Past Winners

2018 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

1st Place: Wayne Yetman for “Cuidado”
2nd Place: Sile Englert for “Selvedge”
3rd Place: Travis Oltmann for “Veneration”

Poetry

1st Place: Bruce Meyer for “To the Manor Born”
2nd place: Hadeel Abdel-Nabi for “A Man Yelled at me in the Alley and I Liked It”
3rd Place: Mark Sampson for “Dracula, Count of Transylvania, Does an MFA in Creative Writing”
Honourable Mention: Bruce Meyer for “On First Looking into Bark’s Rumi”
Honourable Mention: Neil Griffin for “Two Hypotheses on the Formation of Saturn’s Rings”
Honourable Mention: Rhonda Collis for “Bioluminescence Bay”

Lynn C. Fraser Memorial Award
Suzanne Johnston for “The Art of Falling”

The Micheline Maylor Prize for Poetic Excellence
Evan Nielson for “A Prelapsarian Fall, c. 66, 000, 000 BC”

2018 SHORT LIST

Poetry

Man Yelled at Me in an Alley and I Liked It
Abrasion
And it’s Time to Lock the Backdoor to Memory
Bioluminescence Bay
Crow Theory
Dracula, Count of Transylvania, Does an MFA in Creative Writing
Hawk
I don’t feel at home here but nowhere else is going to change that
I still Want You in All the Ways Possible
On First Looking into Bark’s Ruminate
On the Glacial Slide to Suicide
Saskatoon Berries
Sweep
The nights the neighbours have a fire in their backyard
There’s a place I still dream about and I lived there once
To clear the fifth chakra
To the Manor Born
Two Hypotheses of the Formation of Saturn’s Rings

2018 SHORT LIST

Prose

Bedtime
Cuidado
Farmhouse
Odds
Papermen
Paul and David
Selvedge
Shaken
The Art of Falling
The Meeting
The Space Between The Walls
Transmigration
Veneration

2017 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

1st Place: Shelley Wood for “How They Move On”
2nd Place: Travis Oltman for “Zeitgeber”
3rd Place: Neil Griffin for “Confabulation”
Honourable Mention: Betty Jane Hegerat for “Jewel”

Poetry

1st Place:  Barry Dempster for “Boy on the Verge”
2nd Place: Keith Worthington for “Assiniboine”
3rd Place:  Bruce Meyer for “Credo”

Lynn C. Fraser Memorial Award
Jill Boettger for “Garage Sonnet”

2017 SHORT LIST

Poetry

Boy On the Verge
First Session Shamanic
Every Season but Summer
Garage Sonnet
Circles
Summer Camp Communal Showers
Burgess Shale
You Already Know Everything
Bird Boy
Credo
The Ghosts of Who We Are
Yellow Bird and Crow
Fox Love
two thousand seventeen
Assiniboine
Weaning off Anti-Depressant

2017 SHORT LIST

Prose

Confabulation
According to my sisters
Jewel
How they move on
Zeitgeber
Peter

2016 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

1st place: “Timestamp” by C.E. Mandybura
2nd place: “Scabby-Nosed Girl in a Bowler Hat” by Jann Everard
3rd place: “The Sound of the Engine Rising” by Keltie Zabco
Honourable Mention: “Justice” by Ketih Worthington

Poetry

1st place: “Crow and His Children” by Cornelia Hoogland
2nd place: “Prairie Winter” by dee Hobsbawn Smith
3rd place: “Things That Are Yours” by Angela Dillon
Honourable Mention: “My Husband Drowns the Rats” by Marsha Barber

Lynn C. Fraser Memorial Award
“I still haven’t learned how to swim” by matt sutton

2016 SHORT LIST

Poetry

Argument
99 Steps
Ghost Child
Inside my brain
My Husband Drowns the Rats
The Beginning of Seeing
Prairie Winter
The Hard Rules of Seawater
Crow and His Children
Maquis
Things that are yours
Field Recording
Bird’s Population
this two sided coin
Horoscope for Robbie Burns
Firing Range
Watercolour

2016 SHORT LIST

Prose

Justice
Acreage Games
Evensong
One Eight Hundred
The Sound of the Engine Rising
Scabby-Nosed Girl in a Bowler Hat
Timestamp
The Collector

