The email below flew from Ottawa into my inbox within an hour of the end of the Dave Reception. It was a perfect encapsulation of the evening from our first prize winner, Amber Fenik.
Thank you so much for the wonderful news tonight! I’m honoured! I felt overwhelmed and shocked in the moment, but I loved hearing excerpts from the other writers’ stories. I was also impressed by this hybrid event. I help organize similar events in my day job, so I know how much work goes on behind the scenes to have things run smoothly. I was telling the other writers on Zoom that the strong creative community you have makes me want to move to Manitoba. Thank you again! Amber
To a rapt and receptive audience of more than 70 participants (in-person and online), the seven finalists read from their stories.
Agata Antonow, online from Hamilton, began the readings with an excerpt from the beginning of her story, “The Opposite of Comforting.”
The day my brother hanged himself was also the day that I won gold at the Catholic District Science Fair. My therapist would say that grief and success got cross-wired in my brain, but here is what I know: even as late as this year, when I am 45, the smell of autumn always leaves me sick, brings the taste of pennies into my mouth.
Following Agata came Amber Fenik, online, reading from “Tides,” which begins as follows:
For a brief moment, Maude expected Gramps to answer the front door when she arrived at The Pebble, swinging it open with a hearty exclamation of “Well, it’s still here!” It had become their family motto over the years, an expression of their collective shock that the tiny stone cottage remained nestled into the eroding cliffside like the solitary remnant of some endangered species…. It encapsulated the pleasant surprise they all shared that some unknown looming disaster had not yet struck.
Julia Rempel came next to the podium, in person, her story “Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies” taking us into the realm of the long-term care home and the intergenerational trauma of moving into one:
The boys visited him every Sunday. This Sunday, something did not seem quite right.
“What’s up? he asked as he traded the empty tin for the green one.
The boys looked at each other, eyebrows raised. “Uhm,” they said.
“What? You think you could put something past me?” he asked as he opened the tin. It calmed him slightly to see that it was full of cookies.
“Dad,” the older one started, “do you remember when we told you we were looking for another place for you?”
“What’s the matter with this place? I like this place.”
Back online, Fisher Lavell, from Swan River, took the audience into another family world and its bonding with the natural world in “Wild Animals I Have Known.”
My dad had a kind of understanding, a deep reverence and love, of the natural world that he could never seem to apply to mere humans. He didn’t get my mother, that’s for sure. But I was thinking – after what happened – about the stories he told. He was no windbag, my dad, not one of those guys that goes on and on about whatever. He was actually pretty chill most of the time. But wild animals, all animals and their stories, they were definitely Dad’s thing.
Sara Israr, who had flown from Toronto to Winnipeg for the reception, plunged us, in “Chaiwali,” into a pulsating Islamabad market:
Vendors, too poor to close their shops for the afternoon, had sought solace under makeshift canopies, sharing their shade with stray, flea-ridden cats. Gold-plated earrings, dupattas, churiyan, and mehndi decorated the market stalls in a vibrant mishmash of colours, clashing against the beige of brick and mortar. The streets were alive, vibrating – always. Children shouted around us as they played gilli-danda on the roads, dodging rickshaws amid ox-led carts. A woman cooked lamb in a large steel vat on the side of her shop, fanning herself with her chador as the steam of the curry and oils heated her face. Baskets of masala lined the sidewalks, bursting with colours of burnt orange, blood red, and saffron yellow…. The soft hiss of corn baking in a wagon of piping hot sand followed us as we ran down a narrow alley, festooned with tapestries of wet clothes drying on lines.
Sonia Marrone, a citizen of the Red River Métis living in St. Vital, guided the audience next into the sacred ritual of marriage in a world where Indigenous heritage crushes up against colonial expectations in “Runner of the Woods” (the Indigenous bride is 12; the groom is 26):
There were so many unknowns about where this next step would take her life. He seemed gentle enough during their very short courtship. However, she knew this meant very little in the context of marriage when a man could easily give in to rage and anger. She saw the marks of this rage on the women in her camp and had no idea of whether this is what she would experience with him. She hadn’t long to contemplate this menacing version of the future because she was whisked away by her girl-cousins.
She was led to a copse of trees just outside their camp, where a small lodge was hidden from view. The sacred fire had been set with the rocks or “grandmothers,” as the elders called them, ready to be taken into the lodge for this sacred rite of passage.
