Recent Writing Award Winners: University College

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 Credentials Makes Religious Disagreement Unique?" (academic essay)

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

First prize:

Ella MacCormack, “Lip Service” (short story)

Lucy Hister, “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:

Sophie Collis, "Graceland" (short story)

Elaine Lee, "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, "Let It Simply Be So" (poetry)

Kit-Xgwélemc Kennedy, "Letters from Vancouver Island" (poetry)

Caroline (Carly) Wagschal, "Summer on the Wing" (short story)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2024

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prize:

Ella MacCormack, "Surviving Kid Dracula " (other prose)

Second prizes:

Nghi Nguyen, "Elegy For My Twin Brother, the Green-winged Macaw" (short story)

Danielle Cryer, "Thread, Unravelling" (short story)

Third prizes:

Maryann Chen, "Between Vega and Altair" (other prose)

Atlas Young, Always, you (poetry)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Lillian Luan, "Straddling Tu and Yang: Mass Mobilization and Unsettled Identities in Zhang Wenjun's Meishan Reservoir" (academic essay)

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

Jenny Liu, "Lucas" (poetry)

Lorne Tepperman Prize in Public Writing:

No winner for 2024

UC Writing Award Winners, 2023

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prizes:

Cheryl Lee, "Exchange" (short story)

Selena Mercuri, "Hoop Earrings" (short story)

Second prizes:

Jenny Liu, "This Town" (poetry)

Skye Tulay, "The Namess Decision Maker - A Refugee Memoir" (other prose)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Akshay Goodrich Dua, "Rewilding in the High Seas: Exploring Proactive International Oceanic Governance" (academic essay)

Second prize:

Robert-Avraham Sloane, "Ockham’s First Proof, and the Denial of Truly Contrary Desires" (academic essay)

Third prize:

Annalies Smith, "Barbie Girls in a Barbie World: The Construction of a Woman-Centred Universe as a Site of Feminist Resistance in the Barbie Straight-to-DVD Movies" (academic essay)

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

Aylin (Oyan) Salahshoor, THE SINGULAR SUBJECT, THE “I.” (drama)

Lorne Tepperman Prize in Public Writing:

No winner for 2023.

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

First prizes:

Zak Jones, "Love Handles" (short story)

Jamie Michaels, "Phénakisticope" (short story)

Second prizes:

Jillian Clasky, Speedily and Very Soon and other poems (poetry)

Misha Solomon, "Oviparity" (short story)

Third prizes:

Eliza Ives, "Protection" (short story)

Clio Lake, Moonstaking (drama)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2022

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prize:

Aylin Salahshoor and Skylar Petrah, Minor Punctuations (drama)

Second prizes:

Ella Altena, Otherworlds: an exploration of the untouched (poetry)

Gia Hoa Diana Lam, "I'm autistic, not dumb" (short story)

Skye Tulay, "Travelling through Irkçılık, Travelling with Irkçılık - A Short Memoir" (other prose)

Third prize:

Zhen Chew, "Ghost Month" (other prose)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Mackenzie Teeple, "Sustainable Construction: Advantages and Limitations of Mycelium Biomaterial" (academic essay)

Second prizes:

Awa Hanane Diagne, "Beautiful Minds, Troublesome Representations: Schizophrenia in the Media" (academic essay)

Elena Goldak, "Trans Credibility: Proving Transness in Prison" (academic essay)

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

Shebonti Khandaker, "Tracing The Colonial Roots of Hijra Treatment in Bangladesh: a research précis" (academic essay)

Lorne Tepperman Prize in Public Writing:

First prize:

Jaclyn Pahl, "Remembering Tactility: A Lament For Print Journalism" (public writing)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2021

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prizes:

Kashi Syal, "Belle-Lettres? How do I make my writing beautiful, and other concerns" (other prose)

Zexi Ye, "Sentinel Pointed East" (short story)

Second prize:

Jenny Liu, "Watching Ants by the Curbside" (poetry)

