Announcing the 2025 UC Writing Award winners

The College hosted four local writing competitions open to UC and UC program students as part of the annual UC Writing Awards: the Frederic Davidson Competition, the Lorne Tepperman Prize in Public Writing, the Meyer (Mike) Greenstein Memorial Student Award for Writing Excellence, and the Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing. 

It also hosted the biennial Norma Epstein National Award for Creative Writing, which is open to undergraduate and graduate students from across Canada.

Here are this year's winners:

UC Writing Award Winners, 2025

Frederic Davidson Competition (UC):

First prize:

Theodore Atance, "Rationality and Survival" (academic essay)

Second prize:

Maida Faisal, "Racial Neoliberalism and Balochistan’s Development" (academic essay)

Third prize:

Carli Young, "Elon Musk's Reifying Nihilistic Engine Dressed as Necessary Progress" (academic essay)
 

Lorne Tepperman Prize in Public Writing (UC):

Olivia Gale-Wagner, "The Ethical Case for Extending Medical Assistance in Dying Eligibility to Terminally Ill Minors with Decision-making Capacity" (academic essay)
 

Meyer (Mike) Greenstein Memorial Student Award for Writing Excellence (UC):

Avi Sloane, "Do Religious Experience and Self-Favoring Non-Standard Theories of Epistemic Creden6als Makes Religious Disagreement Unique?" (academic essay)
 

The Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creating Writing (UC):

First prize:

Lucy Hister, “Lip Service” (short story)

Ella MacCormack, “It’s Only Funny if Everyone Laughs,” Not Like I Understood,” and “Night Bus” (poetry)

Second prize:

Raheel Mobarak, "Misunderstandings of Violence” (poetry)

Gurleena Sukhija, “Between Labels: A Memoir of Afghan Identify in Canada” (creative nonfiction)

 

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing: National Literary Contest for University Students:

First prize:

Elaine Lee, "Graceland" (short story)

Sophie Collis, "Best Before" (poetry)

Second prize:

Camille Pavlenko, "These Moments of Shine" (drama)

Rebecca Peng, "Our Side of the Sea" (short story)

Third prize:

Alice Turski, "Summer on the Wing" (short story)

Kit-Xgwélemc Kennedy, "Let it Simply Be So" (poetry)

Caroline (Carly) Wagschal, "Letters from Vancouver Island" (poetry)