2015 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

1st Place: “The Dong” by Sarah Butson
2nd Place: “Penny Blossom” by Anna Brooks
3rd Place: “Day of the Dead” by Cassy Welburn

Poetry

1st Place: “Daydreaming Tricia” by Michael Fraser
2nd Place: “Finlandia” by Ellie Sawatzky
3rd Place: “The Union Dead” by Michael Fraser
Honourable Mention: “Old Bob’s Shadow” by Ron Ostrander

Lynn C. Fraser Memorial Award
Susan Plett for “worship”

2015 SHORT LIST

Poetry

Argument
99 Steps
Ghost Child
Inside my brain
My Husband Drowns the Rats
The Beginning of Seeing
Prairie Winter
The Hard Rules of Seawater
Crow and His Children
Maquis
Things that are yours
Field Recording
Bird’s Population
this two sided coin
Horoscope for Robbie Burns
Firing Range
Watercolour

2015 SHORT LIST

Prose

Welcome to Khyber Agency
Mnemosyne
Run
Trust Me
The Embrace
Penny Blossom
The Dong
Day of the Dead

2014 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

1st Place: “Commerce” by Joy J. Henry
2nd Place: “Spider” by Paul André Betito
3rd Place: “Canada’s Breakup Guide” by Dorothy Reno
Honourable Mention: “Eggshells and Painted Ladies” by Kim McCullough
The Lynn Fraser Memorial Award: “You Chubby Assassin” by Natalie Meisner

Poetry

1st Place: “Grand Junction” by Michael Fraser
2nd Place: “On Customers” by Amber Moore
3rd Place: “The Thin Man” by Bruce Meyer
Honourable Mention: “Non-Fiction” by Michael Prior

Introducing the Lynn C. Fraser Memorial Award
You Chubby Assassin” by Natalie Meisner

2014 SHORT LIST

Poetry

The Way it Ends Up
Non-fiction
Old Griefs
Thompson park
Change Rooms
Morning Routine
Sitting on the side of
Tumor
Mushroom
Sibling Rivalry
All Day Breakfast
Just Lucky I Guess
My Summer without Art
14 Ways
B flat Minor
Loose Attachment
On Customers
Iris Ink
Tapeworm
Forgiveness
Poem from Mom
Random Dynamics of War
An Irrational Fear of Citrus
Slices of Mackintosh Apple
Wolfhound
words fell
The Thin Man
Grand Junction
Extremities

2014 SHORT LIST

Prose

Commerce
This Story was on the TV News
Spider
Canada’s Breakup Guide
You Chubby Assassin
Let Nothing Ye Dismay
But By God You Knew it Was There
Nicky Nicky Nine Door
The Come Crying
Eggshells and Painted Ladies

2013 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

1st Place: Hermine Robinson “Tipping House”
2nd Place: Paddy Scott “The Bull of Heaven”
3rd Place: Theanna Bischoff “Pear”

Poetry

1st Place: Marlene Grand Maitre “Slip the Knot”
2nd Place: Patricia Young “Too Many Guns in the House”
3rd Place: Patricia Young “Puzzle”
Honourable Mention:
Cassy Welburn “A Kindness of Bees”
Wendy Donawa “About the Snow Queen: A Question for Hans Christian Anderson”
Alec Whitford “Nameless Creek”

2013 SHORT LIST

Poetry

A Kindness of Bees
About the Snow Queen
After the Stroke
The Changeling
Coming Out
E-Sport coming to an arena nearby
Historia est vitae magistra (History is the Tutor of Life)
The King of Stonehenge
Nameless Creek
On Hearing Sex in the Neighbouring Hotel Room
Puzzle
Re-Reading My Mother’s Chinese Star Map
Sixteen
Slip the Knot
Superman’s Sheet
Too Many Guns in the House
Wait, One More Dream
Where the Grass Moves

2013 SHORT LIST

Prose

Bull of Heaven
Chronicle of a Death Forestalled
Dead Letter
Determination
Last Words
Needles
Never Out of Touch
The Pear
Rock Star Builder
The Tipping House
Vulnerabilities
What the Corpse Said

2012 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

1st Place: The Scream by Chase Baird
2nd Place: Hanging Clothes by Beth Everest
3rd Place: Myths of Mutton Busting by Natalie Meisner

