2012 Writers’ Trust / McClelland Stewart Journey Prize
Two Nova Scotian authors are in the running for the prestigious Writers’ Trust / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. The $10,000 Journey Prize, now known as The Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, is awarded annually to an emerging 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 royalties earnings from his novel Journey, published by McClelland & Stewart in 1988. The Journey Prize itself is the most significant monetary award given in Canada to a developing writer for a short story or excerpt from a fiction work-in-progress. ~~~ Halifax author Andrew Hood has been nominated for his short story Manning, originally published in PRISM International and now available in his recent short fiction collection, Cloaca. (M) About the Story: After months of trying to sell the worthless collection of sports cards his no-good father left behind, a boy is unprepared for an encounter with the “pile of human being” who wants to buy a card. About the Author: Andrew Hood is the author of the short story collections Pardon Our Monsters (Véhicule Press, 2007) and, most recently, The Cloaca (Invisible Publishing, 2012). He has lived in Guelph, Montreal, and Halifax, and may currently be living in any one of these places. ~~~ Alex Pugsley is nominated for Crisis on Earth -X, originally published in The Dalhousie Review (back issues are available in our Reference Department). About the Story: Over the course of a single summer in 1970’s Halifax, a crisis within a young boy’s family leads him to question his once-unshakable faith in his uncle. About the Author: Alex Pugsley is a writer and filmmaker from Nova Scotia. As a screenwriter, he has written for performers such as Scott Thompson, Mark McKinney, Dan Aykroyd, Seán Cullen, and Michael Cera. He is the co-author of the novel Kay Darling, and his fiction has appeared in Brick, Descant, The Dalhousie Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, This Magazine, The Queen Street Quarterly, and other periodicals. “Crisis on Earth-X” is the fifth published story in a narrative series about the McKee and Mair families, set in twentieth-century Halifax. ~~~ Also in the running is Kevin Hardcastle for his story To Have To Wait, first published in The Malahat Review. About the Story: In a poignant mediation on family and the things we try to recover of the past, two brothers embark on a road trip to bring their recovering father home from the hospital. About the Author: Kevin Hardcastle is a fiction writer from Simcoe County, Ontario. His short stories have been published in Word Riot, subTerrain Magazine, and The Malahat Review. An excerpt from a novel-in-progress was recently published in Noir Nation: International Journal of Crime Fiction. He has studied writing at the University of Toronto and at Cardiff University.
