Halifax writer Christine Wu wins 2023 RBC/PEN Canada's New Voices Award

Halifax writer Christine Wu has won the 2023 RBC/PEN Canada's New Voices Award for her submission Hungry Ghosts. The $3,000 cash prize recognizes unpublished Canadian writers ages17 and over. The prize also includes a mentorship with an established Canadian author.

Writers were encouraged to submit work in any format, including poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction.

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Wu is a Chinese-Canadian poet based in Halifax. She has been published in several literary magazines and was previously shortlisted for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for emerging writers. She holds a BFA from the University of Victoria, a MLIS from Dalhousie University and a MA from the University of New Brunswick.

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Wu's collection of poems was chosen from almost 300 entries. The jury was comprised of Canadian writers Jnna Kirton, Chelene Knight and Alexander MacLeod.

"Hungry Ghosts is a deeply moving and masterfully crafted collection of poems that surpasses the boundaries of memory, love, family, and personal growth," the jury said in a statement. "The writer's exquisite precision and grace, infused with profound wisdom, skillfully navigates the delicate art of letting go, effortlessly weaving the tapestry of past and present."

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The jury also chose four finalists,they are Lindsay Foran for How to Build a Bomb, Catherine St. Denis for The Essential Involvement of the Harpist, Luka Poljak for Ares of Dalmatia and Blue Sea and Sharlene Lazin for A Widow's Notebook.

Foran has her MA in English from the University of Ottawa and now lectures part-time in the same department. She graduated with a letter of distinction from the Humber School for Writers and has completed a certificate in creative writing from Simon Fraser University. How to Build a Bomb was previously longlisted for the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize.

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The jury said about her entry: "As its title suggests, How to Build a Bomb is a delicate narrative with an explosive central conflict. What happens when the border dissolves between our internal and external worlds? With impressive command of characterization, plot, and structure, this is a very careful story about disintegration."

This is St. Denis's second time as a finalist for PEN Canada's New Voices Award in as many years. Her poems have been shortlisted for The Fiddlehead's poetry contest, CV2's Foster Poetry Prize and The Toronto Arts and Letters Club Award.

Poljak is a Croatian Canadian poet. His poem Mouth Prayers was a finalist for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize.

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"Chaotic, but beautifully crafted, lost, but full of life, the poems in Ares of Dalmatia and Blue Sea cover decades of family history as they explore the lingering intergenerational trauma of war. Formally innovative, these lineslike the subject matter they are trying to grapple with push the language of love to its extreme" said the jury about his submission.

Sharlene Lazin was a teacher of students with learning disabilities, an instructor in the Faculty of Education at SFU and then a high school vice-principal. Although she was born and raised in California, she is now Canadian and for the last 15 years, her home has been on British Columbia's coast.

Last year's winner was poet and spoken word artist Fareh Malik.

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Other previous winners include Claire Battershill, Noor Naga and Jaclyn Desforges.