Third prize:

Victoria McIntyre, Magpie (novel)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Kristie Lui, "J is for竹升: A Poem as a Site of Crossing" (essay on English literature)

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

Christopher Thomas, "Buberian Intersubjectivity and Racist Encounters" (academic essay)

Lorne Tepperman Prize in Public Writing:

First prize:

Daman Singh, "Teachers Are More Than Just Educators"

Runner up:

Bailey Storey, "St. Mary's Catholic Church: How Douglas Cardinal Brought Indigenous Perspectives into Catholic and Religious Architecture"

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

First prize:

Edie Reaney Chunn, Is a Violin a Fiddle, and Other Things People Really Want to Know (poetry)

Second prize:

Eliza Ives, "Spring" (poetry)

Third prize:

Maria Gacesa, MOTH (drama)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2020

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prizes:

Juan José Mora, Liberty City (novel)

Shelley Rafailov, Spring 2020: A Collection (poetry)

Kristen Zimmer, [ quarantine ] (poetry)

Second prizes:

Sana Mohtadi, "What's in a nose?" (other prose)

Kayenta Schmidt, "Six Steaks" (short story)

Erin Socholotiuk, "A Trial by Fire" (short story)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

(Lok Sang) Jeffrey To, "'What You See Is Entirely Different From What You Know': An Analysis of The Familiar and Unfamiliar in Annie Dillard’s 'Total Eclipse'" (essay on English literature)

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

Alexander Davidson, "Mastered by His Times: The Foreign Policy of John G. Diefenbaker, 1959-62" (academic essay)

Lorne Tepperman Prize in Public Writing:

First prize:

Liam Keating, "What Can Be Done"

Runner up:

Alex Erickson, "Get Paid for Data?"

UC Writing Award Winners, 2019

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

Second prizes:

Alyson Doyle, "Air to the Ether Ore" (drama)

Kayenta Schmidt, "Ranger Hat" (short story)

Third prizes:

Tallan Byram, "Psalms of Innocence & Experience" (poetry)

Kristen Zimmer, "Collections from the city" (poetry)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

Second prize:

Kristen Zimmer, "Static Proclamations and Hourly Revisions: Anaphora in the Declaration of Human Rights and Dionne Brand’s Inventory" (essay on English literature)

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

Alisha Stranges, "Watch Out Fi Dis!: The Re-Narration of Homoerotic Desire in Lawrence Graham-Brown’s 'Ten Minutes Into the Honeymoon'" (academic essay)

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

First prizes:

Matt W. Cook, "And a River Went Out of Eden" (short story)

Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike, "there’s more" (poetry)

Second prizes:

Jack Williams, "Lord knows you will be chilled to the bone sometimes" (poetry)

Virginia Page Jähne, "Permanent Fixture" (short story)

Third prizes:

Chantelle Cho, "Bilingual?" (poetry)

Coryn Urquhart, "Populations of a Ghost Town" (short story)

Susan Fowler Olding, "Wish You Were Here" (short story)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2018

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prize:

Morgan Davies, The Affair (drama)

Second prizes:

Kristen Zimmer, "Vignettes" (poetry)

Rachel Chiong, "Dark Magic" (poetry)

Sana Mohtadi, Sana Mohtadi Poetry Portfolio (poetry)

Third prizes:

Lok Sang Jeffrey To, "Toys Tossed Away" (other prose)

Tallan Byram, “Yet Why Not Say What Happened?” (other prose)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

James Hyett, "R Is for Revolution: Sound Change and Pedagogical Problems in Eighteenth-Century French Teaching in England" (essay on English literature)

Second prize:

Amritpal Singh, "The Heroic Thread of Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis" (essay on English literature)

Third prize:

Emma Davies, "Disrupting Rousseau’s Biological Essentialism in Wollstonecraft’s Original Stories from Real Life" (essay on English literature)

