The Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2024 City of Regina Writing Award is Iryn Tushabe for her submission “Saved”.
This year’s runners-up are Ryshia Kennie for “Broken” and Elaine McArthur for “Akicita”.
Our heartiest congratulations to all three! Submissions were adjudicated anonymously by judges Alice Major and Ruby Lang.
The 2024 City of Regina Writing Award Show will be held on Thursday, May 9 at 7:00 pm at Wascana Place (2900 Wascana Drive). The Award show will feature readings by winner Iryn Tushabe and runners-up Ryshia Kennie and Elaine McArthur as well as a celebratory reception. This is a free event open to the public.
The award is sponsored by the City of Regina and administered by the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild.
2024 Award Winner Iryn Tushabe
Iryn Tushabe is a Ugandan-Canadian writer and journalist. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in Adda, The Walrus, and in the trace press anthology river in an ocean: essays on translation. Her short fiction has been published in Grain Magazine, the Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Anthology Series (Book seven), and has been included in The Journey Prize Stories: The best of Canada’s New Writers (volumes 30 and 33.)
Tushabe won the City of Regina writing award in 2020, was a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2021, and won the Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize which, in 2023, recognized the year’s best short stories by ten emerging Black writers. Her debut novel, Everything is Fine Here, is forthcoming with House of Anansi Press in Winter of 2025.
2024 Runners-Up
Elaine McArthur is a Nakota/Dakota winyan who hails from the Ocean Man First Nation on Treaty 4 Territory. She has a self-published children’s book Elizabeth Dances Pow wow and has written others that will soon be available. She has been published in literary magazines and anthologies.
Elaine has won the Indigenous Voices Awards 3 times and most recently was awarded a grant from the Saskatchewan Arts Foundation to complete the graphic novel Akicita.
Ryshia Kennie writes novels of adventure, suspense and romance. She has won a number of awards for her novels. Her stories have taken her characters from the depression era prairies to the ancient stones of Angkor Wat and beyond. A graduate of the University of Regina with Certifications in Administration she followed a career in administration but always wrote on the side. For more, visit her website at http://www.ryshiakennie.com.
Bios of Jurors
Alice Major has published 12 collections of poetry as well as two books of YA fantasy and the award-winning essay collection, Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science. Her many awards include the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta. She also served as the City of Edmonton's first poet laureate. Her website is https://www.alicemajor.com
Ruby Lang/Opal Wei is a contemporary romance writer. Her latest screwball rom-com, Wild Life, was called “breathtaking" by The New York Times Book Review. As Mindy Hung (yes, she has a lot of names), she has written for The Walrus and Bitch, and she was a 2010 fellow in fiction for the New York Foundation for the Arts. She lives in Toronto with her family.
