Victoria Writers’ Society 10th Annual Writing Competition
Poetry winners
First place: Ulrike Narwani
After living abroad for many years, Ulrike and her family finally settled in Sidney in 2003. She and her husband co-wrote a travel memoir detailing their adventures in a single-engine Cessna 182 that took them virtually around the word and into remote corners of South and Southeast Asia. Poetry is now a major part of her life. Her work has been published in Island Writer magazine and won 2nd place in Victoria Writers’ Society’s 2009 poetry contest and was shortlisted for Arc magazine’s 2009 contest.
Second place: Derek Peach
Bio: Derek Peach has been a teacher and traveler for almost 50 of his 69 years and has recorded those experiences in poetry and prose along the way. He continues to experiment with verse forms in his semi-retirement in Victoria and loves to take his work public where an open mic is available.
Third place: Lee Danielle Hubbard
Bio: Danielle Hubbard resides in Victoria, BC, with her husband, her teddy bear, and her bicycle, named Oly. She is the author of one fantasy novel,Clan of the Dung-Sniffers, and her poetry and short fiction has appeared in several literary magazines, including Event, andThe Claremont Review. Above all, she hopes to live in Iceland one day and become a leading expert in troll psychology.
Fiction
First place: Diana Jones
Bio: Diana Jones is a Victoria resident who has been writing short fiction for six years. When she isn’t flamenco dancing she is working on her first novel.
Second place: Judy Burgess
Third place: Judy Burgess
Bio: Judy Burgess was born and raised in Victoria. Now a retired teacher, she writes children’s novels, adult short stories– fiction and creative non-fiction– and has dabbled in poetry. Island Writer magazine has published two of her CNF stories: “The Hunter” in Winter 2010 and “Tough Enough?” in Summer 2011.
Creative Nonfiction
First Place: C.J. Van Elslande
Second Place: Valerie Warder
Bio: Valerie teaches professional writing at UVic. She has taught literature and composition at colleges and universities in Canada and the United States. She has been a creative writer for years, but a closet one, and now it’s time to come out of the closet. “Primero” is an excerpt from a blog that chronicles raising four boys in a small Saskatchewan town.
Third Place: Laura Seabury Smith
Laura is the treasurer of the Victoria Writers’ Society and belongs to several CNF critique groups. She’s currently working on a memoir and personal essays. She’s been published in Island Writer and won first prize for fiction in the Rona Murray literary contest sponsored by the Greater Victoria Council for the Arts.