Jury Citation
“‘The Perfect Home for Your Child’ brings equal measures of acuity and empathy to its story of a would-be adoptive couple as they wait for a prospective birth mother to decide if she will keep her child. With an exquisite breathlessness mirroring the couple’s nerve-racked hopes, Graham Slaughter offers an intimate perspective on byzantine regulations, daunting financial barriers, and the complicated bonds between strangers amid emotional tumult. Taut, heartbreaking, and hopeful, it’s a story in which the family’s future is less a branching tree than a garden of forking paths.”—2026 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers Creative Nonfiction Jury (Alison Calder, Robert McGill, Padma Viswanathan) Jury Citation
“‘Breach’ transforms personal grief into a resonant exploration of fatherhood, masculinity, and reconciliation with raw honesty and evocative lyricism. Graham Slaughter skillfully balances narrative with introspection and metaphor, weaving together a poignant birth story, a father’s late-life suicide, and the haunting image of whales breaching — creatures both distant and awe-inspiring. This beautifully crafted, vulnerable essay lingers in the mind, marking Slaughter as a writer of immense depth, skill, and courage.”—2025 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award creative nonfiction jury (Omar Mouallem, Alessandra Naccarato, and Lindsay Wong) 