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

Alisha Stranges, "Engineering Spaces of Respite: Refunctioning Psychological Trauma through the Practice of Solo Improvised Rhythm Tap" (academic essay)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2017

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prizes:

Sanna Wani, "On How To Become A Bird" (Poetry)

Penelope Evans, "Julius of Troy, Helen of Rome" (Short Story)

Second prize:

Kristen Zimmer, "Quiet Vignettes" (poetry)

Third prize:

Lucas McDonell, "Time Again" (Drama)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Kristen Zimmer, "Ellipses in Language and the Body: The Absent Presence in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America Millennium Approaches" (essay on English literature)

Second prize:

Amritpal Singh, "The Cultural Framework of 'Ayens' and the Drama of East Anglia" (essay on English literature)

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

Daphne Wang, "UN Peacekeeping and Sexual Exploitation And Abuse (SEA)" (academic essay)

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

First prize:

Richard Kemick, "Phantom Light" (short story)

Second prizes:

Katya Roy, "Dadless" (poetry)

Rebecca Salazar, "Venus in Transit Routes" (poetry)

Third prizes:

Mary Simon Langham, "Dawn Breaks Everything" (short story)

Blair Yoxall, "Little Bull" (short story)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2016

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prize:

Michael Griffin, "Arrive by Morning" (poetry)

Third prizes:

Ellora Kothare, "A Small Letter From Depression" (other prose)

Victoria Liao, "(S.A.D.)" (poetry)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Amritpal Singh, "The Sentimentality of Tristram Shandy" (essay on English literature)

Second prize:

Jonathan Dick, "Poetry as Seduction: Flourishes of the Mind and the Bawdy in Paul Muldoon's 'Green Gown' " (essay on English literature)

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

Alisha Stranges, "Dialectical Others: Mapping Queer Affect, Failure, and Paranoia in the Live Art Experiments of Shaista Latif" (academic essay)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2015

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prize:

Mary Morrison, "A Million to One" (short story)

Second prize:

Danielle Klein, "Draw what you see: poems" (poetry)

Third prizes:

Catherine Filippov, "Poems for Older Men" (poetry)

Sean Lim, "Waiting" (short story)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Cristina Tomaino, "Gender Performance and Confinement in Emma Donoghue’s Room" (essay on English literature)

Second prize:

Victoria Liao, "Home is A Refuge? The Transformative Power of Queer Art in Fun Home" (essay on English literature)

Third prize:

Danielle Klein, "Longing and fulfillment in Sonnet 67 of Spenser’s Amoretti" (essay on English literature)

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

Rachel Phillips, "Representing Detroit: Ruin Porn and Geographical Imagination" (academic essay)

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

First prize:

Dawn Bryan, "Frolic: Or, an Impossible True History, as Told by Pugg, a Dog" (novel)

Second prize:

Sarah Brown, "Indicarra Love" (short story)

Third prizes:

Todor Oluic, "22 Ways to Skin a Rabbit" (poetry)

Sandy Pool, "One, Fourteen, Twenty-One" (novel)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2014

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

Second prizes:

Calvin Akler, "The Scar" (drama)

Adam Gregory, "The Moth" (poetry)

Elizabeth Thomas, "The Girls Are Never Supposed to End Up Together" (other prose)

Third prizes:

Robert Frost, "No Escape" (short story)

Jenny Wang, "Love me Tomorrow" (novel)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

Second prize:

Eva Plesnik, "The Playwright’s Expression of Purpose and the Ascension of King James I" (essay on English literature)

Third prize:

Anna Modugno, "'Your Will Shall Decide Your Destiny': Will and Shall in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter" (essay on English literature)

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

Alisha Stranges, "The Complicity of (in)Visibility" (academic essay)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2013

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prize:

Cara Evans, "Body Painting" (short story)

Second prizes:

Jennie Egerdie, "Piggy Bank" (drama)

Cara Evans, "Missed Connections – three poems" (poetry)

Danielle Klein, "Street Poems" (poetry)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Cara Evans, "The Gloss of Glory and the Meaning of Memory" (essay on English literature)

