Thunder Bay – Writers may have less time to perfect their work this year, but a tighter deadline is not the only motivation to get writing for Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop’s writing contest.
The 21stAnnual NOWW Writing Contest officially opens Jan. 1 and this year once again includes a selection of award-winning Canadian authors on the judge’s panel.
“I’m completely amazed by our judges this year,” said contest coordinator, Jodene Wylie. “They’ve won so many awards including the Governor General’s Award, the Giller Prize, and the Griffin Prize and have written great Canadian novels in fiction and nonfiction. ”
This year’s judges include Governor General Award winner, Guy Vanderhaeghe, author of The Englishman’s Boy and The Last Crossing, who is judging the short fiction category; M. G. Vassanji, author of Nostalgia and two-time winner of the Giller Prize, who is judging the creative non-fiction category; Jane Munro, Griffin Poetry Prize winner and author of Blue Sonoma,will be judging the poetry category; and Diane Schoemperlen, the Governor General Award-winning Thunder Bay-born writer known for This is Not My Life: A Memoir, Prison, and Other Complications will be judging the Bill MacDonald prize for prose (fiction).
A new category this year is novel excerpt: middle-grade fiction, which will be judged by Eric Walters, author of 97 books including Elephant Secret.
“Middle Grade is this unexplored category for the NOWW writing competition,” Wylie said. “We’ve never considered this age group before but we know there are readers for it and where there are readers, there are writers. So we want to see what people can come up with.”
The time to enter the contest is only two months this year, with a deadline of Mar. 1 to submit entries. All aspiring writers, either seasoned or just starting out, are encouraged to enter.
“You don’t have to be a NOWW member to enter,” Wylie said. “If you’re a writer and looking to test your work out in a contest setting then this is the place for you. This contest is about supporting writers and literary artists and inspiring them to create and imagine new worlds, places and people.”
For complete rules, regulations, and how to enter, visit the NOWW website at www.nowwwriters.ca.
Don Parsons
NOWW Administrator
NOWW
Box 425, 1100 Memorial Ave.,
Thunder Bay, ON
P7B 4A3
