Journey Prize Series

For more than thirty years, this celebrated anthology has introduced readers to the next generation of great Canadian writers. With settings ranging from a Saskatchewan wheat field marked by crop circles to a dystopian metropolis where people are under constant surveillance, the twelve stories in this collection represent the year’s best short fiction by some of our most exciting emerging voices.

An aspiring artist looking for inspiration in the “aliveness of the desert” gets less–and more–than she bargained for when she signs up for a residency at a roadside motel. After years of toiling to pay off a debt that has devastated his family, a young Chinese fisherman makes a magical catch that will change the course of his life. As a populist candidate stands poised to triumph at a political convention, his campaign strategist and childhood best friend reflects on the dark legacy of their relationship. A brutal assault on a Toronto taxi driver leads his friend on a desperate search for answers. When troubling stories of women’s encounters with aliens start to dominate the news cycle, a reporter reluctantly returns to her hometown to cover the phenomenon. A carpet collector reimagines his family’s fractured history by weaving new tapestries to tell their stories. Unsure of whether his client is really dying, an end-of-life gift professional must assess the man’s extravagant last wish. A Ktunaxa grandmother tells a parable of why you shouldn’t speak to Kupi (owl) at night.

From its first edition in 1989, this celebrated annual fiction anthology has consistently introduced readers to the next generation of great Canadian writers. With settings ranging from Thailand and war-torn Vietnam to a tiki bar in the Prairies, the thirteen stories in this collection represent the year’s best short fiction by some of our most exciting emerging writers.

A friendship between two older women frays at the seams during a trip to Barcelona. After the sudden death of her grandmother, a student from Uganda finds solace in a chance encounter. Confused parents can only watch as their son’s precocious understanding of the path to enlightenment leads him further into the unknown. The complexities of love reveal themselves as a family gathers by their mother’s deathbed to say goodbye. As she waits to confront a student who has cheated on an assignment, a philosophy professor must contend with surprising photos posted on Facebook. A man begins a relationship with a scientist who wears a mechanical bear suit. While her community mourns in the aftermath of a tragedy, a woman must face her own complicity in what happened to her best friend. After she makes an instant connection with a man during a day trip to the Smithsonian, a writing student’s struggle to find her own voice takes on greater urgency when he visits her at home. When a family reunion at a lakeside cottage is interrupted by the search for a drowned man’s body, long-submerged desires and resentments gradually surface. Two sex addicts fall into a complicated sort of love.

Like The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and the Best American Short Stories series, The Journey Prize Stories is one of the most celebrated annual literary anthologies in North America. For almost 30 years, the anthology has consistently introduced readers to the next generation of great Canadian authors, a tradition that proudly continues with this latest edition. With settings ranging from wartime China to an island off the coast of British Columbia, the ten stories in this collection represent the year’s best short fiction by some of our most exciting emerging voices.     
        A young boy who believes he is being stalked by an unstoppable, malevolent entity discovers that he may not be the only one. In a sweeping story set against the fall of Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War, a pregnant woman waits anxiously for her doctor husband to leave the city before it’s too late. A river that runs through a First Nations community is the source of sustenance, escape, and tragedy for a girl and her family. The haunting footage of the politically motivated self-immolation has unexpected reverberations for a Tibetan-Canadian woman dealing with multiple conflicts in her own life. A man who works a back-breaking job at an industrial mat cleaning service is pushed to his limit. When her mother has to return to Kinshasa to bury a family member, a girl gradually learns of the intricacy and depth of grief, in an evocative piece that illuminates the cultural gaps common within immigrant families, and the power of food and stories to bridge them.     
        The stories included in the anthology are contenders for the $10,000 Journey Prize, which is made possible by Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener’s donation of Canadian royalties from his novel Journey, which McClelland & Stewart published in 1988. The 2017 winner will be announced by the Writers’ Trust of Canada in November 2017.

