The RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by the Writers' Trust of Canada to a writer who has not yet published his or her first book.[1] Formerly restricted to writers under age 35, the age limit was removed in 2021, with the prize now open to emerging writers regardless of age.[2]
Named in memory of Bronwen Wallace, a Canadian writer who died of cancer in 1989, the award was created in 1994 by her literary executor Carolyn Smart to honour Wallace's work as a creative writing instructor and mentor to young writers.[3] The Royal Bank of Canada stepped in as the award's corporate sponsor in 2012, through its Emerging Artists Project.
The prize has a monetary value of $10,000, with finalists receiving $2,500. The prize formerly alternated every other year between poetry and short fiction; in 2020 the Writers' Trust announced that they would present annual awards in both categories.[4] In October 2024, the Writers' Trust announced that a third award category for creative non-fiction will be added to the awards in 2025.[5]
Note that at present, the Writers Trust's awards database does not provide the titles of winning or nominated works prior to 2008. Before that date, titles are provided below where known from other sources; from 2008 on, all titles are listed.
| Year | Author | Title | Category | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Michael Crummey | Poetry | [6] | |
| Nancy Jo Cullen | ||||
| Tonja Gunvaldsen Klaassen | ||||
| Noah Leznoff | ||||
| 1995 | Adele Megann | Short fiction | [7] | |
| Natalee Caple | ||||
| Denise Ryan | ||||
| 1996 | Stephanie Bolster | Poetry | [8] | |
| Jacqueline Larson | ||||
| Shannon Stewart | ||||
| 1997 | Rachel Rose | Short fiction | [9] | |
| Gail Andrews | ||||
| Alan Levin | ||||
| Oscar Martens | ||||
| Tanya Palmer | ||||
| Elizabeth Moret Ross | ||||
| 1998 | Talya Rubin | "Ariadne's Thread" | Poetry | [10] |
| Sarah de Leeuw | ||||
| Astrid van der Pol | ||||
| 1999 | Alissa York | "Any Given Power" | Short fiction | [11] |
| Elaine O'Connor | ||||
| Madeleine Thien | ||||
| 2000 | Sonnet L'Abbé | Poetry | [12] | |
| Ceiran Bishop | ||||
| Erina Harris | ||||
| Anita Lahey | ||||
| 2001 | Valerie Stetson | "The Year I Got Impatient" | Short fiction | [13] |
| Melanie Jessica Little | ||||
| Robert McGill | ||||
| Tanis Rideout | ||||
| Padma Viswanathan | ||||
| 2002 | Alison Pick | Poetry | [14] | |
| Alison Calder | ||||
| Seema Goel | ||||
| 2003 | Gillian Best | "Seamus & Lloyd" | Short fiction | [15] |
| Kelly Dignan | ||||
| Nathan Whitlock | ||||
| 2004 | Alison Calder | "Wolf Tree" | Poetry | [16] |
| Elizabeth Bachinsky | "Home of Sudden Service" | |||
| Suzanne Hancock | ||||
| David Hickey | ||||
| Anna Swanson | ||||
| 2005 | Nicole Dixon | "High Watermark" | Short fiction | [17] |
| Amy Jones | ||||
| Angela Long | ||||
| 2006 | Jeramy Dodds | "Planning Your Seascape" | Poetry | [18] |
| Michael Reynolds | ||||
| Bren Simmers | ||||
| 2007 | No award presented due to change in award scheduling. | |||
| 2008 | Marjorie Celona | "Othello" | Short fiction | [19] |
| Ben Lof | "When in the Field with Her at His Back" | [20] | ||
| Grace O'Connell | "The Bottlenecks" | |||
| 2009 | Emily McGiffin | "Wokkpash and Other Poems" | Poetry | [21] |
| Michael Johnson | "The Minnow and Other Poems" | [22] | ||
