Recent UC Writing Award Winners
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."
UC Writing Award Winners, 2006
Norma Epstein Foundation Awards in Creative Writing:
First prize:
Josh Stewart, "The Fugitive Road Trip."
Second prize:
John Heggie, "In the Eye of the Storm."
Third prize:
Cari Mason, "A Westerner’s Exploration of the Art of Public Bathing."