The celebrated annual fiction collection showcasing the best stories by the best new writers in Canada, all contenders for the prestigious $10,000 Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize.


Like the O. Henry Prize Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and the Best American Short Stories series, The Journey Prize Stories is one of the most celebrated annual literary anthologies in North America. But what makes it unique is its commitment to showcasing the best short stories published each year by some of Canada’s most exciting new and emerging writers. For more than 25 years, the anthology has consistently introduced readers to the next generation of great Canadian authors, a tradition that proudly continues with this latest edition.
     The stories included in the anthology are contenders for the $10,000 Journey Prize, which is made possible by Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener’s donation of Canadian royalties from his novel Journey. The 2016 winner will be announced by the Writers’ Trust of Canada in November 2016.

“Expect pleasure. Expect delight. Expect surprise. Expect these twelve writers to emerge as some of this country’s most interesting voices.”
Anthony De Sa, Tanis Rideout, and Carrie Snyder (from their Introduction)
 
The celebrated annual collection showcasing the best stories by the best new writers in Canada, all contenders for the prestigious $10,000 Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. A must-read for anyone looking for exciting new voices in Canadian fiction.
 
For three decades, this acclaimed annual anthology has introduced readers to the next generation of great Canadian writers. With settings ranging from a small-town hobby farm to the streets of Hong Kong, from a dance club in 1979 to the years after the end of the world, the twelve stories in this collection represent the year’s best short fiction by some of our most exciting emerging writers.
Among the stories this year: When Mercy Beatrice decides to seek out her long-lost father against the advice of her late pro-wrestler mother, she discovers that wrestling may be in her blood. After her dying husband makes a surprising wish, a woman sets herself the task of finding him a lover. A young man—lost and craving reinvention—makes the unlikely trip back to his hometown after he inherits his uncle’s farm. In a touching story about the intersection between Chinese tradition and modern expectations, a woman must weigh the possibilities in her own life when her family prepares for the naming ceremony for her cousin’s month-old baby. A philosophy student struggling with a broken heart and the meaning of Being must also contend with her new neighbours and their wildly precocious infant. Two travellers in desperate straits look for refuge on a remote Italian farm that proves to be anything but idyllic.
The stories included in the anthology are contenders for the $10,000 Journey Prize, which is made possible by Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener’s donation of Canadian royalties from his novel Journey. The 2015 winner will be announced by the Writers’ Trust of Canada on November 3, 2015.
For more information: www.facebook.com/TheJourneyPrize

For more than twenty-five years, The Journey Prize Stories has been Canada’s most celebrated annual fiction anthology and a who’s who of up-and-coming writers. With settings ranging from Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music to a hospital ward in Thailand, from British Columbia’s Burrard Inlet to St. John’s Bowring Park, the stories in this collection represent the year’s best short fiction by some of our most exciting new writers.
Among the stories this year: A woman’s quest to trend on social media blinds her to her inability to connect with her own adult daughter. The delicate equilibrium maintained by a newly pregnant expat living in Israel is shattered when a missile lands in her backyard. An unusual guide to caring for an exotic pet highlights the many opportunities owners will have to learn valuable life lessons – beginning with the pet’s death. The tender relationship between two musical prodigies is no match for the machinations of the adult world. After a woman returns to her parents’ house to recuperate from a life-changing surgery, she discovers how difficult it is for others to accept who she has become. A terrible act of cruelty forces the tensions between two workers at a fish processing plant to spill out into the surrounding waters. When a former couple has a chance encounter on a B.C. ferry, old grievances and desires alike resurface with surprising results.

