Saskatoon-based poet and teacher Cooper Skjeie and Toronto-based writer and teacher Zak Jones have been named the winners of the $10,000 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers for poetry and short fiction, respectively.

The winners were announced at an event in Toronto on June 1 hosted by author and past finalist Irfan Ali.

Administered by the Writers’ Trust of Canada, the annual awards celebrate emerging writers in both genres who are unpublished in book form. Each winner receives $10,000, and the other finalists receive $2,500.  The shortlists for this year’s awards were announced in April.

Skjeie won the award for “Scattered Oblations,” a collection whose poems “are simultaneously soft and gritty, inviting introspection, exposing dark truths, and demanding imperative answers,” the jury said in their citation. Poetry jurors Cicely Belle Blain, shalan joudry, and Sue Sinclair read 181 submissions from which they selected the finalists and winner.

Jones was named the short fiction winner for “So Much More to Say.” “Navigating race relations and human dignity, the impeccable drawl of the author’s first-person narrator turns potential horrors into profundities, and cautionary tales into wisdoms,” the jury wrote in their citation. Short fiction jurors David Huebert, Janice Lynn Mather, and Dimitri Nasrallah read 201 submissions from which they selected the finalists and winner.

Past winners of the Bronwen Wallace Awards include Michael Crummey, Sonnet L’Abbé, Noor Naga, and John Elizabeth Stintzi.