Niagara-on-the-Lake added a new chapter to its arts scene Sunday as writers from across Canada competed in the first Karen Gansel Short Fiction Award, a national contest created to honour a longtime advocate for Canadian authors.
The inaugural award ceremony was held at the NOTL Community Centre by the Canadian Authors Association, where 95 writers entered, 68 manuscripts moved to judging, six finalists reached the last round, and on Sunday, one winner emerged.
Karen Gansel was a former president of the association’s Niagara branch, a national board member and national co-chair, wrote three books, and lived with her husband, Ken, in NOTL for 49 years. She died last year on Jan. 7 at 80 years old.
“That was her whole day, writing and researching and developing characters,” said Ken Gansel, who founded the prize with the Canadian Authors Association in her memory.
Gansel said the contest was a fitting way to carry forward the work that had shaped much of her life.
“I think she would have enjoyed the fact that I am honouring her in this way.”
The award also tackles a wider challenge facing writers across the country: finding readers. Doug Jordan, a Canadian Authors Association board member and treasurer, said publication alone does little for many authors trying to gain attention.
“One of the things that we do on behalf of our members, and anybody out there trying to write, is finding readership,” said Jordan.
One of the biggest obstacles authors face is getting stories to reach major retailers, and even then, gaining visibility remains a significant hurdle.
The contest asked entrants to write an original short story within 14 days after receiving a prompt devized by Gansel. This year’s prompt was based on Cornelius Krieghoff’s 1871 painting “The Blacksmith’s Shop,” which was later issued as a Canadian stamp.
Jordan said about 45 volunteer readers helped assess submissions. Each manuscript was read by three scrutineers before six finalists advanced to a final jury made up of prominent Canadian authors Terry Fallis, Gail Anderson-Dargatz and Richard Stursberg.
Jordan said organizers deliberately recruited nationally known authors to judge the final round to give the new contest more profile.
“I was thinking, we should bring celebrity authors in as the judges, promote them from the beginning so they’ve brought more cachet to the contest,” he said.
Mark McClure won first prize for his short fiction work “Forge Froide.” The story follows a blacksmith in St. Albert, Que., whose forge has sat cold for 30 years after personal loss, until a stranger’s arrival in a winter storm begins to reopen the life he shut away.
Barbara Darby placed second for her story, “Quintet,” and Jean McCarthy placed third forher story, “The Blacksmith’s Wife.”
Jordan said organizers hope the annual contest can grow into a destination event that draws larger in-person audiences over time, with hopes to recieve more than 200 submissions next year and, when complete, he’d like to use the new Royal George Theatre as the event expands.
Gansel is also hopeful the award will continue on an annual basis in his wife’s memory.
“I wanted to create a prize that the (authors association) could use on an annual basis. So the intent is to run this year after year after year,” he said.