“This year, eighty-one different stories battled for our affections, ranging in content from a post-apocalyptic suburb coping with rumours of cannibalism, to a movie theatre in Mauritius where dreams of a better future flicker onscreen, to a mattress store where a long-lasting friendship threatens to come undone. For each of us, it was a chance to partake in a process that now stretches back twenty-five years, a sneak peak at authors who – in the future – will likely become favourites.”
–Miranda Hill, Mark Medley, and Russell Wangersky (from their Introduction)
 
Among the stories this year: Brimming with restless energy, Doretta Lau’s “How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?” is a sometimes provocative portrait of adolescent angst and rebellion set among a gang of “dragoons” growing up in Vancouver. It vividly brings to life a twenty-first-century culture clash and illuminates the struggles, and alienation, of Chinese youth – whether from Hong Kong or the Mainland – now living in “Lotus Land.” Doretta Lau’s story positively hums, the language a well-shaken cocktail of influences ranging from hip-hop and Asian cinema to Chinese history and “the slang of the West.” As vibrant and colourful as graffiti.
Well-timed and yet still carefully fractured enough to be jarring, Eliza Robertson’s “My Sister Sang” is a marvel of unexpected directions and sharp edges. A deftly-told story of two eavesdroppers, one a linguist, the other, professionally tuned to acoustics, who listen – over and over – to every scrap of a tragedy. Even with the distance and detachment of its characters from the centre of its disaster, there is no easy peace, no mere scientific examination of cause and effect: this is writing as carefully crafted and fine as pastry, with thin, perfect layers where every line serves to strengthen the rest.
Naben Ruthnum’s “Cinema Rex” is as rich and visual as the films at its centre, which play on the new movie screen in one neighbourhood of Mauritius in the 1950s. The author beautifully draws the connections between the changing community, inundated by Hollywood and after-school English lessons, and a season of vital shifts for three friends transitioning out of boyhood. Full of heady sensory details, Ruthnum’s deft observations of family and class interactions create an entire world of established histories and hierarchies, even though the reader is only privy to a sliver of these stories.

The Journey Prize Stories is Canada’s most celebrated annual fiction anthology. With settings ranging from Mount St. Helens, Barcelona, Halifax, Victoria Island, and Alberta’s Red River Badlands, these stories represent the year’s best short fiction by some of our most exciting emerging writers.
Among the stories this year: After months of trying to sell the worthless collection of sports cards his no-good father left behind, a boy is unprepared for a bizarre and surprisingly hilarious encounter with the “pile of human being” who wants to buy a card to complete his collection. In a story that balances wry humour with moments of sharp tension, a teenager with a crush on her high school English teacher blithely channels her frustrations by going on online dates with an older man. Two brothers embark on a road trip to bring their recovering father home from the hospital, in a poignant mediation on family and the things we try to recover of the past. Over the course of a single summer in 1970s Halifax, as shifting social mores lead to a crisis within his family, a boy obsessed with comic books begins to question his once unshakable faith in his uncle.

Discover some of Canada’s best new writers with this highly acclaimed annual anthology, made possible by the generosity of Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener.

For more than two decades, The Journey Prize Stories has been presenting the best short stories published each year by some of Canada’s most exciting new writers. Previous contributors — including such now well-known, bestselling writers as Yann Martel, Elizabeth Hay, Annabel Lyon, Lisa Moore, Heather O’Neill, Pasha Malla, Timothy Taylor, M.G. Vassanji, and Alissa York — have gone on to win prestigious literary awards and honours, including the Booker Prize, the Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Governor General’s Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and CBC’s Canada Reads competition. The stories included in the anthology are contenders for the $10,000 Journey Prize, which is made possible by Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener’s donation of Canadian royalties from his novel Journey. The winner will be announced in fall 2011.

Among the stories this year: In a moving story about faith and the hope for redemption, a trio of strangers keeps vigil in a hospital waiting room for a man who has miraculously survived a fall from twenty-four storeys. A glamorous party provides the backdrop for a monologue – at once deftly comic and uncomfortably familiar – by a wannabe poet desperate to impress. Over the course of a single day, the eldest son of a cattle farmer must contend with new rites and old burdens, in an elemental story of fathers and sons. When a disgruntled employee decides to take measures into her own hands, she is unprepared for the consequences. In a spellbinding postmodern fairy tale, bears, bees, and shrinking humans populate the small world of the fur trader’s daughter, who is more than she appears to be.