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

Cara Evans, "Constructing the dichotomized migration imaginary: historical narrative and erasure in the debate over Canada’s Bill C-31" (academic essay)

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

First prize:

Rosamund Small, "Vitals" (drama)

Second prizes:

Kelly Drukker, "On Inis Mor" (poetry)

Kristine Sahagun, "We are Everywhere Waking" (short story)

Menaka Ramen-Wilms, Three Temples(novel)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2012

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prizes:

Paloma Lev Aviv, "A Collection of Seven Poems" (poetry)

Nora Boydell, "Henry and the Wave" (short story)

Second prizes:

Allyssa Kidd, "From the Rooftops" (short story)

Nicole Grimaldi, "Grapefruits" (poetry)

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prizes:

Lindsey Larre, "Violations and Validations: Manuscript, Print, and Society in John Donne's 'A Valediction: of the Book' " (essay on English literature)

Benjamin David Shakinovsky, " 'Magnify his name together': Divine Inclusiveness in Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno" (essay on English literature)

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

Justin Miller, "Fences Make Neighbours" (drama)

UC Writing Award Winners, 2011

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prize:

Andrew Woodrow-Butcher, "Dereglement"

Second prizes:

Stephanie Wong, "Got to be real"

Christine Kang, "Free Time"

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Julia Michiko Hori, "History and its Ways"

Second prize:

Stephanie Wong, "Dark Nights, Exotic City"

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

Justin Miller, "Bad Time Laughter"

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

First prize:

Jon Flieger, "Transfer"

Second prizes:

Erina Harris, "For The Suicide Of Vespertine"

Daniel Karasik, "Faithful"

Third prizes:

Claire Ferris, "A Pond Edged"

Griffin McInnes, "Dead in Wawa"

UC Writing Award Winners, 2010

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prize:

Andre Babyn, "Imperfect Homes"

Third prizes:

Robert Frost, “A Song of Liberty”

Paloma Lev-Aviv, "Flat on the Cracker"

Evan O’Donnell, "America"

Adeli Alban Reyna, "Flecks of Winter"

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Claire Marie Stancek, "The Glass Divide: Proximity, Distance, and Problems of Communication in Two Poems by Keats”

Second prize:

Fariya Walji, "The Exploration of Secondary Detectives in Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd"

Third prize:

Anna Gallagher-Ross, " 'I recall them so they take place': Performative Memory in Harold Pinter’s Old Times"

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

Matthew Malone, "Contemporary Divisions over Queer Identity in Israel"

UC Writing Award Winners, 2009

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

First prize:

Jane Bao, "In Transit"

Second prize:

Jane Bao, "Club Med"

Third prize:

Jane Bao, "Boys’ Club Dismembered"

Frederic Davidson Competition:

Not awarded in 2009

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

Not awarded in 2009

UC Writing Award Winners, 2008

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

No winner for 2008.

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Emily Sugarman, "My Ruinous Anatomy: Love, Death, and Dissolution in Four Poems by John Donne."

Second prize:

Ana Lopez, "From Deconstructing to Constructing: Women's Relation to Avant-Garde Cinema."

Third prize:

Emily Sugarman, "The Song of the Roaring Girl."

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

Caitlin Tobiasz, "Museums and Monumental Architecture of the 21st Century: Questions Raised by Libeskind's Michael Lee-Chin Crystal."

UC Writing Award Winners, 2007

Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:

Giles Hodge, “Worthy.”

Frederic Davidson Competition:

First prize:

Vanessa Corlazzoli, "Political Leadership in South America: Chavez vs the Moderates."

Second prize:

Justin Maxwell Norris, "Playing the King: Tragicomic Differences in a King and No King and The Winter’s Tale."

Third prize:

Nadine Todd , "De Temps et d’espace de mythe et mémoire: La quête d’identitaire des protagonists dans Volkwagen Blues de Jacques Poulin."