Faith Paré and Nayani Jensen (courtesy Writers’ Trust of Canada)

Faith Paré and Nayani Jensen have been named the winners of the 2024 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.

The award, given annually by the Writers’ Trust of Canada since 1994, aims to identify the work of promising new writers in Canada and give them a boost in achieving a book deal. Winners are named in two categories, poetry and short fiction, and each winner receives $10,000.

Poet and performer Paré was named the winner for “Selections from ‘a fine African head’” by a jury comprised of Derek Beaulieu, Kama La Mackerel, and Joanna Lilley, who read 215 submissions to determine the finalists and winner.

“Stunning and necessary, the poems in ‘Selections from “a fine African head”’ are not merely inspired by a historical event but emerge ingeniously from it,” the jury said in their citation. “This urgent, chimerical, and devastating work is finely crafted from the unreliability of archive and the misery of memory.”

Writer and science historian Jensen was named the winner in the short fiction category for “Like Rabbits.” A jury comprised of Jessica Johns, Maria Reva, and Jack Wang read 252 submissions to determine the short fiction finalists and winner.

“Like Rabbits is historical fiction at its most intimate and convincing,” the jury said in their citation. “With elegance, authority, and vitality, Nayani Jensen gives us a timeless story of ambition and a tender portrait of a marriage.”

Paré and Jensen were two of six finalists for this year’s award, three in each category. Finalists receive $2,500.

The winning work is available to read on Apple Books.