The Journey Prize (officially called The Writers' Trust of Canada McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize) is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by McClelland and Stewart and the Writers' Trust of Canada for the best short stories published by an emerging writer in a Canadian literary magazine. The award was endowed by James A. Michener, who donated the Canadian royalty earnings from his 1988 novel Journey. [1]
From the award's inception until 2023, a single story was named the winner and received CA$10,000, making it the largest monetary award given in Canada to an up-and-coming writer for a short story or excerpt from a fiction work-in-progress.
The prize's winner in 2000, Timothy Taylor, was the first writer ever to have three stories nominated for the award in the same year. [2]
The Journey Prize also publishes an annual anthology of the year's longlisted short stories. Two writers, Andrew MacDonald and David Bergen, have both had a record four total stories selected for inclusion in the annual anthology.
In 2020, the Journey Prize committee announced that the upcoming award would be a special edition devoted exclusively to Black Canadian writers, considering stories published in multiple years. [3] Although the initial report was that the special Black Canadian edition of the award would be presented in 2021 for stories published in 2019, 2020 and 2021, [3] the organizers instead paused the award for 2021 and 2022, and presented a special Black Canadian award in early 2023 to honour works published since 2020. [4] At the same time, they announced that the award will no longer select a single prize winner, and instead all of the writers whose stories are selected for inclusion in the anthology will henceforth be deemed equal winners of the award and will receive $1,000 each in prize money.
Year | Author | Title | Ref |
---|---|---|---|
1989 | Holley Rubinsky | "Rapid Transits" | [5] |
Year | Author | Title | Ref |
---|---|---|---|
1990 | Cynthia Flood | "My Father Took a Cake to France" | [6] |
1991 | Yann Martel | "The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios" | [7] |
Diana Hartog | "Theories of Grief" | [8] | |
Diane Keating | "The Salem Letters" | [8] | |
1992 | Rozena Maart | "No Rosa, No District Six" | [9] |
Steven Heighton | "How Beautiful Upon the Mountains" | [10] | |
Diane Juttner Perreault | "Bella's Story" | [10] | |
1993 | Gayla Reid | "Sister Doyle's Men" | [11] |
Marina Endicott | "With the Band" | [12] | |
Carol Windley | "The Etruscans" | [12] | |
1994 | Melissa Hardy | "Long Man the River" | [13] |
Anne Carson | "Water Margins" | [14] | |
Robert Mullen | "Anomie" | [14] | |
1995 | Kathryn Woodward | "Of Marranos and Gilded Angels" | [15] |
Gabriella Goliger | "Song of Ascent" | [16] | |
Elizabeth Hay | "Hand Games" | [16] | |
1996 | Elyse Gasco | "Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby?" | [17] |
Danuta Gleed | "Bones" | [17] | |
Rick Maddocks | "Lessons from the Sputnik Diner" | [17] | |
1997 | Gabriella Goliger | "Maladies of the Inner Ear" | [18] |
Anne Simpson | "Dreaming Snow" | [18] | |
Mark Anthony Jarman | "Speedboat" | [18] | |
1998 | John Brooke | "The Finer Points of Apples" | [19] |
Ian Colford | "The Reason for the Dream" | [20] | |
Stephen Guppy | "Downwind" | [20] | |
1999 | Alissa York | "The Back of the Bear’s Mouth" | [21] |
