The Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2026 City of Regina Writing Award is Medrie Purdham for her poetry collection “The Solve”.
This year’s runners-up are Keegan Grandel for their poetry collection “Lineage” and Carla Harris for their poetry collection “The Accumulation of Waiting”.
Our heartiest congratulations to all three! Submissions were adjudicated anonymously by judges Andrew Forbes and Samantha Jones.
The 2026 City of Regina Writing Award Show will be held on Thursday, May 28, at 7:00 pm at the Artesian (2627 13th Avenue). The Award show will feature readings by winner Medrie Purdham and runners-up Keegan Grandel and Carla Harris, 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.
2026 Award Winner Medrie Purdham
Medrie Purdham (she/her) lives in Treaty 4 territory with her family and teaches at the University of Regina. Her debut collection, Little Housewolf, was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award and the Fred Cogswell Award, and won a Saskatchewan Book Award. Subsequent work has been a finalist for the Vallum Chapbook Award and the Montreal International Poetry Prize. She holds a Ph.D. In Canadian literature from McGill University, enjoys sewing and skating, and recently went go-karting for the first time.
2026 Runners-Up
Keegan Grandel (they/she) is an emerging queer and trans poet from Regina, Saskatchewan, in Treaty 4 Territory. They write about ancestry, grief, queer sexuality, and gender. They have previously been published online by a webzine called Prompted Mag and will be featured in an upcoming issue of Grain. Their manuscript, presently titled Lineage, will be their first collection of poetry. More of their poetry can be found online under their name.
Carla Harris (they/she) is a disabled, mad, queer, nonbinary writer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist from Treaty 4 territory, living in Regina, Saskatchewan. They have performed in Verses Festival in Vancouver, the Saskatoon Poetic Arts Festival, and the Lieutenant Governor’s Annual Poetry Soirée. They released a chapbook, Obtain No Proof, with Dis/ Ability Series of Frog Hollow Press and have had publications appear in ANTILANG, League of Canadian Poets, the Humber Literary Review, and Write Magazine. They teach workshops on improvisation and creative experimentation, and they are a member of the Pain Poets, writing in unconfined Crip time.
Bios of Jurors
Andrew Forbes is the author of the novel The Diapause (Invisible Publishing, 2024), the novella McCurdle’s Arm: A Fiction (Invisible, 2024), and the essay collection Field Work: On Baseball and Making a Living (Assembly Press, 2025). He is also the author of two books of short fiction and two earlier collections of baseball writing. His work has appeared in publications such as the Toronto Star, Canadian Notes and Queries, and Maisonneuve Magazine. Forbes lives in Peterborough, Ontario.
Samantha Jones is a Black Canadian and white settler poet, editor, and earth scientist based in Moh’kins’tsis (Calgary, Alberta). Her poetry collection, Attic Rain (NeWest Press, 2024), won the 2025 Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry and was an Alberta Literary Awards finalist. Sam co-edited I’ll Get Right On It: Poems on Working Life in the Climate Crisis (Roseway, 2025) and is currently a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Health Arts Research Centre, University of Northern British Columbia.
