Hearty congratulations to Michael Mirolla for winning the Guild Prize in Flash Fiction for his piece, “Recognition,” and to Raquel Fletcher for winning the Guild Prize in Poetry for her poem, “Tiny Gold Frames (or The Gallery Wall)."
On winning the contest, Michael Mirolla tells us, “It's always wonderful and a bit of a surprise to be recognized for one's writing, and it is a great honour to be selected for the Guild Prize in Flash Fiction. This piece results from my time in Nigeria, where I taught Secondary School in the village of Gboko (pronounced "Boko") for a year. It was an incredible experience. My time here as the Writer in residence at the Regina Public Library has also been an incredible experience if not as long a journey! This announcement is most definitely the "cherry on top". Just a note to all who submitted to the Guild Prize in Flash Fiction: being able to do so should in itself be a thrill. Congratulations. And finally, many thanks to the judge for deeming my little piece worthy of the honour.”
About Michael’s winning piece, our Guild Prize Prose Judge, Helen Power, says, “The author of ‘Recognition’ delivers a haunting and heartfelt story that seamlessly interweaves plot and character into a vivid setting. The reader is swept along with the characters on a moving journey, their destination an effective reveal that drives home the story’s theme of ‘survival.’”
On winning the contest, Raquel Fletcher tells us, “This poem took me nearly six months to write. Grief takes time to process, I suppose. It takes time to contemplate its many brushstrokes. Winning this contest means that time wasn't wasted. Maybe this poem will help others who are struggling to find where they belong when where they come from (or where they currently find themselves) doesn't feel like home.”
About Raquel's winning poem, our Guild Prize Poetry Judge, Jenna Butler, says, “The winning poem dissects the concept of home through a conflation of physical dwelling and human body. The poet wonders, in clipped and intelligent lines, whether home is something that can be cobbled together from memories and found items along the way, and easily stolen, supplanted, or replaced, or whether home is, at its essence, the body and the stories it carries.”
The author of more than two dozen novels, plays, film scripts and short story and poetry collections, Michael Mirolla’s publications include a novella, The Last News Vendor, winner of the 2020 Hamilton Literary Award, as well as three Bressani Prizes: the novel Berlin; the poetry collection The House on 14th Avenue; and the short story collection Lessons in Relationship Dyads. A symposium on Michael’s writing was held in Toronto on May 25, 2023. In September of 2023, Michael took part in a writers' residency in Olot, Catalonia. While there, he polished a novella, How About This …?, which is scheduled for publication in September 2025 (At Bay Press). From September 2024 to June 2025, Michael is the WIR for the Regina Public Library. Born in Italy and growing up in Montreal, Michael now makes his home on a farm [along with four dogs, a cat and sundry humans] outside the town of Gananoque in the Thousand Islands area of Ontario.
Raquel Fletcher is a published author, as well as a former journalist, television reporter and anchor. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, she worked as a political correspondent in Quebec City for Global News and Bell Media for almost a decade before returning to the Canadian prairies. She is the recipient of three RTDNA awards and an Alberta Magazine Publishers Association Emerging Writer Award. Her poetry was showcased in the recent anthology, Solicitations, published by the Quebec City Morrin Centre.
Read Michael's and Raquel’s winning pieces in the Summer issue of Freelance, coming soon!
Huge congrats to the Honourable Mentions Chad Doell (Prose) for “Yelling,” and Jaime Speed (Poetry) for “A Wish in III Acts.”