2025 Best Canadian Series
September 13th, 2024
This year’s Best Canadian Series that will be published on November 12, features the works of 13 BC based authors in total. The annual anthologies of essays, poetry and short fiction have been selected and edited by three award-winning writers: Emily Urquhart, Vancouver’s Aislinn Hunter and Steven W. Beattie.
Here’s a list of all the BC based writers featured in the series, and the respective anthology they’re in.
Best Canadian Essays 2025
As a journalist and senior editor at The Narwhal, Michelle Cyca (at right) has contributed to numerous respected publications, including Maclean’s, Chatelaine, and The Globe and Mail. Her 2023 cover story for Maclean’s, The End of Home Ownership, was the magazine’s most-read article and a finalist for the 2024 National Magazine Awards. That same year, Cyca received the Gold Medal for Investigative Journalism and the Silver Medal for Long-Form Feature at the National Magazine Awards.
Christine Lai, who holds a PhD in English Literature, debuted her novel Landscapes (Doubleday, 2023) to widespread acclaim. Her book was shortlisted for the prestigious Novel Prize, presented by New Directions Publishing, Fitzcarraldo Editions, and Giramondo Publishing. Additionally, Landscapes was named one of the CBC and NPR Best Books of the Year.
As a reconnecting member of the Tl’azt’en Nation, Vance Wright has lived in the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations for the past five years. Wright’s artistic interests include writing, sculpture, painting, and textiles, with a focus on two-spirited identity, family history, and material agency. They are currently working towards a BFA at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
Best Canadian Poetry 2025
Billy-Ray Belcourt, a writer and academic from the Driftpile Cree Nation, is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. He is the youngest-ever winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize and has earned numerous awards, including the 2018 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize, the 2020 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry, and the Hubert Evans Prize for Non-Fiction. Additionally, Belcourt has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry in both 2018 and 2020.
Trained initially in the sciences at MIT, Robert Bringhurst later pursued a career in the humanities. He is a poet, translator, book designer, and linguist who has received the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence and a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry. Bringhurst is known for his focus on book design and typography, reflecting his deep interest in the connection between language and script. He has been named an officer of the Order of Canada and holds two honorary doctorates.
Molly Cross-Blanchard is a Métis poet, writer, and editor who formerly served as poetry editor of PRISM international and publisher of Room. She currently teaches Creative Writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Her debut poetry collection, Exhibitionist (Coach House Books, 2021) was shortlisted for the ReLit Award for Poetry and longlisted for the Fred Cogswell Award. Cross-Blanchard also advocates for writers by serving on the National Council for The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC), the Board of Directors at Asparagus Magazine, and the Equity Advisory Committee at the BC Arts Council.
Lorna Crozier, an officer of the Order of Canada, is the recipient of five honorary doctorates, including from McGill and Simon Fraser Universities. She has authored 16 poetry collections, which have garnered numerous accolades, such as the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. Crozier, Professor Emerita at the University of Victoria, has performed for Queen Elizabeth II and has seen her work translated into multiple languages.
Holding an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, Kayla Czaga currently works as an online poetry mentor for Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio. Her debut poetry collection, For Your Safety Please Hold On (Nightwood Editions, 2014), won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and was a nominee for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry as well as the BC Book Prizes’ Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Czaga’s poems have appeared in magazines such as Maisonneuve, The ex-Puritan, The Walrus, and The New Quarterly.
Widely known in the Canadian house concert scene, Kim June Johnson is a poet and singer-songwriter. Her work has been featured in literary journals such as Room, Prairie Fire, CV2, Arc Poetry, and River Teeth’s Beautiful Things. Johnson’s live performances often combine music and improv poetry readings, performed in intimate venues alongside the cellist, Jordie Robinson. Additionally, she mentors other songwriters and writers and runs an online writing community called Cozy Sunday Write-ins.
Eve Joseph resides and works on the unceded traditional territories of the Lekwungen peoples. Her first two poetry books, The Startled Heart (Oolichan Books, 2004) and The Secret Signature of Things (Brick Books, 2010), were both nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Award. In 2010, she won the P.K. Page Founder’s Award for Poetry, and her nonfiction has been recognized by the CBC Literary Awards and the Western Magazine Awards. Her book In the Slender Margin (HarperCollins, 2014) earned the Hubert Evans Nonfiction Prize and was named one of the Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Books of the Year. Her latest poetry collection, Quarrels (Anvil, 2018) won the 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize.
Jaeyun Yoo is a Korean-Canadian poet and psychiatrist, and a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio. She has been nominated for Best of the Net, and her poems have been published in journals like Room, The Fiddlehead, Canthius, CV2, and more. Yoo also collaborated with SFU’s Harbour Centre 5, an emerging poets’ collective, to publish the chapbook Brine.
Born in England, Miranda Pearson moved to Canada in 1991. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, where she was poetry editor for PRISM International. Pearson has taught creative writing at both Simon Fraser University and UBC, and her poems have been widely published in journals such as The Malahat Review, Event, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Arc, and Prairie Fire. She has attended numerous arts residencies and was awarded the Alfred G. Bailey Prize in 2006. Pearson has also been shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in both 2009 and 2015.
Catherine St. Denis, a writer currently based in Victoria, began her writing career as a young participant in Saskatoon Public Library programs for aspiring writers. After a fifteen-year hiatus during which she worked as an educator and mother, she returned to writing, with her work now published in several quarterlies and shortlists. Denis is compiling her first poetry collection and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of British Columbia.
Best Canadian Stories 2025
Born in Hamilton, Elizabeth Stewart began her career as a researcher and producer for current affairs at CBC-TV in Toronto. After moving to Vancouver, she transitioned to dramatic screenwriting for children’s and youth TV shows. Stewart has won the Writers Guild of Canada Top Ten Awards for The Adventures of Shirley Holmes on YTV and for Guinevere Jones, a 26-episode teen action-adventure series she created, wrote and executive produced. In addition to her TV work, she is an award-winning author. Her debut young adult novel, The Lynching of Louis Sam (Annick, 2012), received multiple accolades, including the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction and the John Spray Mystery Award.
Glenna Turnbull is both a writer and photographer whose short fiction has been featured in PRISM International, Riddle Fence, The New Quarterly, Room of One’s Own, and Luna Station Quarterly, among others. She earned a BA in English and Creative Writing from UBC, completing one course per semester while raising two children as a single, self-employed parent. In 2023, she won the Jacob Zilber Short Fiction Prize and has been shortlisted and received Honourable Mention for the 2018 Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award and Event magazine’s 2019 speculative fiction contest.
Clea Young’s stories have been featured in The Journey Prize Stories anthology three times and Coming Attractions. She holds an MFA from UBC and has had her work published in literary magazines such as Event, Grain, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, and Room. Her first story collection, Teardown, was published by Freehand Books in 2016. Her second collection, Welcome to the Neighbourhood, is set to be published by House of Anansi Press in 2025.
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