The Writers’ Union of Canada and the Gleed family are pleased to announce the jury for the $10,000 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, Canada’s pre-eminent award for the best first Canadian collection of short fiction in the English language, now celebrating its 26th year.
This year’s jury comprises authors Cynthia Holz, Sally Ito, and Jack Wang.
A short list will be announced in May 2023, with the winner and two finalists being named in June 2023. The winner receives $10,000 and each of the two finalists is awarded $1,000.
To be eligible, books must be first collections of short fiction written by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident and published in Canada in the English language in the 2022 calendar year. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2023. Eligible titles may be submitted by publishers according to submission guidelines available at writersunion.ca/danuta-gleed-literary-award.
ABOUT THE JURY
Cynthia Holz is the author of a short story collection and five novels, including Benevolence, A Good Man, and Semi-detached. Her fiction has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, and her essays, blogs and book reviews have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Ottawa Citizen, Quill & Quire, and The National Post. She has been a Writer-in-Residence for the Toronto Public Library and taught creative writing at Toronto Metropolitan University for twenty years. She has also been a mentor for emerging short story and long-form writers in Diaspora Dialogues’ mentoring programs. Currently she is writing personal essays.
Sally Ito is a writer and translator. She was born in Taber, Alberta, and currently lives in Winnipeg. She has published three books of poetry, Frogs in the Rain Barrel, A Season of Mercy, and Alert to Glory, as well as a collection of short stories called Floating Shore. In 2018, she published a cultural memoir, The Emperor's Orphans. In 2022, Ito published a fourth collection of poetry, Heart's Hydrography. Ito has also translated and published the Japanese children's poet Misuzu Kaneko by drawing on her years of study in Japan and experience of translating contemporary Japanese poetry. She teaches creative writing in Winnipeg and is a former blog contributor to the multicultural children's literature blog and website, PaperTigers.
Jack Wang is the author of the story collection We Two Alone (House of Anansi Press, 2020; HarperVia, 2021), winner of the 2021 Central New York Book Award in Fiction and the 2020 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, shortlisted for the 2021 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and longlisted for Canada Reads 2022. His fiction has appeared in Brick, PRISM international, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, The Humber Literary Review, and Joyland and has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and longlisted for the Journey Prize. His novel-in-progress, The Riveter, received a Research and Creation grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. He is a professor in the Department of Writing at Ithaca College.
ABOUT THE AWARD
The Danuta Gleed Literary Award was created as a celebration of the life of Danuta Gleed, a writer whose short fiction won several awards before her death in 1996. Danuta Gleed’s first collection of short fiction, One of the Chosen, was posthumously published by BuschekBooks. The Award is made possible through a generous donation from John Gleed in memory of his late wife, and is administered by The Writers’ Union of Canada.
The Award was first given in 1998 for books published in 1997.
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The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) is the national organization of professionally published writers. TWUC was founded in 1973 to work with governments, publishers, booksellers, and readers to improve the conditions of Canadian writers. Now over 2,600 members strong, TWUC advocates on behalf of writers’ collective interests, and delivers value to members through advocacy, community, and information. TWUC believes in a thriving, diverse Canadian culture that values and supports writers.
For additional information:
John Degen, Chief Executive Officer
The Writers’ Union of Canada
jdegen@writersunion.ca
Date: November 15, 2022
