BC’s Emerging Writer Awards
June 03rd, 2025
Two of the three BC-based writers are the 2025 recipients of the three RBC Bronwen Wallace Awards for Emerging Writers, which come with a purse of $10,000. The awards are managed by Writers’ Trust of Canada.
Jess Goldman (pictured below) is the short fiction winner for Tombstone of a Tsaddik. Goldman is a writer, comic artist and amateur puppeteer. Their writing has been published by Maisonneuve, CBC, and Room. A graduate of the University of British Columbia’s creative writing MFA program, their writing explores where Yiddishkayt and queer culture collide. Goldman lives in Vancouver.
A jury composed of Jean Marc Ah-Sen, Baharan Baniahmadi, and Shashi Bhat read 172 submissions to select finalists in the short fiction category.
Of the winning work, the jury wrote: “Observed by an intelligent, original narrator and told with wry humour, Tombstone of a Tsaddik evokes a world that is rich, complicated, and alive. The narrative sparkles with freshness, strangeness, and 1 of 3 precision, immersing readers in an unforgettable depiction of a small Jewish religious community whose faith in God is shaken. Jess Goldman’s risk-taking prose transcends to the level of magic, leading to an ending that defies both expectations and easy explanations.”
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Dora Prieto (featured above right) is the poetry winner for her collection, Loose Threads.
Prieto was a 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers poetry finalist and a 2024 Writers’ Trust Mentorship participant. Her work has appeared in Acentos Review, Capilano Review, and Catapult. Prieto won the 2022 Room Poetry Contest and was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize. Prieto shares the tools of poetry-making through a project called El Mashup, a workshop for Latinx youth on experimental poetry, fiction, analog cinema, sound art, and performance. She lives in Vancouver on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations.
A jury composed of Dallas Hunt, Matt Rader, and Sanna Wani read 143 submissions to select finalists in the poetry category. Of the winning work, the jury wrote: “Stitch by monostich, ‘Loose Threads’ pulls at the warp and weft of culture, history, and language to show us where identity and poetry are formed. Dora Prieto tests the integrity of poetry to hold what it promises against the gales of migration, gender, race, climate change, and the nation. Through thrilling leaps of association and rhetoric, Prieto’s lines move like light through fibre-optic cables, connecting family and memory, belonging and alienation, violence and joy. These poems are borderless, wry, and yet deadly serious.”
Jess Goldman
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About the Award
Bronwen Wallace (1945–1989) was a poet, short story writer, essayist, and mentor to many aspiring authors as a creative writing instructor at Queen’s University and St. Lawrence College in Kingston, ON. This prize was established in her honour in 1994 by a group of friends and colleagues. Wallace felt that writers should have more opportunities for recognition early in their careers. This annual award is presented to three writers — one each in the categories of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction — who have been published in literary journals or anthologies but have yet to publish in book form. Past winners include Michael Crummey, Alissa York, Sonnet L’Abbé, Alison Pick, Noor Naga, Maria Reva, and John Elizabeth Stintzi.
About Writers’ Trust
Writers’ Trust of Canada is a charitable organization that seeks to advance, nurture, and celebrate Canadian writers and writing through a portfolio of programs including 11 national literary awards, financial grants, career development initiatives for emerging writers, and a writers’ residency. Writers’ Trust programming is designed to champion excellence in Canadian writing, to improve the status of writers, and to create connections between writers and readers. Canada’s writers receive more financial support from Writers’ Trust than from any other non-governmental organization in the country. Additional information is available at writerstrust.com.
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