Poetry

1st Place: blue and white pottery by Ulrike Narwani
2nd Place: Bioluminescent Bay by Laboni Islam
3rd Place: At 15 by dee Hobsbawn-Smith
Honourable Mention: Marguerite by Juleta Severson-Baker

2012 SHORT LIST

Poetry

About the epicactus
At 15
Bioluminescent Bay
blue and white pottery
Bull Dancer
Coffee Shop
Details and Why
Farm Cat
Francisco de Goya. The Family of the Duke of Osuna, 1788
Full of Crow
Getting to Zero
Marguerite
Pentimento
Promontory
Ruin and Beauty
S and X
Scrambled
The Better Story
The Skin
To Speak as Water

2012 SHORT LIST

Prose

43 Gang
Angus Breaks Free
Checkpoint Charlie
Curiosities
hanging clothes
Myths of Mutton Busting
Murdering Elegance
The Good Husband
The Groundskeeper
The Scream
Waiting for Spring

2011 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

First Place: André John Narbonne for Darren, Almost in Love
Second Place: Gary Saville for Easy on the City John Handcock
Third Place: Jann Everard for Redolent

Poetry

First Place: Pamela Porter for Once, in a Story
Second Place: Heidi Garnett for Our Black Dog Who Disappeared Two Weeks Ago
Third Place: Sylvia Adams for The Bee Master’s Stag
Honourable Mention: Joan Shillington for The Fifties
Honourable Mention: Frances Boyle for Dark night, solo

2011 SHORT LIST

Poetry

Our Black Dog Who Disappeared
They called him ‘Wing’
Once, in a story
One Morning
First Frost
After Sappho (Fragment 130)
Cinema Verité
Shooting Rats
South Saskatchewan
Overcast
100 Words
Incessant Hum
In My Mother’s Kitchen
The Fifties
The Bee Master’s Stag
Sunday’s Child
Best Wishes
Dark Night, solo
Rock On Chicago
The Lake
Of
Wedding #1
P.S.
What We Learned Beyond Grandfather’s Dare
Five Veils After Noon

2011 SHORT LIST

Prose

Buried Under His Weight
Paint Your Children Red
Near Miss
Redolent
Darren, Almost in Love
Hunting Muskie
Destiny’s Dance
A Boat A Man and A Fish
Easy on the City John Hancock
The Quinzie
The Depot
Look How Pretty
Measurements

2010 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

First Place:Fran Kimmel for Elephant Air
Second Place: Christopher Tarry for Calculating Stan Walderman

Poetry

First Place: Catherine Owen for Reincarnation Redux
Second Place: Mark Sampson for On Choosing a Mattress
Third Place: Leslie Timmins for Caravaggio to His Critics
Honourable Mention:Leslie Timmins for What is Served
Honourable Mention: Catherine Owen for Solace/No Solace

2010 SHORT LIST

Poetry

Palimpsest
What I did with the Remains
Solace/No Solace
Reincarnation Redux
Little Red Riding Hood 30 Years Later
Religion, Sexual Orientation or …
From the Saxon Tower to Carfax
On Choosing a Mattress
In Search of Ezra Pound
Passing
Take My Hand an Follow Me
Just to Let You Know
Friend’s Lapse into a Coma
Cessna
Corfu
Firstborn at Two
A Night Full of Rain
The Monastery
What is Served
Caravaggio to His Critics
FreeFall
Bridges
The Poetry Lesson

2010 SHORT LIST

Prose

Calculating Stan Walderman
Elephant Air
On the Hunting Room Table
Meinongs Jungle
The List
Pickles and Ice Cream
Career Options
Everywhere and Nowhere
Exposure
Love is Like Lidocaine

2010 CONTEST WINNERS

is pleased to announce the winners

Prose Winner: Flee the Rising Sun by Madelaine Wong
Poetry Winner: A Hundred Pelts by Juleta Severson-Baker

2009 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

First Place: Marilyn Gear Pilling for The Love Bites of Twenty-three Rogue Monkeys
Second Place: Barbara Parker for Bethlehem Blanket
Third Place: David Willis for Armchair Blues
Honourable Mention: Katherine Fawcett for Cannonball