Lynne Martin concluded our journey beyond boundaries in Turkey with a 5-year-old girl, left by her mother in a sweltering car in Ankara Market parking lot while she shopped:
In the car, it was hot. The red leather burned and stuck to her bare legs. But she could breathe because Mommy had opened the window just enough for Jasmine to wave her fingers through. Closing her eyes to slits, she watched the market bubbling like a far-off pot. She liked being alone, away from the noise, where she could become Princess Jasmine dancing on her royal ship anchored near a busy port. Humming with her eyes closed, she made her left hand the Handsome Prince who danced with her right hand, the Princess. Jasmine dreamed herself into a beautiful ballroom… until a “Whump!” shook the car and snapped her back to the parking lot.
Jasmine stared up through the window into the fierce black eyes of a strange Turk.
The climax of the evening was, of course, the announcement of the prize winners. First we announced the four Honourable Mention authors, presenting them with a certificate of their achievement and a copy of Beyond Boundaries III: Agata Antonow, Fisher Lavell, Sonia Marrone, and Julia Rempel. Third Prize and $400 went to Sarah Israr, from Toronto; Second Prize and $600 to Lynne Martin from Winnipeg; and First Prize and $1,000 to Amber Fenik from Ottawa.
Judges play a huge role in the competition, with enormous influence over the qualities of creative craftsmanship they seek for the winning stories. Pat Stefanchuk spoke on behalf of the preliminary judges and their important role of selecting the potential contenders for the longlist, shortlist, and final list. Mitchell Toews, who was to speak on behalf of the lead judges, was unable to attend because of a family commitment. However, he emailed me a portion of what he wanted to say about The Dave. I will conclude this review with his statement:
But first I wish to acknowledge the huge team of volunteers who gave their time, their collective expertise, and their generosity of spirit to making this evening an enjoyable experience for everyone. Their efforts are essential to the success of this competition. Beyond Boundaries III can be purchased at the MWG webstore for $15 plus $5 toward delivery.
To conclude, I am forwarding a toast to all of you from Mitchell Toews, one of our lead judges. While it focuses on only one element of diversity that we include in our invitation to participate, its importance speaks to the relevance of every element of the Guild’s diversity statement.
Representation matters. As writers and artists, we know this to be true and we understand the power of inclusion. The MWG saw fit to include an explicit encouragement in the content guidelines. The call went out for (among other areas of diversity) “mature writers” to enter. In so doing, The Dave Williamson National Short Story Competition becomes one of only a handful of contests, anthologies, and literary periodicals to openly welcome the participation of older emerging writers.
The results are clear. The 16 finalists included themes based on definitively older main characters, and several stories – it turns out – (judges have no information about the identity of entrants until after the judging) were written by older authors. In general, I found that the finalists successfully shunned the tropes, caricatures, and stereotypes so often used to describe older characters: the wise “old woman” leaning on her cane or the snarling, angry “old man” and other tired, generational ad hominems that can slip into our storytelling.
Our masterful authors gave us flawed, diverse, goofy, and brave older characters. Young and old, the finalists’ protagonists were unique and followed no set profile or artificial commonality.
In life, as 81-year-old Mick Jagger reminded me back in 1969, you can’t always get what you want. For some of us, that means setting aside our dream of creative writing until there is time, money and circumstance. Please…join me in a toast to all those who keep the fire burning, sometimes for decades, and also to all those who see them and give them the chance to compete, without any regard for false conceits, including those about age. My toast is, “To you, to hell with me.”
The Dave 2023 did not have a statement of outreach to diverse groups initially.
Partway through the promotion period, we realized our omission and added it to our guidelines page. Our statement, however, derived from researching and synthesizing the inclusivity statements of other competitions, did not include any reference to age, other than a baseline of 18+ years of age. Mitch contacted me in spring of 2023 and our Membership, Communication, and Marketing Committee, under the guidance of Lori Gaudet, devised our current statement of inclusivity: “We actively encourage submissions from all writers who are 18+ years of age, including writers with disabilities, writers in the 2SLGTBQIA+ communities, BIPOC writers, mature writers, and other under-represented communities.”
Watch for our call for entries for the 2026 The Dave, coming in September. We’d love to read YOUR story.
