Winners of the 2011 Toronto Star short story contest are, from left, Richelle Kosar, Erik Martinez and Samantha Craggs.
TARA WALTON/TORONTO STARTracey Tyler Staff Reporter
A story about a couple who goes on vacation and encounters a pair of celebrities famous for being famous has won the Star?s short story contest for 2011.
Richelle Kosar of Toronto receives the $5,000 first prize for ?Citrines,? described by the judges as a deceptively simple drama with sophisticated dialogue and an ?astonishing? conclusion.
But it was the second component of the prize ? tuition for the 30-week Humber School for Writers correspondence program in creative writing, valued at about $3,000 ? that really drew her to the competition.
Born and raised in Weyburn, Sask., Kosar already has two published novels to her name, The Drum King and A Streak of Luck, but relishes the kind of constructive feedback the course will deliver.
The short story format, with its tight writing requirements, has already been good training, she said.
?It was a good exercise,? said Kosar, ?because I?m long-winded and to have to keep it within 2,500 words was difficult.?
?I?m so thrilled,? she said Wednesday night after the prizes were announced at a reception at the Toronto Reference Library.
?I?m going to have a big glass of wine now.?
The story?s title refers to the gold-coloured gemstone in a ring worn by the female half of the celebrity duo who shake up the protagonists? ho-hum beach holiday.
?We started pretending we were these super rich, famous, snobbish types. Sitting on their terrace with, of course, a tremendous ocean view,? one of the main characters recalls in the story. ?The service tonight was really subpar, wasn?t it, dah-ling? Absolutely.?
Erik Martinez, a University of Toronto physicist, wins the $2,000 second prize for ?Up High Towards the Night,? a story about a newspaper columnist who goes on a road trip with her husband and learns the past has a way of catching up with us.
Martinez, whose research specialty is black holes and the theory of relativity, said his day job isn?t all that different from his writing stint.
Both, he said, require imagination.
The $1,000 third prize goes to Samantha Craggs of St. Catharines for ?Drinking in the Basement,? a story about alcoholism and lost dreams.
A former newspaper reporter who has turned her talents to writing and editing with Brock University?s communications department, Craggs set her tale in palpably depressed Niagara Falls, N.Y.
?I just love driving around over there,? she said.
This year?s contest attracted a record-breaking 2,074 entries, said Bob Hepburn, the Star?s director of community relations and communications.
The five judges were Richard Ouzounian, the Star?s theatre critic, Geoff Pevere, the newspaper?s entertainment columnist, Jane Pyper, Toronto city librarian, Matthew Church, chair of the Toronto Public Library board, and author Sarah Selecky, a 2010 Giller Prize finalist.
The three finalists? stories will run in the Star on consecutive Sundays starting May 8.
Chat about this story w/ Talkita
No comments:
Post a Comment