Journey Prize

Good news came via email today. My story, "Eat Fist!" has been named a finalist for the Journey Prize and will be included in this year's anthology. Getting into the anthology has been a dream of mine since I started writing. The number of writers I respect and love and sometimes stalk lovingly over the internets who have appeared in past anthologies is mind blowing.

I snagged this from the McClelland & Stewart website:

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.

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 finest emerging 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.

So yeah. Anything now is just gravy.

In addition to finding that out, I also scored a copy of John Birmingham's cult classic (and book made into film recently) He Died with a Felafel in His Hand for a scant fifty cents at the local book pusher. I've spent years looking for it. Now I have it. Good day.