Year | Author | Title | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2000 | Timothy Taylor | "Doves of Townsend" | [2] |
2001 | Kevin Armstrong | "The Cane Field" | [22] |
Vivette J. Kady | "Anything That Wiggles" | [23] | |
Heather O'Neill | "Little Suitcase" | [23] | |
2002 | Jocelyn Brown | "Miss Canada" | [24] |
Geoffrey Brown | "Listen" | [25] | |
Neil Smith | "Green Fluorescent Protein" | [25] | |
2003 | Jessica Grant | "My Husband’s Jump" | [26] |
Dawn Rae Downton | "Hansel and Gretel" | [27] | |
Charlotte Gill | "Hush" | [27] | |
2004 | Devin Krukoff | "The Last Spark" | [28] |
Kenneth Bonert | "Packers and Movers" | [29] | |
Elaine McCluskey | "The Watermelon Social" | [29] | |
2005 | Matt Shaw | "Matchbook for a Mother's Hair" | [30] |
Krista Bridge | "A Matter of Firsts" | [31] | |
Barbara Romanik | "Seven Ways to Chandigarh" | [31] | |
2006 | Heather Birrell | "BriannaSusannaAlana" | [32] |
Lee Henderson | "Conjugation" | [33] | |
Martin West | "Cretacea" | [33] | |
2007 | Craig Boyko | "Ozy" | [34] |
Krista Foss | "Swimming in Zanzibar" | [35] | |
Rebecca Rosenblum | "Chilly Girl" | [35] | |
2008 | Saleema Nawaz | "My Three Girls" | [36] |
Dana Mills | "Steaming for Godthab" | [37] | |
Clea Young | "Chaperone" | [37] | |
2009 | Yasuko Thanh | "Floating Like the Dead" | [38] |
Daniel Griffin | "The Last Great Works of Alvin Cale" | [39] | |
Dave Margoshes | "The Wisdom of Solomon" | [39] |
Year | Author | Title | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | Devon Code | "Uncle Oscar" | [40] |
Krista Foss | "The Longitude of Okay" | [41] | |
Lynne Kutsukake | "Mating" | [41] | |
2011 | Miranda Hill | "Petitions to Saint Chronic" | [42] |
Seyward Goodhand | "The Fur Trader's Daughter" | [43] | |
Ross Klatte | "First-Calf Heifer" | [43] | |
2012 | Alex Pugsley | "Crisis on Earth-X" | [44] |
Kevin Hardcastle | "To Have to Wait" | [45] | |
Andrew Hood | "Manning" | [45] | |
2013 | Naben Ruthnum | "Cinema Rex" | [46] |
Doretta Lau | "How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?" | [47] | |
Eliza Robertson | "My Sister Sang" | [47] | |
2014 | Tyler Keevil | "Sealskin" | [48] |
Lori McNulty | "Monsoon Season" | [48] | |
Clea Young | "Juvenile" | [48] | |
2015 | Deirdre Dore | "The Wise Baby" | [49] |
Emily Bossé | "Last Animal Standing on Gentleman’s Farm" | [50] | |
Anna Ling Kaye | "Red Egg and Ginger" | [50] | |
2016 | Colette Langlois | "The Emigrants" | [51] |
Charlie Fiset | "If I Ever See the Sun" | [52] | |
J. R. McConvey | "How the Grizzly Came to Hang in the Royal Oak Hotel" | [52] | |
2017 | Sharon Bala | "Butter Tea at Starbucks" | [53] |
Darlene Naponse | "She Is Water" | [53] | |
2018 | Shashi Bhat | "Mute" | [54] |
Greg Brown | "Love" | [55] | |
Liz Harmer | "Never Prosper" | [55] | |
2019 | Angélique Lalonde | "Pooka" | [56] |
Kai Conradi | "Every True Artist" | [57] | |
Samantha Jude Macpherson | "The Fish and the Dragons" | [57] |
Year | Author | Title | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2020 | Jessica Johns | "Bad Cree" | [58] |
Lisa Foad | "Hunting" | [59] | |
David Huebert | "Chemical Valley" | ||
2021 | No award presented | ||
2022 | No award presented | ||
2023 | Christina Cooke | [60] | |
A. Z. Farah | |||
Zilla Jones | |||
Sarah Kabamba | |||
Terese Mason Pierre | |||
Téa Mutonji | |||
Lue Palmer | |||
Jasmine Sealy | |||
Dianah Smith | |||
Iryn Tushabe |