Creative Nonfiction Winner:

This Boy by Angela Kenyon, Vancouver

Comments from Judge JJ Lee:

In a short space, the writer brings us to a time in her youth when her growing interest in boys competes with her regard of her father. The parallel between her feelings for her father and her adoration of a pop star is clear, and what emerges is a surprisingly loving portrait of the parent. The story is simply told. It's rooted in the sense of scene and setting. There is an economy in the action which drives the plot. The meaning of the story is in the events rather than through the manipulation of structure (for example leaping flashbacks) or language (where an arch literary device is employed). Here the writer trusts her story. The conflict is one everyone can identify with, and while there is a surprise near the end, what makes the story captivating is the resolution between the narrator and her father. Sometimes you have to stand aside and let a lovely memory tell its own story. The writer did just that. Bravo.

Creative Nonfiction Runner Up:

My Heart is a Cedar by Fay Roth, Mayne Island

Comments from Judge JJ Lee:

In My Heart Is a Cedar, the writer constructs with skill and with a good connection to her own thoughts and feelings a story about loss, grief, and forgiveness. Each inset memory, each subsequent scene, as she moves through the phases of attending to the dead and death's aftermath, all help articulate the building sense of loss and, more importantly, guilt in the narrator. The writer doesn't waste words with elliptical asides or the type of information you can pull from the internet. Her specificity matters here. The movement and measure of grief are set on page with each small section. Until, when the pressure is at its highest, she allows the space for forgiveness. In a small space, she was able to map a vast emotional movement and personal growth. I hope the work was as healing to write as it was to read. Wonderful work.

Flash Fiction Winner:

Three Things I Like About My Cactus by Susan Down, Victoria

Comments from Judge Dr. Finnian Burnett:

This story combines a seemingly mundane list about a plant with the poignant, often heartbreaking journey of a child going through the foster system. The list seems simple at first—things I like about my cactus—but the interwoven relationship between the cactus and the events of the main character’s life brings out the story in subtle ways. The author develops the narrator’s voice beautifully, in an almost matter of fact voice—a tone that creates dissonance with the real trauma of the main character and also brings the reader into the world of someone who has had to learn how to suppress their feelings in order to survive. The cactus metaphor parallels the narrator’s journey, often stunning in its simplicity, and always believably seen through the eyes of a child. “A cactus can stay with you,” the narrator writes in their list, and the underlying subtext is that people don’t. This story will stay with me for a long time.

Flash Fiction Runner Up:

Harold and Peg by Linda K. Thompson, Port Alberni

Comments from Judge Dr. Finnian Burnett:

This story is deceptively simple—a senior couple who have made a life together in a way that works for them. But the subtle humour of this story makes it stand out. The author blends the surreal, a splitting of everything down the middle, with the real—a couple who are tired of having to compromise and tells a story of an entire lifetime in just a few short words. The author also manages to drive home the theme with the last sentence—carrying through both the absurdity and the humour. An absolutely delightful story with characters who somehow feel quite genuine and believable, fleshed out through the details of their rather unusual agreement.