Award-Winning Writing

For decades, The Malahat Review has received numerous commendations of excellence.

Many works published in TMR have featured in the National Magazine Foundation’s roster of finalists, with authors taking home 19 gold and 13 silver awards, as well as 65 honourable mentions to date. The Western Magazine Award Foundation declared TMR Magazine of the Year three times, and authors whose work was first published in our pages won 14 gold medals and were finalists 32 times.

TMR writers have won the Writers' Trust / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize eight times, the Pushcart Prize three times, the PEN/O. Henry Prize twice, the Howard O'Hagan Award twice, and the PEN/Robert J. Dau Prize once.

We also run four contests per year, in a range of genres, with prizes of up to $2,000 each.

We'd like to congratulate all our award-winning authors!

Issue 224

2023 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction winner
Eleanor Fuller, "The Hennessy Family Rosary"
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Issue 223

2023 Long Poem Prize winners
Donemica Martinello, "Good Want"
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Bren Simmers, "Cloud Études"
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Issue 222

2023 Open Season Awards winners
Gloria Blizzard (cnf), "Passage"
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Caroline Harper New (poetry), "Interview with a Cervidologist"
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Deepa Rajagopalan (fiction), "Cake"
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Issue 221

2022 CNF Prize winner
Andréa Ledding, "Define Intervention"

Issue 220

2022 Far Horizons Award for Poetry winner
Meryem Yildiz, "Inner Child Work"
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Issue 219

2022 Novella Prize winner
Jenny Ferguson, "Missing"
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Issue 218

2022 Open Season Awards winners
Ki'en Debicki (poetry), "Kahkhwí:yo"
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Sara Mang (fiction), "The Circular Motion of a Professional Spit-Shiner"
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Bahar Orang (cnf), "You Try to Write a Love Story"
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Issue 217

2021 CNF Prize winner
Justina Elias, "To Do"
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Issue 216

2021 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction winner
2022 Alberta Literary Award finalist
Ben Lof, "Naked States"
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Issue 215

2021 Long Poem Prize winners
Conor Kerr, "Just Passing Through"
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Jennifer Still, "Legs"
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Issue 214

2021 Open Season Awards winners
Matthew Hollett (poetry), "Merchant Vessels"
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Zilla Jones (fiction), "Crossing"
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Tanis MacDonald (cnf), "Mondegreen Girls"
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Issue 213

2020 CNF Prize winner
Christina Brobby, "On Playing Double Jeopardy!"
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Issue 212

Erin Soros, "Cord"
2021 GOLD medal winner in One of a Kind Storytelling

2020 Far Horizons Award for Poetry winner
A. R. Kung, "Flight"
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Issue 211

2020 Novella Prize winner
Rebecca Păpucaru, "Yentas"
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Issue 210

2020 Open Season Awards winners
Patrick Grace (poetry), "A Violence"
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Ajith Thangavelautham (fiction), "Moonbird"
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Joshua Whitehead (cnf), "Who Names the Rez Dog Rez?"
NMA 2021 GOLD medal winner in Personal Journalism
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Issue 209

2019 CNF Prize winner
Jeanette Lynes, "Bat Reign"
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Issue 208

2019 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction winner
Jason Jobin, "Triage"
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Issue 207

2019 Long Poem Prize Winners
John Elizabeth Stintzi, "Cold Dying Black Wet Cold Early Thing"
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Erin Soros, "Weight"
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Issue 206

2018 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize
Rowan McCandless, "Found Objects"
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2019 Open Season Awards Fiction
Janika Oza, "Exile"
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2019 Open Season Awards Poetry
Rami Schandall, "Timepiece"
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2019 Open Season Awards Creative Nonfiction
Lishai Peel, "Letters to My Mother"
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Issue 205

Christine Higdon, "A Prayer for Ursula in Open D"
NMA 2019 SILVER medal winner in Fiction

2019 Charles Lillard Founders' Award for Creative Nonfiction
Neal Debreceni, "Life in the Fab Lane"
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2019 P.K. Page Founders' Award for Poetry
River Halen Guri, "Speech"
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Issue 204

2018 Far Horizons Poetry Award
Emily Osborne, "Venn diagrams"
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Issue 203

2018 Novella Prize & 2019 Jack Hodgins Founders' Award for Fiction
Samantha Macpherson, "Tattoo"
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Issue 202

2018 Open Season Award, Poetry
Barbara Pelman, "Nevertheless"
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2018 Open Season Award, Fiction
Jann Everard, "Blue Runaways"
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2018 Open Season Award, Creative Nonfiction
B.A. Markus, "How Can a Dog Help a Goose"
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Issue 201

2017 Far Horizons Fiction Award
Katherin Edwards, "Faster Horses"
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2017 Constance Rooke CNF Prize
Nancy Holmes, "Flaubert's Hummingbirds"
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2018 P.K. Page Founders' Award for Poetry
Steve McOrmond, "Proof of Life"
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Issue 200

