Bridge Prize winner Sara de Waal (University of Lethbridge)

By Justin Goulet

UBC graduate student wins first-ever U of L national short story competition

Sep 26, 2020 | 8:00 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – A graduate of the University of British Columbia has been named the winner of the University of Lethbridge’s first-ever Bridge Prize national short story writing competition.

Sara de Waal’s “Cecilia and Richard” has earned her a $7,500 first-place award from a pool of 340 story submissions.

“The most carefully constructed story we received, beautiful deployment of metaphor, especially when we’re told that the father has no energy for metaphor. This is a language story, filled with effective detail, colours painting words and consequences,” said Aritha Van Herk, an Alberta-based author and members of the contest jury panel.

The Bridge Prize was created in 2019 by the U of L’s School of Liberal Education along with Vancouver-based alumnus and donor Terry Whitehead.

The contest is the country’s only national short story competition open exclusively to post-secondary graduate and undergraduate students at Canadian universities and colleges.

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It’s $10,500 in prize money also makes it the richest student writing competition in Canada.

Three finalists received $1,000 for their entries.

• UBC’s Ahmad Danny Ramadan for his story, “The Miraculous Return of Khaled from the Dead”
• Evan Neilsen of the University of Calgary for “Harriet” and;
• James Cawkwell of the University of Alberta for “Tadpole”

Terry Whitehead expressed congratulations to de Waal and the finalists.

“A special thank you to our local jury and main jury for their energy, time and enthusiasm to support the next generation of Canadian literary talent,” Whitehead stated in a release from the U of L.

de Waal is a writer and teacher from Abbotsford, B.C. who is set to graduate from UBC’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing in November.

Her first picture book, “48 Grasshopper Estates” is set to be released in April, 2021.

“When I began my Master of Fine Arts degree at UBC, I resigned from teaching music and returned to my high school job on a dairy farm, hoping all those early hours in the milking parlour would provide more time for daydreaming up stories — and they did,” she said.

Submissions for the 2022 Bridge Prize will be accepted starting on January 21, 2021. The main jury for the 2022 contest will be announced this November.