News

Open Season Awards: Winners for 2026

poetry: Cassandra Myers, “QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT FOR HONEYBEES AND OTHER YELLOW COLLISIONS”
fiction: Andrea Bishop, “Show and Tell”
creative nonfiction: Stephanie Harrington, “Chimera”

Congratulations to all three writers, who have each won $2,000 in prize money and publication in our upcoming spring issue #234. Look for interviews with the winners in our April newsletter. Keep reading for comments from the judges and to learn more about the contest winners!

Poetry

Poetry contest judge Manahil Bandukwala had this to say about Cassandra Myers' winning poem:

“The inventive framing of ‘QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT FOR HONEYBEES AND OTHER YELLOW COLLISIONS’ surprises me in the best way possible. Two lovers are mapped onto quantum particles as the poem uses physics theory to unfold a narrative of long-distance love in nine parts. Against a landscape of violence for ‘bodies as sick and brown as ours,’ the love the poet evokes is one of vulnerability and openness. With form that stretches across the page like two linked particles stretched across space, this is a poem that brings a feeling of joy and delight into its readers.”

Cassandra Myers

Cassandra Myers (they/she/he) is an award winning multi-disciplinary artist and therapist from Tkaronto, Ontario. As a queer, non-binary, South-Asian-Italian, multi-disabled, survivor of sexual violence, Cassandra's work is cinematic and unrelenting in its commitment to specificity. They have three dreams: live on a sailboat (check), work on a horse ranch, start a pearl farm.

Fiction

Fiction contest judge H. Felix Chau Bradley had this to say about Andrea Bishop's winning story:

“‘Show and Tell’ is a slow burn of a story, told with restrained rage from a child’s perspective. Its concerns seem simple enough at its outset, but soon the narrative expands, subtly and humorously revealing the institutional and interpersonal power dynamics that conspire against its young narrator, Tanya. Despite the constraints that threaten to bring her down, Tanya is rebelliously creative, resourceful, and kind. ‘Show and Tell’ offers a vision of how to push back against the disappointments of a violently uncaring world.”

Andrea Bishop

Andrea Bishop splits her time between Vancouver and Salt Spring Island, BC. Her work has appeared in Grain, The Fiddlehead, The Masters Review, Cleaver, as an online feature in PRISM International, and elsewhere. In 2025, her stories were recognized for the CBC Short Story Prize, The Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction, The Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction, and The Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award. Andrea is grateful for support from the Canada Council for the Arts to work on a short story collection, now complete. She’s currently at work revising a novel (or two). Andrea has a deep appreciation for forests, dogs, quests, and spreadsheets, and is always attempting to improve her chess game. Andrea welcomes visitors at andreabishop.ca and dialogue on Bluesky @andreabishop.bsky.social or Instagram @_andreabishopvanbc.

Creative Nonfiction

Creative nonfiction judge Shane Neilson had this to say about Stephanie Harrington's winning piece:

“Written as a lyrically fragmented first-person address to a sibling who died during the pandemic, ‘Chimera’ braids two narrative lines together. The first wonders about interior lives, isolation, what we know about others we love, and how powerless we all are to fix or change them. Against this mournful backdrop, the second tells a story of birth and commingling, of how we are strangely all a part of one another, together. It, too, is told to the dead sibling, thereby enacting the theme of bidirectional flow and transfer in the story. By attesting to mortality and fragility in these different ways, the story has, like the baby mentioned inside it, ‘a beautiful heart.’ ”

Stephanie Harrington

Stephanie Harrington is a second-generation settler of Irish descent who lives on the unceded traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən People (Victoria). She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Victoria. She has worked as a journalist, editor and a communications professional for more than 20 years. Her journalism has been published in print publications in Canada, Hong Kong and Australia, and her literary works in The Malahat Review and The New Quarterly. Born in Hamilton, she is working on a memoir about her brother Ian who died in 2020 from toxic drugs. She facilitates a peer support group for people who have lost siblings to substance use-related harms.

 


All three winning pieces will be published in issue #234, spring 2026, circulating in May.



We would also like to congratulate those who were shortlisted for the 2026 Open Season Awards:

In POETRY:

Jeremy Audet, "On Returning to Pask, Gaspésie, Decades After the Forced Relocation, to Bury What Was Left of its Grammar"
and "Tissaje (Spotted River                             Earth Held)"
Dominique Bernier-Cormier, "If All Humans Died, When Would the Last Light Go Out?"
Renato Gandia, "The Gospel of Touch"
Jennifer Manuel, "Latency"
Melanie Power, "To be young is to be porous, to be friends is to be lovers"
Nicholas Selig, "Second Best Time"

In FICTION:

Krista Eide, "Saucers"
Josh Goudie, "Lonely Planet"
Mithila Karnik, "Semblance"
Annick MacAskill, "Best"
Camille Pavlenko, "Kuzmenko Residence"
C. White, "Prince George Cat"

In CREATIVE NONFICTION:

Emily Groot, "Hysteria"
Jennifer Louise, "Loser Lap"
Salimeh Maghsoudlou, "The Sound, the Silence, the Baby, the Body"
Ulysses Mugavazi, "And the Land Soaked it Up"
Scott Olsen, "A Bill C-31 Divorce"
Danica Roache, "The Ebb Tide"

Thank you to all who entered for your support of our contest and the magazine. Many thanks also to contest judges Manahil Bandukwala (poetry), H. Felix Chau Bradley (fiction), and Shane Neilson (cnf), as well as all of our valued staff and volunteers for their work.