Heather Latter
Joelle Barron is a poet and a writer, with works having been published in the Malahat Review, ARC Poetry Magazine, and on The Hairpin.
But she’s always wanted to win one of CBC’s literary prizes.
Now the local resident has a chance at earning the top prize in CBC’s short story contest after her submission, entitled “Dawson City, YT,” was among the 26 works that made the long list.
“It’s a pretty big deal,” said Barron, who received her Master’s degree in creative writing from the University of British Columbia last year.
“You hear about contests when you are in that circle,” she noted.
“So I’ve been sending stuff into the competitions for years, but this is my first time getting long-listed.”
Since 1979, the CBC Literary Prizes have been awarded to Canadian writers who now are nationally- and internationally-acclaimed, including Michael Ondaatje, Carol Shields, George Bowering, Robert Munsch, Susan Musgrave, Leon Rooke, and Gail Anderson-Dargatz.
“I’m so honoured and grateful it’s happened,” Barron enthused.
She noted there are thousands and thousands of submissions each year, so to be in the top 26 is pretty amazing.
Barron has a shot of winning the 2015 Grand Prize—$6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, publication in Air Canada’s enRoute magazine, and a 10-day writing residency at The Banff Centre.
Four others will be named runners-up and earn $1,000 each.
“It’s pretty awesome for a writing competition,” Barron said about the prize money.
“They don’t normally have that big of prizes.”
Barron obviously hopes her submission earns her one of those prizes. But even if it doesn’t, she said it’s still incredible.
“I wrote it specifically for the contest because they have a pretty small word count,” she noted of her story, which ended up being about 1,300 words long.
“So you don’t necessarily always have something lying around that fits within the smaller word count.”
Barron said it’s about phone sex workers in the Yukon.
“I’ve always been really interested in the north and I like writing stories about really quintessentially Canadian places,” she remarked.
“I’ve never been to the Yukon but I’ve love to go some day.”
She’s also interested in sex workers’ rights and tries to be an advocate for sex workers.
“It occurred to me one day that there is sex trade everywhere, so there must be sex trade in super remote places in the north,” Barron reasoned.
“I just tried to imagine what it would be like.
“It was not based on any fact whatsoever but it was fun to think about,” she added.
In the meantime, Barron is busy being a mother, working at the Fort Frances Public Library, and working on her writing.
“I’m just working on publishing stuff,” she explained.
“The print publication world is a very slow process. You send stuff out and hope that people want to publish it.
“And then hopefully, once you’ve published enough, you can apply for grants through Canada Council to focus more on writing,” she added.
Eventually, Barron said she’d like to teach at the university level, but that won’t be for a few years.
She is continuing to work on her graduate thesis—a book of poetry that she would like to have published one day.
She also has a few poems coming out in some literary journals.
Her poem, “A Girl Like This Might Have Loved Glenn Gould,” won the 2014 Malahat Review Open Season Award.
Having become fairly accomplished now in writing poems and short stories, Barron indicated she would like to write a novel one day.
“It’s hard, though. I’ve tried,” she chuckled. “But someday maybe.”
She recently was inspired by award-winning Canadian writer Joseph Boyden, who visited Rainy River District last week.
Barron was elated to meet him and hear him speak about his writing career, as well as listen to excerpts of his novels, such as “Three Day Road” and “Through Black Spruce,” which she had read last summer.
The winners of the Canada Writes CBC Short Story Prize will be announced April 13.
They’ll be chosen by two-time Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize winner Caroline Adderson, 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Sean Michaels, and 2014 Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award winner Joan Thomas.
For more information about CBC’s Literary Prizes, visit www.cbc.ca/books/canadawrites/literaryprizes/
Barron’s profile is available there, along with a short excerpt.
Those interested in Barron’s writing also can visit her blog at www.joellebarron.com
