The Writers' Trust of Canada announced that Cooper Skjeie (poetry) and Zak Jones (short fiction) are winners of this year's RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, which was established in memory of poet and short story writer Bronwen Wallace and "has a track record of identifying future Canadian writing stars." Each winning author receives C$10,000 (about US$7,445).
Skjeie won for his poetry collection Scattered Oblation, which, the jury said, "paints an exquisite landscape. The poems are simultaneously soft and gritty, inviting introspection, exposing dark truths, and demanding imperative answers. Wonder and rage coexist in this collection, producing a scintillating narrative that is both personal and universal, seemingly expanding the bounds of time and space while remaining firmly rooted in the fundamental urgency of Indigenous land sovereignty."
Jones won for his short story collection So Much More to Say, in which, according to the jury, he "digs his shovel into narrative terrain perpetually at the risk of breaking apart, much like the flooding South Carolina cemetery where his story is set. We are invited into the world of a young gravedigger who has the Sisyphean task of reburying the bloated bodies that come loose after rains free them from the red mud in which they have been encased. Navigating race relations and human dignity, the impeccable drawl of the author's first-person narrator turns potential horrors into profundities, and cautionary tales into wisdoms."
The other finalists for the poetry prize were diasporic dissonance by Kyo Lee and Notes on the Non-Place by Dore Prieto. The other short fiction prize finalists were Mama's Lullabies by Vincent Anioke and Triggered by Zilla Jones. Each writer receives C$2,500 (about US$1,860).