2019 Jack Hodgins Founders' Award for Fiction
Jason Jobin, "Before He Left"
NMA 2018 SILVER medal winner in Fiction
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Issue 199

2017 Long Poem Prize
Délani Valin, "No Buffalos"
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John Wall Barger, "Smog Mother"
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2018 Charles Lillard Founders' Award for Creative Nonfiction
Gena Ellett, "Heaven"
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Issue 198

2017 Open Season Award, Poetry
Genevieve Lehr, "two tarantulas appear in the doorway during a thunderstorm"
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2017 Open Season Award, Fiction
Rebecca Morris, "Foreign Bodies"
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2017 Open Season Award, Creative Nonfiction
Matthew Hollett, "Kiki, Out of Focus"
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Issue 197

2016 NMA GOLD winner (essay category)
Alicia Elliott

2016 Constance Rooke CNF Prize
Lynn Easton, "The Equation"
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Issue 196

2016 Far Horizons Poetry Award
Yusuf Saadi, "The Place Where Words Go to Die"
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Issue 195

2016 Novella Prize
Anne Marie Todkill, "Next of Kin"
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Issue 194

2016 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers winner
Katherine Magyarody

2016 Open Season Award, Poetry
John Pass, "Margined Burying Beetle"
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2016 Open Season Award, Fiction
Katherine Magyarody, "Goldhawk"
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2016 Open Season Award, Creative Nonfiction
Jennifer Williamson, "Light Year"
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Issue 193

2015 Constance Rooke CNF Prize
Maria Tessa Liem, "Rice Cracker"
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Issue 192

2015 Far Horizons Fiction Award
Mark Rogers, "Heaven and Back Again, or The Goddit"
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Issue 191

2015 Long Poem Prize
Gary Geddes, "The Resumption of Play"
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Genevieve Lehr, "The latter half of the third quarter of the waning moon"
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Issue 190

2015 Open Season Award, Poetry
Rebecca Salazar, "synaesthesia"
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2015 Open Season Award, Fiction
Wanda Hurren, "Rain Barrel"
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2015 Open Season Award, Creative Nonfiction
Michael Carson, "The Neanderthal and the Cave"
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Issue 189

2014 Far Horizons Award for Poetry
Laura Ritland, "Vincent in the Dream of Zundert"

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2014 Constance Rooke CNF Prize
Rebecca Foust, "Venn Diagrams"
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Issue 188

Translation Poetry Prize
Donald McGrath, "Elegy Written in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Park"

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Issue 187

2014 Novella Prize
Dora Dueck, "Mask"

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Issue 186

2014 Open Season Award, Poetry
Joelle Barron, "A Girl Like This Might Have Loved Glenn Gould"
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2014 Open Season Award, Fiction
Tajja Isen, "The Anxiety of Influence"
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2014 Open Season Award, Creative Nonfiction
Kelly Cooper, "Ten Easy Steps"
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Issue 185

2013 Constance Rooke CNF Prize
Liz Windhorst Harmer, "Blip"

Issue 184

2013 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction
Kerry-Lee Powell, "Palace of the Brine"
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2013 NMA SILVER winner (profiles category)
Monica Kidd

Issue 183

2014 Pushcart Prize winner (poetry)
Sina Queyras, "Like a Jet"

2013 Long Poem Prize
Claire Caldwell, "Osteogenesis"
Kim Trainor, "Nothing is Lost"

Issue 182

2013 Open Season Award, Poetry
Lisa Martin-deMoor, "Believing is not the same as Being Saved"
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2013 Open Season Award, Fiction
Carmelinda Scian, "The Butterfly First"
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2013 Open Season Award, Nonfiction
Susan Buis, "The Falling House"
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2014 Western Magazine Award gold winner (fiction category)
Adrian Brock

Issue 181

2012 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize
Carla Funk, "Returning"
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2012 Far Horizons Award for Poetry
Kayla Czaga, "gertrude stein loves a girl"
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Issue 180

2013 Jack Hodgins Award for Fiction
Kris Bertin, "Your #1 Killer & Extra Hands"
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Issue 179

2012 Novella Prize and 2013 Journey Prize Winner
Naben Ruthnum, "Cinema Rex"

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Issue 178

2012 Open Season Award, Fiction
Erin Frances Fisher, "Apiculture"
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2012 Open Season Award, Poetry
J. Mark Smith, “Landscape with petroleum plant and sewage treatment facility”
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2012 Open Season Award, Creative Nonfiction
Tik Maynard, "Buy BENSTON"
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Issue 177

2011 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize
Nominated for a 2011 National Magazine Award in the Personal Journalism category
Winner: "Hoarding" by Anne Marie Todkill
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Nominated for the 2012 McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize
"You Were Loved" by Trevor Corkum
"To Have to Wait" by Kevin Hardcastle

