Contests

Open Season Awards—meet the judges

Corinna Chong—fiction judge

Corinna ChongCorinna Chong‘s first novel, Belinda's Rings, was published by NeWest Press in 2013, and her reviews and short fiction have appeared in magazines across Canada. The Whole Animal, a collection of short stories, was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2023, and includes “Kids in Kindergarten,” which won the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize, and “Love/Cream/Heat,” which was selected for The Best Canadian Stories 2024, published by Biblioasis. Bad Land, her second novel, will be released in Fall 2024 with Arsenal Pulp Press. Corinna lives on unceded Syilx/Okanagan territory (Kelowna, BC) and teaches English, creative writing, and fine arts at Okanagan College.

Read an interview with Corinna Chong on what she's looking for in a winning story.

Sadiqa de Meijer—creative nonfiction judge

Sadiqa de MeijerSadiqa de Meijer is a poet and essayist whose books include Leaving Howe Island (Governor General's Award Finalist 2014), The Outer Wards (Raymond Souster Award finalist), and alfabet/alphabet (Governor General's Award Winner 2021). Her work, which often explores landscape, language, inner lives, and the long wakes of colonialism and migration, has received the CBC Poetry Prize, Arc's Poem of the Year Award, the Jean Royce Fellowship, and other honours. It has been published internationally in Poetry Magazine, the Walrus, Brick Magazine, Poetry London, and anthologized in The Best Canadian Poetry, The Best Canadian Essays, and the Dutch Turing Prize series. Her essay collection In The Field is forthcoming in 2025. She is currently Poet Laureate of Katarokwi/Kingston.

Read an interview with Sadiqa de Meijer on what she's looking for in a winning cnf piece.

Matthew Hollett—poetry judge

Matthew HollettMatthew Hollett is a writer and photographer in St. John's, Newfoundland (Ktaqmkuk). His work explores landscape and memory through photography, writing and walking. Optic Nerve, a book of poems about photography and visual perception, was published by Brick Books in 2023. It was shortlisted for the J.M. Abraham Poetry Award, and longlisted for the BMO Winterset Award. Matthew won the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize, and has previously received the NLCU Fresh Fish Award for Emerging Writers and The Fiddlehead's Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem. He is a graduate of the MFA program at NSCAD University.

Read an interview with Matthew Hollett on what he's looking for in a winning poem.