David Adams Richards Prize

Fiction Manuscript

  • Story collection, novella, or novel extract
  • 15,000 to 30,000 words
  • Individual stories can be previously published, but a novella or novel extract must be unpublished
  • First Prize $400, Second Prize $200, Third Prize 1 year WFNB membership

2022-23 Judge: Michelle Wamboldt

Michelle Wamboldt is a fiction writer living on the beautiful South Shore of Nova Scotia.  Michelle received a BA in English literature from Dalhousie University and then went on to journalism school in Toronto. For many years she was a communications consultant with the Federal Government.  In 2022 her debut novel, Birth Road was published by Vagrant Press / Nimbus Publishing. Birth Road is historical fiction set in Truro, NS during the early twentieth century. It is a story of love, lost innocence, and the secrets that so often haunt small places. Michelle’s fiction has appeared in The Dalhousie Review and Moose House Publication’s second volume of Blink and You’ll Miss it. Michelle is a member of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia and the Writers’ Union of Canada.



2021-22 judge: Thomas Moore

2021-22 Winners: First Place - Heather Gunn, Her Wilco Years

Second Place – Vanessa Hawkins, Dante's Inferno: Canto X

Third Place - Richard Toth, Easy Up and Down



"I won the David Adams Richards prize (for a collection of short stories) in 2005. I was super happy to have that as a thing to mention in every single query letter I sent to agents and publishers trying to get published. My advice: Enter." -Riel Nason, Quispamsis, NB, award-winning author


© 2021 Writers' Federation of New Brunswick

Territorial Acknowledgement

The Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick acknowledges that the land on which we live, work and gather is the traditional unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and Mi’kmaq Peoples, and we honour the spirit of our ancestors’ Treaties of Peace and Friendship.

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