Discover the next generation of great Canadian writers with this highly acclaimed annual anthology.

For more than two decades, The Journey Prize Stories has been presenting the best short stories published each year by some of Canada’s most exciting up-and-coming new writers. Previous contributors — including such now well-known, bestselling writers as Yann Martel, Elizabeth Hay, Michael Crummey, Annabel Lyon, Lisa Moore, Heather O’Neill, Pasha Malla, Timothy Taylor, M.G. Vassanji, and Alissa York — have gone on to win prestigious literary awards and honours, including the Booker Prize, the Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Governor General’s Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and CBC’s Canada Reads competition.

The stories included in the anthology are contenders for the $10,000 Journey Prize, which is made possible by Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener’s donation of Canadian royalties from his novel Journey. The winner will be announced in fall 2010.

“The collection consistently does what the oeuvre does best: communicate intense emotion with force, give life to characters that struggle with their circumstances, illuminate the universal through the specific and the particular, and turn the commonplace into art.” Globe and Mail  

“[The anthology] amuses, astonishes, and enlightens; it is a delicious cacophony of voices and engaging stories . . .”Books in Canada
 
 
The Journey Prize Stories is Canada’s most celebrated annual fiction anthology, presenting the best stories published each year by some of our most exciting up-and-coming writers.
 
Among the stories this year: Desperate to reinvent himself, a disgraced diplomat on what will be the last assignment of his career goes in search of a woman from his past in Eastern Croatia. As a teacher begins to unravel in the aftermath of a school shooting, a series of surprising encounters with her former students reveals their differing degrees of resiliency. Bench presses and Wonder Woman comics create an unexpected intimacy between a teenager and her Ukrainian-language tutor, a former female champion weightlifter. After his junkie uncle moves into the basement to hide out from his dealer and get clean, a lonely boy’s longing for a male role model threatens to lead him astray. When a famous author finds himself embroiled in a sex scandal while on his book tour, he discovers the only person he has left to turn to is his handler, a woman with secrets of her own.  Cultural tradition gives way to modern-day Japanese efficiency when a long-married couple attend a meeting of Concerned Parents of Unmarried Offspring, a speed dating event for parents in search of spouses for their adult children. 
             
The stories included in the anthology are contenders for the $10,000 Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. The winner will be announced in fall 2010.

“Considering the number of popular and prize-winning writers who have a Journey Prize as part of their resume, it’s no exaggeration to suggest that this volume is the future of Canadian writing. . . . And the future seems bright indeed.” —Robert Wiersema, Ottawa Citizen

The Journey Prize Stories is widely celebrated as the premiere showcase for new writing in Canada, and a virtual who’s who of up-and-coming literary talents. Readers of the anthology have consistently been among the first to discover such now well-known writers as André Alexis, David Bergen, Michael Crummey, Elizabeth Hay, Yann Martel, Lisa Moore, Heather O’Neill, Eden Robinson, Neil Smith, Timothy Taylor, Madeleine Thien, M.G. Vassanji, and Alissa York, among many others. With this twentieth edition, featuring an introduction by the jury and comments from a stellar group of high-profile past contributors, The Journey Prize Stories continues to take the pulse of Canada’s literary scene.

The stories included in the anthology are contenders for the $1,000 Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize.

For almost two decades, The Journey Prize Stories has been taking the pulse of Canada’s literary scene, presenting the best stories published each year by some of our most exciting up-and-coming writers.

