DEEPAM WADDS’ “TENDER FRUIT” WINS $2,500 CASH PRIZE – THE WRITERS’ UNION OF CANADA’S 23RD ANNUAL SHORT PROSE COMPETITION

The Writers' Union of Canada is pleased to announce that Deepam Wadds has won the $2,500 cash prize for its 23^rd annual Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers, for the best story under 2,500 words, with her piece “Tender Fruit.” In addition, the Union will submit the winning story and the eleven other shortlisted stories to three Canadian magazine publishers for their consideration.

Deepam Wadds' award-winning short fiction and poetry have been featured in literary journals and anthologies, such as carte blanche, Whispered Words Anthology, and The Canadian Authors Association's CanWrite! Anthology. Deepam is a certified AWA (Amherst Writers and Artists) writing workshop facilitator and a graduate of the Humber School for Writers. She is a recipient of an Ontario Arts Council Writers' Reserve Grant as well as a Writers' Community of Durham Region (WCDR) scholarship.

The Short Prose Competition, established in 1993 in honour of the Union’s 20^th anniversary, aims to discover, encourage, and promote new writers of short prose who are not yet published in book format, in order to provide opportunity and exposure to developing writers. This year, nineteen Union members donated their time and expertise to read 253 outstanding submissions and distill them into a long list of 76 stories. These stories went on to a second round of seventeen who selected the finalists to pass on to the jury: Gail Bowen, Shauntay Grant, and Eric Siblin.

WINNER:

"Tender Fruit” by Deepam Wadds, Sebright, ON

The jury noted that Wadds is “a writer who knows the power of show rather than tell. There's gorgeous writing here, especially the human imagery the writer uses to describe the peach trees that Ditch and Allie must destroy because of the closing of their local canning plant. The pain Allie feels at ripping apart what seems to be an extension of herself is made real through compelling images.”

FINALISTS

A Hanging, ML Barriault, Mississauga, ON
The Hammer of Grand Bay, Andrew Bonnell, Burlington, ON
The Swimmer, Joanne Hatherly, Victoria, BC
Inshallah, Stephen Hunt, Battersea, ON
Fed Up to Her Eyeballs, Mo Markham, Kitchener, ON
My Perfect Friend, Gayle Mavor, New Westminster, BC
The Fox Fur Coat, Maria Reva, Austin, TX
Yellow Submarine, Hellesdon, UK, Erin Soros, North Vancouver, BC
Grave Digger, Yakos Spiliotopoulos, Toronto, ON
On the Rocks, Gavin Tomson, Toronto, ON
Truth and Rhetoric, Shelley Wood, Kelowna, BC