the mother who bears the burden of making critical decisions, and the narrator here must endure her own challenges silently for the sake of the collective. Experimental in style and authentic in voice, “Because We Buy Oatmilk” is timely and compelling.
I always enjoy a good ghost story, and “Trick Walls” delivered something both creepy and heartfelt. It’s about a strange family and their equally mysterious house, with a young narrator trying to make sense of it all. A domineering father manipulates his children and their home for his own fame and fortune. His death liberates them, but also leaves an enigma that leads to a chilling twist. Line by line, this story gripped me.
Finally, “Own Small Human” follows a young father through the challenging first steps of parenthood and explores the lessons that can come from unexpected places. The protagonist is both relatable and perplexing: dedicating himself to his young family, but also succumbing to his ego at the expense of his wife and child. In the end, he is humbled in an unforeseen way, bringing essential humanity and morality to the centre.
Please join us in congratulating these writers!
First Prize
“Because We Buy Oat Milk” by Glenna Turnbull
Runner-Up
“Trick Walls” by Emily Pegg
Second Runner-Up
“Own Small Human” by Ben Lof
Thank you to Waubgeshing, our winners, and all who submitted!
Don’t forget The Grouse Grind Lit Prize for V. Short Forms is open until April 15th! Learn more on our Contests page, and submit via Submittable. Free submissions for Black and Indigenous writers and a limited number of free submissions for low-income folks.