5 Canadian authors shortlisted for $10K Danuta Gleed Literary Award for best debut short story collection

Five Canadian authors are shortlisted for the 2023Danuta Gleed Literary Award.

The $10,000 award is given out annually to the year's best first collection of short fiction. Two additional prizes of $1,000 are also awarded.

Administered by The Writers' Union of Canada, the award is funded by John Gleedin memory of his wife, writer Danuta Gleed. Her short fiction won numerous awards before she died in 1996 and her short fiction book, One of the Chosen, was published posthumously.

The shortlist was determined from 28 collections published in 2023.

The nominees are:

• Cocktail byLisa Alward
• Her Body Among AnimalsbyPaola Ferrante
• The Girl Who Cried Diamonds & Other Stories byRebecca Hirsch Garcia
• AnecdotesbyKathryn Mockler
• The Private Apartments byIdman Nur Omar

Lisa Alward's short fiction has appeared inThe Journey Prize Stories 2017,Best CanadianStories 2017andBest Canadian Stories 2016. She is the winner of the New Quarterly's 2016 Peter Hinchcliffe ShortFiction Award as well as the 2015 Fiddlehead Short Fiction Prize. She lives in Fredericton. She was onthe 2018 CBC Short Story Prize longlistforOrlando 1974,which is included inCocktail.

• The CBC Poetry Prize is open from April 1 to June 1

Paola Ferrante is a poet and fiction writer from Toronto. Her books include the poetry collectionWhat to Wear When Surviving A Lion Attackand the poetry chapbookThe Dark Unwind.She was longlisted for the 2020 Journey Prize and wonRoom's 2018 prize for fiction.

Rebecca Hirsch Garcia is an Ottawa-based writer whose work has been published inThreepenny Review, Prism International andThe Dark. She won theO. Henry Prize in 2014 for her short storyA Golden Light.

Kathryn Mockler is the author of five books of poetry. She co-edited the print anthologyWatch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisisand is the publisher of the Watch Your Head website. She runs Send My Love to Anyone, a literary newsletter, and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria where she teaches screenwriting and fiction. Mockler waslonglisted for the 2012 CBC Poetry Prizefor a collection of poems titledIce Fishing, Neighbours, Stones, Looking for Crayfishas well as in 2009 forOnion Man.

Idman Nur Omar is a Calgary-based writer who alsoteaches at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in the communication and liberal arts department.

This year's jury was authorsDanila Botha, paulo da costaand Souvankham Thammavongsa.

• Souvankham Thammavongsa wins $100K Scotiabank Giller Prize for short story collection How to Pronounce Knife

The winners will be announced on Facebook Live on June 11at 12 p.m. EDT.

Last year's winner was Kim FuforLesser Known Monsters of the21st Century.

Other past winners include Zalika Reid-Benta, Carrianne Leung, David Bezmozgis, Ian Williams andHeather O'Neill.