Shevchenko Foundation Announces 2020 Emerging Writers Short Prose Competition $1,500 Win

The Shevchenko Foundation is pleased to announce that “Grafting” by Oshawa writer Tanya Berezuk is the winner of the 2020 Emerging Writers Short Prose Competition.

The $1,500 prize is awarded annually to a Canadian writer for the best piece of unpublished prose of up to 1,500 words in the English language on a topic with a tangible connection to the Ukrainian Canadian experience.

“Berezuk’s command of the telling details brings her characters vividly to life, in scenes so clearly rendered that you can taste them. This is a classic memoir – relatable, profound and told with heart.” – Anna Marie Sewell

The jury members this year consisted of award-winning Canadian author Marsha Skrypuch, multi-disciplinary artist, writer and MacEwan University Writer-in-Residence Anna Marie Sewell, and producer and librettist/writer and member of the Shevchenko Foundation Board of Directors, Gordon Gordey.

“A fresh and powerful reflection on the nature of joining the new with the old, be it trees or culture. Berezuk crafts her images for their emotional punch and she does that with such precision that it makes this reader weep. I would love to see a novel by this writer.” – Marsha Skrypuch.

Honorable Mentions were given to “Academic Honesty of Bones” by Nadia Gereliouk (Toronto) and “Flying Home: An Elegy on Emigrant Pilgrimage” by Iryna Lozynska (Richmond Hill).

Ms Berezuk sites her immersion in two cultures – Ukrainian and Canadian, and living through the dynamic cultural changes in Canadian society in the 70s as key forces in her craft.

The Shevchenko Foundation is committed to encouraging and promoting new authors who write on themes with connections to the Ukrainian Canadian experience. The Shevchenko Foundation’s Emerging Writers Short Prose Competition sets the groundwork for new writers to explore the short prose form and to one day aspire to submit an entry to the Kobzar Book Award (www.kobzarbookaward.com)

 

 

 

 

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