The Journey Prize Stories 25 Read online

  WINNERS OF THE $10,000 JOURNEY PRIZE

  1989: Holley Rubinsky for “Rapid Transits”

  1990: Cynthia Flood for “My Father Took a Cake to France”

  1991: Yann Martel for “The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios”

  1992: Rozena Maart for “No Rosa, No District Six”

  1993: Gayla Reid for “Sister Doyle’s Men”

  1994: Melissa Hardy for “Long Man the River”

  1995: Kathryn Woodward for “Of Marranos and Gilded Angels”

  1996: Elyse Gasco for “Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby?”

  1997 (shared): Gabriella Goliger for “Maladies of the Inner Ear”

  Anne Simpson for “Dreaming Snow”

  1998: John Brooke for “The Finer Points of Apples”

  1999: Alissa York for “The Back of the Bear’s Mouth”

  2000: Timothy Taylor for “Doves of Townsend”

  2001: Kevin Armstrong for “The Cane Field”

  2002: Jocelyn Brown for “Miss Canada”

  2003: Jessica Grant for “My Husband’s Jump”

  2004: Devin Krukoff for “The Last Spark”

  2005: Matt Shaw for “Matchbook for a Mother’s Hair”

  2006: Heather Birrell for “BriannaSusannaAlana”

  2007: Craig Boyko for “OZY”

  2008: Saleema Nawaz for “My Three Girls”

  2009: Yasuko Thanh for “Floating Like the Dead”

  2010: Devon Code for “Uncle Oscar”

  2011: Miranda Hill for “Petitions to Saint Chronic”

  2012: Alex Pugsley for “Crisis on Earth-X”

  Copyright © 2013 by McClelland & Stewart

  Emblem is an imprint of McClelland & Stewart,

  a division of Random House of Canada Limited

  Emblem and colophon are registered trademarks of McClelland & Stewart, a division of Random House of Canada Limited

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

  “Megan’s Bus” © Steven Benstead; “The Egyptians © Jay Brown; “In the Foothills” © Andrew Forbes; “Gulliver’s Wife” © Philip Huynh; “Team Ninja” © Amy Jones; “Mrs. Fujimoto’s Wednesday Afternoons” © Marnie Lamb; “How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?” © Doretta Lau; “It’s Raining in Paris” © Laura Legge; “Ossicles” © Natalie Morrill; “Sleep World” © Zoey Leigh Peterson; “My Sister Sang” © Eliza Robertson; “Cinema Rex” © Naben Ruthnum.

  A cataloguing record for this publication is available from Library and Archives Canada.

  Published simultaneously in the United States of America by McClelland & Stewart, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013938799

  McClelland & Stewart,

  a division of Random House of Canada Limited

  One Toronto Street

  Suite 300

  Toronto, Ontario

  M5C 2V6

  www.mcclelland.com

  eISBN: 978-0-7710-4737-4

  v3.1

  ABOUT THE JOURNEY PRIZE STORIES

  The $10,000 Journey Prize is awarded annually to an emerging writer of distinction. This award, now in its twenty-fifth year, and given for the thirteenth time in association with the Writers’ Trust of Canada as the Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, is made possible by James A. Michener’s generous donation of his Canadian royalty earnings from his novel Journey, published by McClelland & Stewart in 1988. The Journey Prize itself is the most significant monetary award given in Canada to a developing writer for a short story or excerpt from a fiction work in progress. The winner of this year’s Journey Prize will be selected from among the twelve stories in this book.

  The Journey Prize Stories has established itself as the most prestigious annual fiction anthology in the country, introducing readers to the finest new literary writers from coast to coast for more than two decades. It has become a who’s who of up-and-coming writers, and many of the authors who have appeared in the anthology’s pages have gone on to distinguish themselves with short story collections, novels, and literary awards. The anthology comprises a selection from submissions made by the editors of literary journals from across the country, who have chosen what, in their view, is the most exciting writing in English that they have published in the previous year. In recognition of the vital role journals play in fostering literary voices, McClelland & Stewart makes its own award of $2,000 to the journal that originally published and submitted the winning entry.

  This year the selection jury comprised three acclaimed writers:

  Miranda Hill won the 2011 Writers’ Trust of Canada / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her story “Petitions to Saint Chronic.” Her debut collection of short fiction, Sleeping Funny, was published by Doubleday Canada. She is currently at work on a novel that weaves a story of Pittsburgh’s fine houses and steel mills with Muskoka’s cottage country. Hill received her BA in drama from Queen’s University, and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She is also the founder and executive director of Project Bookmark Canada, an initiative that installs text from stories and poems in the exact physical locations where literary scenes are set. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario. Please visit www.mirandahill.com.

  Mark Medley is the National Post’s Books Editor and oversees the paper’s books blog, The Afterword. His work has appeared in magazines and newspapers across Canada, including the Globe and Mail, The Walrus, Toronto Life, This Magazine, Spacing, and Taddle Creek. He currently sits on PEN Canada’s board of directors and serves on the advisory committee of the Humber School for Writers. He lives in Toronto.

