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• Individual stories can be previously published, but a novella or novel extract must be unpublished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

2025 Judge: Sue Murtagh

Sue Murtagh (she/her) lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She won the Budge Wilson short fiction prize in 2016. Sue is a graduate of the Alistair MacLeod mentorship program (Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia) and the Humber School for Writers, where she worked with mentor Danila Botha. Her writing has appeared in The Nashwaak Review, Grain, carte blanche, the Humber Literary Review, The New Quarterly, yolkliterary.ca, and The Walrus. Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press published her debut short story collection, We're Not Rich, in October 2024. Award-winning writer Alexander MacLeod edited the linked collection.

2024 Judge: Trudy J. Morgan

Winners

First Place: Confessions of a Binge Drinker – Alison Taylor, Fredericton

Second Place: Happenstance, Thomas Chamberlain, Rothesay

Third Place: Little Blue Dancers, John McNeil, Fredericton

Honourable Mention: The Watering of the Girls, Jane Simpson, Belleisle Creek

2022-23 Judge: Michelle Wamboldt 

Winners

First Place: Zev Bagel (Shediac, NB), Seeking Isak Lowenstein

Second Place: Ed Lemond (New Richmond, QC), The Last Thing She Said

Third Place: Kelly Alcorn (Rollingdam, NB), Grand Manan

2021-22 Judge: Thomas Moore

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