Top winners to be named during public reading event at the library
It has been 20 years of great stories, emerging writers and plot twists.
Now celebrating its 20th year, UBC’s creative writing contest has doubled the prize money and attracted close to 100 entries from budding BC authors.
With $1,800 and publication in subTerrain magazine at stake, the names of the final four winners will be announced at the contest finale. That evening, the top four writers will be invited to read an excerpt from their winning story.
UBC’s Okanagan Short Story Contest is an annual competition, open to fiction writers in the Southern Interior of British Columbia: east of Hope, west of the Alberta border, north of the US border and south of Williams Lake.
Contest prize totals doubled in 2018: The first-place author will net $1,000, second $400 and third $200. The first-place winning author will also have their story published in subTerrain magazine. This year is the inaugural year for high-school students to participate and there is an additional $200 prize for the top short story written by a high-school student.
Winning submissions will be selected by past contest winner and current Thompson Rivers University writing prof Karen Hofmann, who will announce the final four writers at the April 16 event.
Shortlisted authors—adult category in alphabetical order:
- Victoria Alvarez of Lake Country
- Kale Bajowsky of Revelstoke
- Alison Braid of Summerland
- Serena Caner of Canoe
- Colette Langlois of Vernon
- Brittni MacKenzie-Dale of Kelowna
- Samantha Macpherson of Lake Country
- Angelika M. Offenwanger of Oyama
- Kazim Sherazee of Kelowna
- Leah Todd of Kelowna
Shortlisted authors—high-school category in alphabetical order:
- Bethany Pardoe of LV Rogers Secondary
- Finn Tobin of Mount Boucherie Secondary School
- Anna Vajda of Heritage Christian Online School
The free, one-hour public event takes place Monday, April 16 at the Okanagan Regional Library, downtown Kelowna, 1380 Ellis St., starting at 6:30 p.m.
The Okanagan Short Story Contest is organized by UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies and co-sponsored by the Kelowna Capital News, the Central Okanagan Foundation, the Amber Webb-Bowerman Memorial Foundation, and subTerrain magazine.