  Russell Wangersky’s most recent fiction collection, Whirl Away, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the BMO Winterset Award, and the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. He is also the author of The Glass Harmonica, winner of the BMO Winterset Award; The Hour of Bad Decisions, a finalist for the regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book; and the memoir Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself, winner of the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the Rogers Communications Newfoundland and Labrador Non-Fiction Book Award, and the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction. It was also a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize. Wangersky lives and works in St. John’s, where he is an editor and columnist with the St. John’s Telegram. Please visit www.russellwangersky.com.

  The jury read a total of eighty-one submissions without knowing the names of the authors or those of the journals in which the stories originally appeared. McClelland & Stewart would like to thank the jury for their efforts in selecting this year’s anthology and, ultimately, the winner of this year’s Journey Prize.

  McClelland & Stewart would also like to acknowledge the continuing enthusiastic support of writers, literary journal editors, and the public in the common celebration of new voices in Canadian fiction.

  For more information about The Journey Prize Stories, please visit www.facebook.com/TheJourneyPrize.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Winners of the $10,000 Journey Prize

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About the Journey Prize Stories

  Congratulations to the Journey Prize – from the Authors

  Introduction
/>   Miranda Hill, Mark Medley,

  and Russell Wangersky

  LAURA LEGGE

  It’s Raining in Paris

  (from The Malahat Review)

  ANDREW FORBES

  In the Foothills

  (from PRISM international)

  NATALIE MORRILL

  Ossicles

  (from filling Station)

  PHILIP HUYNH

  Gulliver’s Wife

  (from The New Quarterly)

  AMY JONES

  Team Ninja

  (from Prairie Fire)

  MARNIE LAMB

  Mrs. Fujimoto’s Wednesday Afternoons

  (from The Dalhousie Review)

  STEVEN BENSTEAD

  Megan’s Bus

  (from Grain)

  NABEN RUTHNUM

  Cinema Rex

  (from The Malahat Review)

  JAY BROWN

  The Egyptians

  (from Prairie Fire)

  DORETTA LAU

  How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?

  (from EVENT)

  ZOEY LEIGH PETERSON

  Sleep World

  (from The New Quarterly)

  ELIZA ROBERTSON

  My Sister Sang

  (from Grain)

  About the Contributors

  About the Contributing Publications

  Previous Contributing Authors

  CONGRATULATIONS TO THE JOURNEY PRIZE –

  FROM THE AUTHORS

  “I was naturally thrilled to have a story included in the Journey Prize anthology. Particularly when you’re just starting out, being accepted in an anthology – an actual book instead of a magazine, something with a spine, something that people might buy in a bookstore – feels like donning a tiara. But it wasn’t until I sat on the Journey Prize jury myself, fourteen years later, that I realized how tough the competition is, how many stories are submitted, and how many good ones aren’t included for lack of space or jury consensus. If I’d known this back then, I probably wouldn’t have settled for that tiara feeling. I’d have gone around with the darned book strapped to my head.”

  –Caroline Adderson

  “The Journey Prize anthology does many things: it gives affirmation to a work, it piques the interest of agents and publishers, but most importantly, it creates an opportunity for emerging writers to be recognized and it supports our Canadian literary magazines. It searches out fresh and daring voices trying to gain ground and gives them a boost. We need The Journey Prize Stories now more than ever.”

  – Théodora Armstrong

  “Way back in 1989, I got lucky with my first published story when it was selected for the Journey Prize anthology. Then I got lucky three more times. It is astounding to see how many writers published in the anthology have gone on to publish great story collections and novels. The anthology is a windfall for both writer and reader.”

  – David Bergen

  “Reading The Journey Prize Stories helped me grow as a writer, gave me a sense of permission, threw down a stylistic gauntlet, and then, when I found my own stories in its pages – oh, glorious day! – gave me a fantastic sense of accomplishment and confidence.

  It’s true that developing writers need The Journey Prize Stories, but really, we all need the JPS – to show Canada and the world that our short story writers just keep quietly, keenly, creating; to show discerning readers that the whole world can haunt and glow in a few pages, that a small shift in a character’s consciousness can be as thrilling as any sprawling saga, and that size really does matter, but never quite in the way that you might think.”

  – Heather Birrell

  “A great jolt of electricity startles the heart and jump-starts the writing career when you get the nod from the Journey people. It’s a thrill to find your name included amongst some of the leading new voices in short fiction.”

  – Dennis Bock

  “Some writers are blessed with an innate, bulletproof confidence, coupled with the sturdy conviction that what they write matters. But for the rest of us, doubt and insecurity are the acid bath in which our literary ambitions are born. And there is nothing like a Journey Prize nomination to prop up a nascent writer’s fragile hopes. Like the little boy’s love for the Velveteen Rabbit, the affections of the Journey Prize eased my transition from ‘Who are you kidding with this writing stuff?’ to ‘Maybe you should write more of these things.’ And the truly wonderful thing is, I know I’m not alone.”