Issue 176

2012 Jack Hodgins Founders' Award
"Witness"by Daniel Karasik

2011 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction
Winner: "Next Year, For Sure" by Zoey Peterson
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Issue 175

2011 Long Poem Prize
"The Constant Gardener" by Maggie Schwed
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2011 Long Poem Prize
"The Sun Estate" by Julie Joosten
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2011 Norma Epstein Award in Creative Writing
2012 Alberta Literary Award winner
"Transfer" by Jon Flieger

Issue 174

2011 Open Season Award, Creative Nonfiction
Nominated for a 2011 National Magazine Award in the One of a Kind Category
"How to bury a yellow toque" by Jessica Hiemstra-van der Horst
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2011 Open Season Award, Fiction
"The Investment on Dumfries Street" by Philip Huynh
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2011 Open Season Award, Poetry
"Late Summer in Frederick Arm" by Cynthia Woodman Kerkham
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2012 P. K. Page Founders' Award for Poetry
"storm windows" by Patrick Friesen
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Nominated for the 2011 National Magazine Award in the Poetry category
"daughter," "dragging the river," and "storm windows" by Patrick Friesen

Issue 173

2011 Jack Hodgins Founders' Award for Short Fiction
“Girl on the Fire Escape” by Kris Bertin
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2011 Creative Nonfiction Prize
"Intimate Strangers" by Eve Joseph
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Additional distinctions for Eve Joseph's "Intimate Strangers":
Creative Nonfiction Collective's 2011 Readers' Choice Award
Gold Award, Best Article BC/Yukon at the 2011 Western Magazine Awards
Honourable Mention in the essay category at the 34th National Magazine Awards

Winner, Gold in poetry at the 34th National Magazine Awards
“The Body” and “Pearl” by Shane Rhodes

Winner, Gold in fiction at the 2011 Western Magazine Awards
“Sappers Bridge” by Deirdre Dore

Issue 172

2010 Far Horizons Award for Poetry

“Wolf Hunter” by Darren Bifford
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2011 Western Magazine Awards, Finalist in Fiction
“The Fall of Langue d’Occ” by Dede Crane

2011 Western Magazine Awards, Finalist in Travel and Leisure category
“Shadows on a Night Train” by Aparna Sanyal

Issue 171

2010 Novella Prize
“Brains” by Tony Tulathimutte
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2011 P. K. Page Founders' Award for Poetry
“Jetlag,” by Steven Heighton
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Finalist in the student writing category at the 2011 Western Magazine Awards
“Always” by Jessica Kluthe

Issue 170

2010 Open Season Award, Poetry
“You think of Meister Eckhart” by Lorri Neilsen Glenn

2010 Open Season Award, Fiction
Tricia Dower, “Halloween 1955”

2010 Open Season Award, Creative Nonfiction
Melissa Jacques, “Call and Response”

Issue 169

2009 Creative Nonfiction Prize
“Where Sea Meets Sky” by Judy Copeland

2010 Jack Hodgins Founders' Award for Fiction
Honourable mention at the 2010 National Magazine Awards
“The Score Diary of Billy Bishop” by Anna Smith

Issue 168

2010 McClelland & Stewart/Writers' Trust Journey Prize winner
“Uncle Oscar” by Devon Code

2010 P. K. Page Founders' Award for Poetry
“White Camellias” by Eve Joseph

2009 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction
Nominated for 2010 McClelland & Stewart/Writers' Trust Journey Prize
“Ship's Log” by Eliza Robertson

Issue 167

Silver in Poetry at the 2010 National Magazine Awards
“Cullen in Old Age” by P. K. Page

Gold in poetry at the 2010 National Magazine Awards
“Paradise, Later Years”by Marion Quednau

Issue 166

Winner of the 2010 Howard O'Hagan Award for Short Fiction
Nominated for the 2010 Journey Prize
Nominated for a 2010 Western Magazine Award for Fiction
“When in the Field with Her at His Back” by Ben Lof

Gold, Western Magazine Awards, Human Experience Category
“On Atrocity and Grace: A Contrapuntal Vision” by Lindsay Cuff

Issue 165

2009 Western Magazine Award winner (human experience category)
Joel Yanofsky

Issue 164

2008 Far Horizons Award for Poetry
"Travels in Beringia" by Tadzio Richards

Issue 163

2008 Novella Prize
"Dead Man’s Wedding" by Andrew Tibbetts

Issue 161

2007 Creative Nonfiction Prize
"Blindspot" by Vaia Barkas

Issue 160

2007 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction
"Past Perfect" by Matthew J. Trafford

Issue 155

2006 Novella Prize
"The World of Light Where We Live" by Pauline Holdstock

Issue 152

2005 Far Horizons Contest
Aaron Shepard

Issue 151

2005 Long Poem Contest
"Blue Dahlias" by Margo Button "Abandon" by Harold Rhenisch