Among the stories this year: A holdup marks the beginning of a spectacularly ill-fated romance between a free spirit and a man with the heart and soul of “a criminal born.” When her young imagination is captured by a photo of a Hungarian refugee child, a girl becomes determined to make the orphan a part of her family’s life. In a story set in Venice, amid complications both legal and romantic, a Canadian expat comes to understand the restless path his father’s life has taken. A boy discovers something about fame, mortality, and triple force fields when the kids in his neighbourhood vie for a coveted spot on an arcade game’s high-scores list. In a modern fairytale with a twist, a woman who is always cold is given an unexpected gift. A near-drowning in the Indian Ocean reveals difficult truths to a documentary filmmaker during what is supposed to be a career-advancing trip.

Discover the intriguing and diverse voices of Canada’s new literary writers in this popular and nationally acclaimed annual anthology

"There’s nothing else like it in Canada. . . . The Journey Prize anthology has become the proving ground for new, young Canadian writers, a who’s who of the coming generation. . . . I, for one, owe everything to the Journey Prize." – Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi

The $10,000 Journey Prize, now known as 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 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 writer at the beginning of his or her career for a short story or excerpt from a fiction work-in-progress.

The winner of the Journey Prize is selected from among the stories that appear in the current volume of The Journey Prize Stories, published annually in the fall by McClelland & Stewart.

For over a decade The Journey Prize Stories has established itself as one of the most prestigious anthologies in the country, introducing readers to the best new Canadian writers from coast to coast. It has become a who’s who of up-and-coming writers, and many of the authors whose early work has appeared in the anthology have gone on to distinguish themselves with acclaimed collections of stories or novels, and have won many of Canada’s most prestigious literary awards, including the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Award, the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and The Giller Prize.

The anthology sets itself apart from others in that it comprises a selection of stories that editors of literary publications from across the country have chosen as what, in their view, is the most exciting writing in English that they have published in the previous year. In recognition of the vital role literary publications play in discovering and promoting new writers, McClelland & Stewart gives its own award of $2,000 to the literary publication that originally published and submitted the winning entry.

McClelland & Stewart acknowledges the continuing enthusiastic support of writers, literary publication editors, and the public in the common celebration of the emergence of new voices in Canadian fiction.


In this anthology:
Heather Birrell, “BriannaSusannaAlana” (The New Quarterly) (Winner)
Craig Boyko, “The Baby” (from Descant)
Craig Boyko, “The Beloved Departed” (Grain Magazine)
Nadia Bozak, “Heavy Metal Housekeeping” (subTerrain Magazine)
Lee Henderson, “Conjugation” (Border Crossings)
Melanie Little, “Wrestling” (PRISM international)
Matthew Rader, “The Lonesome Death of Joseph Fey” (Grain Magazine)
Scott Randall, “Law School” (The Dalhousie Review)
Sarah Selecky, “Throwing Cotton” (Prairie Fire)
Damian Tarnopolsky, “Sleepy” (Exile)
Martin West, “Cretacea” (PRISM international)
David Whitton, “The Eclipse” (Taddle Creek)
Clea Young, “Split” (The Malahat Review)

This is the fifteenth edition of The Journey Prize Anthology, retitled The Journey Prize Stories. It has established itself as Canada’s most popular fiction anthology, presenting the best new Canadian writers from coast to coast. As well as receiving high praise every year, it is an important indicator of up-and-coming writers. Past winners include Yann Martel, Elyse Gasco, Cynthia Flood, Alissa York, Kevin Armstrong, and Timothy Taylor. These writers and many others whose stories have appeared in the anthology – such as André Alexis, David Bergen, Dennis Bock, Terry Griggs, Elizabeth Hay, Steven Heighton, Elise Levine, Annabel Lyon, Lisa Moore, Nancy Richler, Madeleine Thien, and M.G. Vassanji – have gone on to single themselves out with novels or collections, and have won many of Canada’s most prestigious literary awards.

This fiction anthology sets itself apart from others in that editors of literary journals across the country submit what, in their view, is the most exciting writing in English that they have published in the previous year.

The winner of the $10,000 Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, and the journal which published the winning piece, will be announced in the spring of 2004 as part of The Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Great Literary Awards event.