  – Michael Christie

  “Being a part of the anthology was something of a landmark in my own progression as a writer. I’d read previous editions, and to be a part of it myself was a great surprise. It provided me with some confidence, a commodity highly prized by writers, especially when you’re just starting out.”

  – Craig Davidson

  “Many years ago, a kind relative who knew I had literary aspirations gave me a copy of the Journey Prize anthology. It was bright red and contained stories by new Canadian writers. Would I ever be one of those? So far I was just Canadian. A decade later I got a phone call that changed my life. Are you sitting down? I was living in a tiny apartment in Calgary and I had one chair. I was so excited I couldn’t find my one chair. Wait, wait! I sat down on the floor. I had won the Journey Prize! How did I feel? Like a superhero. Very proud. Very grateful. And completely cured of my worst fear – that I wouldn’t be a writer.”

  – Jessica Grant

  “What a thrill! A ‘yes’ instead of a ‘no.’ I had done something right, and now I would have to figure out what it was.”

  – Elizabeth Hay

  “I remember feeling ratified, authenticated, which of course was an illusion; no journal or anthology or prize ever proves you are a real writer (whatever that is). But being chosen for an anthology as important as The Journey Prize Stories gave me a lift when I especially needed one, and I still think of that with gratitude.”

  – Steven Heighton

  “Winning the Journey Prize was the largest, and most public acknowledgement my work had received. But more than the money, or remembering the moment my name was called, I treasure the fact that my name and the title of my story will sit forever in the back pages of subsequent Journey Prize anthologies, side by side with the names of writers I admire – those I know about already, and those whose work is still to come. It’s a great privilege to be part of that tradition. How lucky I am – how lucky all we writers and readers are.”

  – Miranda Hill

  “The writing apprenticeship is a long one, perhaps neverending, and an appearance in the Journey Prize anthology is a boost of encouragement along the way. I am especially pleased that several of my former students have been included. Bravo for continuing to celebrate this challenging and exact genre – the story in its short form.”

  – Frances Itani

  “I feel like I’ve been travelling alongside the Journey Prize for a substantial chunk of my life. My dad (Alistair MacLeod) was the judge for the first award, and I very clearly remember the winning story, Holley Rubinsky’s ‘Rapid Transits,’ and the way that inaugural prize transformed her career. Later on, like lots of young writers, I was a loyal annual reader of the anthology. Sometimes I loved what I found in there, sometimes I hated it, but I was always thrilled when editors at journals would nominate my stories and then devastated when my pieces didn’t fit into the final puzzle. When ‘Miracle Mile’ got the call in 2009 – selected by editors I really respected – I felt like this was the beginning of a real writing life, and when I was asked to be an editor in 2011, that was like being invited behind the curtain by the great and powerful Oz. Last year, I celebrated like a fool when one of my students, Kris Bertin, made the cut. I was proud of him and proud of the editors and proud of the whole series. It felt like a completed circuit, a journey all the way around and back again. A quarter century of great work has gone onto the pages of Journey Prize anthologies and into the production of these twenty-five books. Canadian Literature is flat-out lucky t
o have such an institution.”

  – Alexander MacLeod

  “David Bergen is a loser. André Alexis: also a loser. Anne Carson, Lee Henderson, Heather O’Neill – all losers. And I can claim to losing the Journey Prize not once, but twice myself. Being in the company of some of Canada’s best, brightest, and most beautiful losers is fine and good, but ten grand for twenty pages of typing? It would have been awesome to win.”

  – Pasha Malla

  “The Journey Prize anthology has become the proving ground for new, young Canadian writers, a who’s who of the coming generation.… I, for one, owe everything to the Journey Prize.”

  – Yann Martel

  “I’d been collecting the Journey Prize anthologies and dreaming of one day appearing within those pages, so every step of the process left me almost beside myself with happiness. To work harder than you’ve ever worked before – and to have your work acknowledged in that very public way – is hugely encouraging for a writer. It’s special, too, because it almost never happens. I felt I was forever becoming part of this tradition that I had revered and which stood for something important to me, connecting me to writers whose work and careers I admired.”

  – Saleema Nawaz

  “Like a secret handshake or the password to a speakeasy, inclusion in The Journey Prize Stories feels like the first, magical entry to the tribe of Canadian writers. It’s an honour to be part of this heady heritage, alongside writers I grew up reading and whose work I adore. The Journey Prize is one of Canada’s most important literary institutions, because it ensures the continuation of great Canadian literature through its encouragement, support, and celebration of the next generation.”

  – Grace O’Connell

  “There is no guarantee, ever, that a writer’s work will be read and recognized, and as a beginning writer there are many moments of self-doubt in this regard. Inclusion in the Journey Prize anthology was invaluable to me in terms of the encouragement and boost in morale that it offered me.”