The Writers' Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize
Winner: $10,000; Winning publisher: $2,000

The Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize is awarded annually to a new and developing writer of distinction for a short story published in a Canadian literary publication.

This award is made possible by James A. Michener’s generous donation of his Canadian royalty earnings from his novel Journey, published by McClelland & Stewart in 1988.

The Journey Prize is the most significant monetary award given in Canada to a writer at the beginning of his or her career for a short story or excerpt from a fiction work-in-progress.

2009 Winner

Yasuko Thanh for “Floating like the Dead,” published in Vancouver Review

"Set in a fictionalized turn-of-the century leper colony off the B.C. mainland, Yasuko Thanh’s “Floating Like the Dead” renders a largely unknown world familiar by immersing us in the daily lives and quiet pain of its remaining inhabitants. We fear for their mortality as we watch them waste away in quarantine off the edge of the continent, but we also experience the exquisite agony and beauty of Gold Tooth’s inability to feel silk against the skin, and Ah Sing’s inability to say what he ardently feels. Using artfully simple language, Thanh has crafted a story of powerfully resonant emotion with tremendous restraint – a gift that respects both her characters and her readers.

-2009 Jury (Camilla Gibb, Lee Henderson and Rebecca Rosenblum)

2009 Finalists

Daniel Griffin for “The Last Great Works of Alvin Cale,” published in The Dalhousie Review
Dave Margoshes for “The Wisdom of Solomon,” published in The Dalhousie Review

Follow these links to story descriptions and photos.

Previous Winners

2008 Saleema Nawaz for My Three Girls
2007 Craig Boyko for OZY
2006 Heather Birrell for BriannaSusannaAlana
2005 Matt Shaw for Matchbook for a Mother's Hair
2004 Devin Krukoff for The Last Spark
2003 Jessica Grant for My Husband's Jump
2002 Jocelyn Brown for Miss Canada
2001 Kevin Armstrong for The Cane Field
2000 Timothy Taylor for Doves of Townsend
1999 Alissa York for The Back of the Bear’s Mouth
1998 John Brooke for The Finer Points of Apples
1997 (tie) Gabriella Goliger for Maladies of the Inner Ear and Anne Simpson for Dreaming Snow
1996 Elyse Gasco for Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby?
1995 Kathryn Woodward for Of Marranos and Gilded Angels
1994 Melissa Hardy for Long Man the River
1993 Gayla Reid for Sister Doyle’s Men
1992 Rozena Maart for No Rosa, No District Six
1991 Yann Martel for The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios
1990 Cynthia Flood for My Father Took a Cake to France
1989 Holley Rubinsky for Rapid Transits

Guidelines (click to download PDF)