Today I was named as one of the three finalists for the 2012 Journey Prize, for the short story ‘To Have To Wait,’ which originally appeared in The Malahat Review early this year. The image above is a screenshot from the Writers’ Trust of Canada website, and it likely proves that I did not hallucinate the whole thing as part of a whiskey fuelled fever-dream.
I’ve had a lot of congratulations today and I’ve said a bunch of thank you’s, but I want to thank everybody again for supporting my work. Some very good writers are in The Journey Prizes Stories 24, all of whom are a fair amount more reputable than I am. Nonetheless, The Malahat Review gave my story a shot and Michael Christie, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, and Kathleen Winter got what I was trying to do and chose the story for the top three.
Now I have to go to some a fancy dinner and some kind of gala to see if I can win the whole thing. I might even have to dress up, shave, wears shoes, and so on. I also have to find a picture of my head that isn’t utterly ridiculous so that the Writers’ Trust can put it up on their webpage. None of those are particularly bad problems to have.
Anyway, that is the news from today. The winner won’t be announced until November 7th, so, in the meantime, you should go out and grab a copy of The Journey Prize Stories 24, and read all of the writers in there, not just the buggers who made it through to the finals. I’m not gonna lie to you though, if you read my story the most I will throw you a high five.
I will keep you posted if anything else happens, and I will have an update on my latest novel soon as well. Until then, take care, thanks from deep in my surly guts for all of your support.
Here are a couple of items from today’s newscycle about the announcement, as well as the announcement of the shortlist for Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction prize, which you gotta scroll past to get to the Hardcastle:
Kevin Hardcastle 