Douglas Kyle Memorial PrizeShort Fiction
The 2024 Judge: Willow Kean
The 2022-23 judge: Marianne Ward Winners: First Place -- Cheyenne Kean-Lemery (Sackville, NB), The Yellow Door Tied for Second Place — Trent Pomeroy (Rothesay, NB), Now That We Can Choose Brent Mazerolle (Moncton, NB) Setting the Hook Third Place— Trent Pomeroy (Rothesay, NB), Holes 2021- 2022 judge: Hugh MacDonald Winners: First Place— Andrew Campbell, Nail House: 10048 Second Place— Eva Allen, The Gift Third Place— Pat Post, The Defaulters |
"It was a gift to receive the call that I had been awarded the Douglas Kyle Memorial Prize for my short story. The story I submitted to the contest has deep personal meaning for me and to hear it had reached someone was an incredible feeling. From start to finish, the contest was a positive, affirming experience for me. It was meaningful to hear the kind words from the contest judge and an absolute treat to meet with other writers to read our work. There are so many talented writers working in this province; being part of the reading was a huge honor. Writing communities are creative lifeblood for anyone who wants to write and this contest, for me, was a way to interact with the talented writers in New Brunswick. " Agata Atonow, Florenceville-Bristol, NB, 2021 winner "I received the Douglas Kyle Award in 2016. At the time I was getting rejection letters left and right and really feeling it. This award and the recognition of my peers gave me the confidence to keep going and even though I’ve since gone through long periods where I can’t seem to get the words down on the page, having that award in my back pocket always reminds me of what I am capable of." Jamie Gibbs, Miramichi, 2016 winner |
Willow Kean is an actor and writer from Labrador West who now resides in St. John’s. She holds a BFA in theatre from Grenfell College and has spent over twenty years working for several theatre companies across Newfoundland and Labrador. Her work on film includes The Death of Winter, Hard Light, Away From Everywhere, and The King Tide. While living in South Korea, Willow was employed as a teacher, voice recording artist, and writer, researching and writing biographies and historical fiction for ESL students of all ages. She started writing collaboratively for the theatre in 2009 and has had several children’s theatre productions tour schools around the province. Willow’s five-woman comedy Supper Club was developed and workshopped with Resource Centre for the Arts Theatre and was selected for the Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre (PARC) Colony in Sackville, New Brunswick, held virtually over a two-week period in May of 2020. Supper Club premiered in St. John’s at the LSPU Hall in November of 2021, and completed an island-wide Arts and Culture Centre provincial tour this past fall. She’s won NL Arts and Letters awards in both fiction and non-fiction, been shortlisted for the Cuffer Prize, the WANL Postcard Story Contest, and most recently was longlisted for the 2022 NLCU Fresh Fish Award. Willow was the recipient of the 2016 Rhonda Payne Theatre Award, and in 2018 she won the Percy Janes First Novel Award. Her novel, Eyes in Front When Running, was published by Breakwater Books in June of 2023. Willow gets angry, cooks, and writes about it at thelittleredchicken.substack.com.