The Writers' Union of Canada is pleased to announce that Zoe Stikeman has won the seventeenth annual Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers, for the best story under 2,500 words, with her piece "Phone Calls I Never Had." The author will receive a $2,500 cash prize. In addition, the Union will submit the winning story and the other eleven finalists’ stories to three Canadian magazine publishers for their consideration.

The Union initiated the Short Prose Competition in 1993 in honour of its twentieth anniversary. The Competition aims to discover, encourage, and promote new writers of short prose who are not yet published in book format, in order to provide opportunity and exposure to developing writers. This year, twenty-two Union members donated their time and expertise to read over 400 outstanding submissions and distil them into a longlist of over one hundred stories. These stories went on to a second round of twenty-four readers who selected the finalists to pass on to the 2009 Jury: David Bergen, Cynthia Flood and Trevor Ferguson.

WINNER:
"Phone Calls I Never Had” by Zoe Stikeman

The Jury noted that “flair, originality and a real internal sense of character distinguishes Phone Calls I Never Had by Zoe Stikeman. There’s no attempt to straighten out a mixed-up internal world, simply a willingness to explore it and shine a light on it. The story successfully conveys the strangeness of life as encountered by a precocious adolescent.”

Zoe Stikeman writes and instructs yoga in Edmonton, Alberta. Her fiction has been published in the American journals, Red Rock Review and Nimrod International Journal. One of her works received honourable mention for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction in the 2006 Nimrod/Hardman Awards. Zoe is presently writing a collection of short fiction and completing her MFA in Creative Writing through the University of British Columbia.

FINALISTS:

John Blackmore
"Ash"

Patricia Calder
"Deadhead"

Pamela Isfeld
"Unintended Consequences"

Karen Kachra
"Durian Season"

Kim Kellett
"Creamy"

Sheila McClarty
"Never An Unkind Word""

Judith Millar
"Cerulean"

Renate Mohr
"Double Glass Doors"

Jennifer Neri
"Preserved Under Plastic"

Heather Tucker
"Damn Yangtze"

Crystal Wood
"First of Nine"

READERS FOR THE COMPETITION:
Alice Zorn, Andrew Hood, Anne Sorbie, Cathleen With, Christine Welldon, CJ Carmichael, Clayton Bailey, Dannabang Kuwabong, Dave Glaze, David Homel, Debbie Spring, Eleanor Millard, Elizabeth Neill, George Payerle, Gina Roitman, Glynn Leyshon, Heidi Greco, Holley Rubinsky, Hugh McCracken, Jean Mallinson, Judith Meyrick, Nan Gregory, Shelley Leedahl, Sue Donaldson, Ann Birch, Anne Ewan, Betty Cullen, Betty Jane Wylie, Bryna Wasserman, Carolyn Gossage, Cheryl Antao-Xavier, Fred Kerner, Jean Rae Baxter, Jennifer Maruno, Judy Creighton, Julia Moulden, Lorraine Williams, Lynn Westerhout, Marg Wilson, Michael Mortensen, Monica Kulling, Olga M. Dey-Bergmoser, Shannon Bramer, Sidura Ludwig, Simon Leigh, and Thelma Barer-Stein.

FINAL JURY:
David Bergen, Cynthia Flood and Trevor Ferguson

The Writers' Union of Canada is our country's national organization representing professional authors of books. Founded in 1973, the Union is dedicated to fostering writing in Canada, and promoting the rights, freedoms, and economic well being of all writers. For more information, please visit www.writersunion.ca.

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For additional information:
Fan Li, Projects Coordinator
The Writers’ Union of Canada
416.703.8982 Ext. 226
fli@writersunion.ca