| Jeff Latosik | "How the Tiklaalik Came Onto Land and Other Poems" | |||
| 2010 | Kilby Smith-McGregor | "The Bird in Hand" | Short fiction | [23] |
| Shashi Bhat | "Indian Cooking" | |||
| Claire Tacon | "Dumb Dog" | |||
| 2011 | Garth Martens | "Inheritance and Other Poems" | Poetry | [24] |
| Raoul Fernandes | "By Way of Explanation" | |||
| Anne-Marie Turza | "The Quiet III" | |||
| 2012 | Jen Neale | "Elk-Headed Man" | Short fiction | [25] |
| Dina Del Bucchia | "At the Bottom of the Garden" | |||
| Kathy Friedman | "Under the 'I'" | |||
| 2013 | Laura Clarke | "Mule Variations" | Poetry | |
| Laura Matwichuk | "Here Comes the Future" | |||
| Suzannah Showler | "The Reason and Other Poems" | |||
| 2014 | Erin Frances Fisher | "Girl" | Short fiction | [26] |
| Leah Jane Esau | "Dream Interpretation" | |||
| Jakub Stachurski | "Screen Capture" | |||
| 2015 | Alessandra Naccarato | "Re-Origin of Species" | Poetry | [27] |
| Irfan Ali | "Who I Think About When I Think About You" | |||
| Chuqiao Yang | "Roads Home" | |||
| 2016 | Brendan Bowles | "Wyatt Thurst" | Short fiction | [28] |
| Allegra McKenzie | "This Monstrous Heart" | [29] | ||
| Hannah Rahimi | "With My Scarf Tied Just So" | |||
| 2017 | Noor Naga | "The Mistress and the Pig" | Poetry | [30] |
| Tyler Engström | "after thoughts" | |||
| Domenica Martinello | "All Day I Dream About Sirens" | |||
| 2018 | Maria Reva | "The Ermine Coat" | Short fiction | [31] |
| Sarah Christina Brown | "Kingdom Come" | |||
| Khalida Hassan | "Adjacent Rooms" | |||
| 2019 | John Elizabeth Stintzi | "Selections from Junebat" | Poetry | [32] |
| Rebecca Salazar | "Your Public Body" | |||
| Ellie Sawatzky | "Unorganized Territory" | |||
| 2020 | Leah Mol | "Six Things My Father Taught Me About Bears" | Short fiction | [33] |
| Jamaluddin Aram | "This Hard Easy Life" | [34] | ||
| Omer Friedlander | "Palestinian Still Life" | |||
| Alexa Winik | "Selections from Winter Stars Visible in December" | Poetry | ||
| nina jane drystek | "C;ode" | |||
| Zoe Imani Sharpe | "Selection from [CA$H4GOLD]" | |||
| 2021 | Anna Ling Kaye | "East City" | Short fiction | [35] |
| Carolyn Chung | "Bright Fish, Dead Bird" | [36] | ||
| Joshua Wales | "Mass Effect" | |||
| Zehra Naqvi | "The Knot of My Tongue" | Poetry | ||
| Jessica Bebenek | "Selections from No One Knows Us There" | |||
| Hannah Green | "XANAX COWBOY" | |||
| 2022 | Teya Hollier | "Watching, Waiting" | Short Fiction | [37] |
| Jen Batler | "Ectopia Cordis" | |||
| Emily Paskevics | "Wild Girls" | |||
| Patrick James Errington | "If Fire, Then Bird" | Poetry | ||
| Eimear Laffan | "My Life, Delimited" | |||
| Christine Wu | "Familial Hungers" | |||
| 2023 | Zak Jones | "So Much More to Say" | Short fiction | [38] |
| Vincent Anioke | "Mama’s Lullabies" | [39] | ||
| Zilla Jones | "Triggered" | |||
| Cooper Skjeie | "Scattered Oblations" | Poetry | ||
| Kyo Lee | "diasporic dissonance" | |||
| Dora Prieto | "Notes on the Non-Place" | |||
| 2024 | Nayani Jensen | "Like Rabbits" | Short fiction | [40] |
| Henry Heavyshield | "Our Rez Anomaly" | [41] | ||
| Reid Kerr-Keller | "On Venlafaxine and Ghosts" | |||
| Faith Paré | "Selections from 'a fine African Head'" | Poetry | ||
| Ashleigh A. Allen | "balcony buffalo" | |||
| Sneha Subramanian Kanta | "Hiraeth" |