Poetry

First Place: Rosemary Griebel for Hotel Room, Paris and Sparrows
Second Place: Marilyn Gear Pilling for as his God holds him and How She Remains
Third Place: George Amabile for Waking up in the Dark and
Marjorie Bruhmuller for The Puddle that Attracts the Sky
Honourable Mentions: Marilyn Gear Pilling for A Sunday Morning in February and Greg Simison for Dreams of the Grand Banks

2009 SHORT LIST

Poetry

Aila
A Sunday Morning in February
as his God holds him
Checkers
Dreams of the Grand Banks
Feast
Flock Mentality
Hotel Room, Paris
How She Remains
Insomnia
Less a Stillness, More a Lover of Flight
Lines on a map of Calgary
One Seed’s Vocation
Performance in the Bedroom and Wanting To Help
Praying with Hooligans
Scab
Solstice
Sparrows
The Blues
The Destructors
The Puddle that Attracts the Sky
The Return
The Roses from the Second Floor
To R
Travelogue
Waiting for Letters While on Sabbatical
Waking Up in the Dark
War Harvest

2009 SHORT LIST

Prose

Armchair Blues
Bethlehem Blanket
Cannonball
Cold Turkey
The Love Bites of 23 Rogue Monkeys
The Melting Snow
Origins of a Robotic Boy
Playing Dead
Powder Blue
Woman #4 Standing

2008 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

First Place – “The White Tiger”” by Paul Sammartino
Second Place – “Buryin Day Today” by Angela Day
Third Place – “Searching for the Pebble” by Diane Fretz
Honourable Mentions –“The Clay Medallion” by Beverly Rasporich

Poetry

First Place – Walking with Walt Whitman through Calgary’s Eastside” and
“My Father Comes Back as a Draught Horse” by Rosemary Griebel
Second Place – “A Kitchen Poem” and “A Measure of Taste” by Joan Shillington
Third Place – “Witness” by Pamela Porter
Honourable Mentions – “Timothy on Foot” by Angelo Giambra

2008 SHORT LIST

Poetry

1969 – Transition
A Kitchen Poem
A Measure of Taste
Freeman
Hailing Home
Letters of J-i-l-t
Meaning/Content
Meditation on Wasps
My father comes back as a draught horse
On Nine Mile Road
Screws
Sestina: Museum of Grief
Signs
Tenebrae
The Couple in the Plaza Grande
Timothy On Foot
To the Neighbour Who Asks Me What I Do
Walking with Walt Whitman through Calgary’s Eastside
What Remains
Wide Awake in Someone Else’s Dream
Witness

2008 SHORT LIST

Prose

Buryin’ Day Today
Deep as the Sea
Fragile Blue and Creamy White
Mel
Searching for the pebble
Seeds
Sing Me Home
The Bitches Titties
The Clay Medallion
The White Tiger
Trapline

2007 CONTEST WINNERS

Prose

First Place – “Treehouse” by Carin Makuz (Whitby, ON)
Second Place – “Homeland Security” by Judy Galbraith (Calgary, AB)
Third Place – “Control—1969” by Colette Maitland ( Gananoque, ON)
Honourable Mentions:
“Run Away Fish” by Jan Manchur (Victoria, BC)
“The Disappearing Act” by Andrea Beca (Edmonton, AB)
“One Friday Night” by Linda Hutsell-Manning (Cobourg, ON)

Poetry

First Place – “Nearer In” by Vicki Goodfellow-Duke (Calgary, AB)
Second Place – “Linked” by Sandra Savage (Calgary, AB)
Third Place – “Through the Looking Glass” by Barbara Green (Calgary, AB)
Honourable Mentions:
“Detachment” by Kate Marshall-Flaherty (Toronto, ON)
“Time Isn’t Linear” by Nick Fuller (Calgary, AB)
“Between Us” by Juleta Severson-Baker (Calgary, AB)

2006 CONTEST WINNERS

Fiction

First Place – “True Romance” by Beverly Rasporich, Invermere, BC
Second Place – “The Melt” by Lorraine Cathro, Calgary, AB
Third Place – “Albert & Boo”by Salvatore Difalco, Niagara Falls, ON
Honourable Mention – “A Fable from Hythe” by Jenine Safioles, Onoway, AB
Honourable Mention – “First, Do No Harm” by Penny Anne Beaudoin, Amherstburg, ON

