Jury Citation

“‘How the Grizzly Came to Hang in the Royal Oak Hotel’ by J.R. McConvey is a story about a discharged soldier who has returned from Afghanistan and is tasked to take down a bear that has been brought into a hotel for a film shoot. It’s a story that packs a variety of punches, which the writer manages to deliver in just ten pages. There is tragedy. There is humour. There is cold ambition. There is mourning. There is gain and there is loss. Most significant, there is the story that ripples beneath the words on the page, allowing us to explore it on our own terms. With McConvey, readers are in very good hands.” — 2016 Journey Prize jury (Kate Cayley, Brian Francis, and Madeleine Thien)