The SWG is pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 John V. Hicks Long Manuscript Awards in Poetry:
First place: Michael Trussler for Whoosh!
Michael Trussler writes primarily poetry and creative non-fiction. His work has been anthologized both domestically and internationally. He has received Saskatchewan Book Awards for poetry, non-fiction and short stories. His memoir concerning mental illness, The Sunday Book, was published by Palimpsest Press in 2022. Radiant Press and Icehouse Press will be publishing the poetry collections Realia and 10:10 respectively in 2024. All of his work engages with the beauty and violence of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, though his most recent writing specifically explores what it means to be alive at the beginning of the Anthropocene.
Second place: Chelsea Coupal for Village Sprawl
Chelsea Coupal is the author of the poetry collection, Sedley (Coteau, 2018), and the chapbook, The Slow Reveal (Anstruther, 2022). Sedley was selected by Chapters Indigo for an Indigo Exclusive edition and shortlisted for three Saskatchewan Book Awards. Her work has appeared in more than a dozen Canadian publications, including Arc, EVENT, the Literary Review of Canada, The Malahat Review and Best Canadian Poetry.
Third place: Wynne Nicholson for Body Songs
Wynne Nicholson’s first book small gifts was published by Thistledown Press in 2005 and was nominated for a Sask Book Award. Prior to this, she was the winner of the W.O. Mitchell and the Gertrude Story Award in 1994. She’s been a Registered Massage Therapist for 27 years in Saskatoon. It is from her patients she has been inspired to write these poems and was first influenced by the late poet bpNichol and from his collection Collected Organs. Her first published piece from this collection of “Body Songs” was in 2007, the title is “Pelvis” and was published by Hagios Press.
Honourable Mention to Carol Rose GoldenEagle for Singing to the Moon
Carol Rose GoldenEagle is a Saskatchewan author of numerous books including her novels Bearskin Diary, Bone Black and Narrows of Fear. She has written three books of poetry including Hireath, Essential Ingredients and Stations of the Crossed and was the Saskatchewan Poet Laureate from 2021-2023. Her next novel, Joe, is set for release in late 2024, as well as a children’s title, Mother Earth, My Favourite Author.
Our jury consisted of Canadian poets Domenica Martinello and Hollay Ghadery:
Domenica Martinello is the author of Good Want (2024) and All Day I Dream about Sirens (2019) from Coach House Books. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her poems, reviews and criticism have been in The Globe & Mail, The Walrus, Black Warrior Review, CV2, and elsewhere. In 2023, she won the Malahat Review’s Long Poem Prize for her sequence "Good Want." She lives in Montréal.
Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. Fuse (Guernica Editions), her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, won a 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, is forthcoming with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024. Her debut novel will be released with Palimpsest Press in 2026 and her children’s book with Guernica Editions in 2027. www.hollayghadery.com
The awards will be officially presented at the John V. Hicks Long Manuscript Awards in Poetry ceremony at the SWG Conference at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Regina on Friday, October 25, 2024 at 8:00 pm. This is a free public event: all are welcome. The three winners receive awards of $1,000, $650, and $350 respectively and will read from their winning manuscripts. More information about our conference is available here: https://skwriter.com/events-and-workshops/annual-conferenceagm
The SWG congratulates the winners of this year’s Awards, and thanks all of our submitting writers.