Poetry

First Place – “The closest I ever came to finding love” by Chris Wanamaker, Calgary, AB
Second Place – “The Wolf” by Salvatore Difalco, Niagara Falls, ON
Third Place – “Hot Sheets, Really” by Wendy Joy, Edmonton, AB
Honourable Mention – “The Space In Between” by Kate Marshall-Flaherty, Toronto, ON
Honourable Mention – “Rough Crossing” by Cassy Wellburn, Calgary, AB

2005 CONTEST WINNERS

Fiction

First Place – “East of White City” by Allison Kydd, Edmonton, AB
Second Place – “The Light” by Audrey Whitson, Edmonton, AB

Poetry

First Place – “Trinity” by Marilyn Letts, Calgary, AB
Second Place – “Summer Sunset” by Rebecca Holland, Lethbridge, AB

2001 CONTEST WINNERS

Fiction

First Place – “Nature Series” by Lowell Blood, Halifax, NS
Second Place – “Civil War” by Jan Houston, Calgary, AB
Honourable mention – “Rudi” by Myriam Dostert, Vernon BC
Honourable mention – “Basics of Communication” by Ellen Kelly, Airdrie AB
Honourable mention – “Parallel Universe” by Wayne Arthurson, Edmonton AB

Poetry

First Place – “a room Prague, October 2000” by Myrna Garanis, Edmonton AB
Second Place – “La Entrada (Guatemala Poems)” by Liz Rees, Calgary AB
Honourable mention – “Recipe for Reciprocation” by Renee Norman, Coquitlam BC
Honourable mention – “A woman of a certain age” by Judith Robb, Calgary AB
Honourable mention – “Flirting the Question” by Beth Raugust, Calgary AB
Honourable mention – “me though long gone” by Sylvia Adams, Ottawa ON

2002 CONTEST WINNERS

Fiction

First Place – “Accident Prone” by Jan Houston, Calgary, AB
Second Place $100: “One Hundred Jars of Honey to Sell” by Sharon LaFrenz, Calgary, AB
Honourable mention – “In Touch With My Roots” by Vilnis Muiznieks, Calgary, AB
Honourable mention – “Coming To” by Bill Stenson, Victoria, BC
Honourable mention – “Over The Edge” by Dianne Wey, Neustadt, ON

Poetry

First Place – “Arctic Rescue” by Joan Shillington, Calgary, AB
Second Place “The Origin of Fear” by Rebecca Luce-Kapler, Kingston, ON
Honourable Mention – “The Trellis” by Carol L. MacKay, Bawlf, AB
Honourable Mention – “Adopted Means” by S. Pamela MacLean-Calabrese, Antigonish, NS
Honourable Mention – “down by the sea” by David McGinnis, Calgary, AB

2003 CONTEST WINNERS

Fiction

First Place – “Family Portrait” by Jan Houston, Calgary, AB
Second Place – “Hallowe’en Kisses” by Jayne Barnard, Calgary, AB
Honourable mention – “Nothing Sacred” by Lori Hahnel, Calgary, AB
Honourable mention – “The Perm” by Gayl Veinotte, Calgary, AB
Honourable mention – “Your Daylight Savings Family of Gremlins” by Alexander Zeleny, Windsor, ON

Poetry

First Place – “Vancouver” by Dona Sturmanis, Peachland, BC
Second Place – “Flight” by Rosemary Griebel, Calgary, AB
Honourable Mention – “The Library” by Rosemary Griebel, Calgary, AB
Honourable Mention – “Mrs. Richard Secord’s Dress” by Angela Kublik, Grand Prairie, AB
Honourable Mention – “In the aura of your mother’s death” by Doreen Nystrom, Calgary, AB

2004 CONTEST WINNERS

Fiction

First Place: “It All Started in the Gold Room” by Marguerite Deslauriers, Montreal, PQ
Second Place: Mary@MotherofGod.com by Nerys Perry, Ottawa, ON
Honourable Mention – “Rose and Rosemary” by Rachelle Pinnow, Calgary, AB

Poetry

A tie for First Place between
“Dominoes” by Keith Inman, Thorold, ON, and
“Scrip” by Janke Wielenga Thunder Bay, ON
Second Place – “An Ode to the Seamstress Who Repaired the Zipper in My Jacket” by Anna Mioduchowska
Honourable Mention – “Midnight Smoke” by Keith Inman, Thorold, ON