A Pauline Johnson Collegiate student has been selected the winner of the third biennial Laurier Stedman Prize.
A panel made up of academics and award-winning authors selected a short story called Eight, Ten, Twelve by Cavelle Sproule as winner of the top prize for $3,000, one of the largest of its kind for a creative fiction competition open exclusively to high school students.
Results of this creative writing competition, hosted every other year by the English program at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Brantford campus, were announced at a virtual ceremony on Thursday.
“It’s wonderful to see how accomplished the young writers are who enter this competition, and we are grateful to be able to help encourage them to further develop their talent,” said Ken Paradis, associate professor of English at Laurier Brantford and coordinator of the Laurier Stedman Prize.
“Thank you to the teachers at each school who do such a great job of preparing their students. Their work and dedication really show through in the quality of the entries we receive.”
First awarded in 2018, the Laurier Stedman Prize is funded through an endowment and estate gift given to Laurier by the late Mary Stedman for the purpose of celebrating and promoting arts and culture.
Stedman, who died in 2014, was a great champion of Laurier’s Brantford campus and, during her lifetime, served as an executive member of the Canadian Booksellers Association.
The university created the Laurier Stedman Prize program, managed under the auspices of the English program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts, as a way to honor Stedman’s wishes.
Participants are asked to submit original, unpublished works of fiction, up to 1,500 words in length. The competition is open to students studying within the boundaries of Brantford’s local school boards.
This year’s competition drew 51 entries from nearly every secondary school in the Grand Erie and Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School boards, as well as the Six Nations Polytechnic STEAM Academy, and W. Ross Macdonald School.
“The Laurier Stedman Prize is such a wonderful way to celebrate our young storytellers,” said Heidi Northwood, senior executive officer of the Brantford campus. “We are so grateful for the generosity of the late Miss Mary Stedman and her vision for our community. The endowment she left to Laurier allows us to continue to inspire young authors in our region – to hone their craft as writers, find their voice and tell their stories.”
In all, $10,000 in prize money was awarded at the Laurier Stedman Prize celebration. In addition to the $3,000 grand prize, the jury awarded two second-place prizes of $2,000 each and three third-place prizes of $1,000 each.
The top submissions as ranked by the jury are:
- First Place: Eight, Ten, Twelve by Cavell Sproule, Pauline Johnson Collegiate.
- Second Place: The Confectioner by Cailyn Mann, Brantford Collegiate Institute; A Day at the Store by Tahiyah Syeda, Assumption College.
- Third Place: ($1,000 each): Delirious In Live by Aria Taylor, North Park Collegiate; Katerina’s Letters by Sophie Vandenbrink, Pauline Johnson Collegiate; The Landline by Rylin Ward, Waterford District High School.
Runners up are Trapped by Mya Baxter of Holy Trinity Catholic High School; Missed Messages by Alescia Butler of Holy Trinity; Breathe by Madeline Campbell of St. John’s College; and Cat Food by Abby Thompson of North Park Collegiate.
Members of the Stedman family were active in the business, social and cultural fabric of Brantford and Brant County for more than a century. Mary Stedman’s father, Samuel W. Stedman, went into business with his brothers in 1904, establishing the first Stedman’s Bookstore on Colborne Street in Brantford.
They went on to create a chain of five-and-10 cent department stores with locations across Canada.
Mary Stedman served as managing director of Stedman’s Bookstore Ltd. from 1950 to 1974. She was the director and former chair of the bursary committee of the Samuel W. Stedman Foundation and an early supporter of the idea of a university in Brantford, providing an important kick-start as one of the first donors to the fledgling campus in 1999. The university’s bookstore bears the Stedman family name in recognition of their generosity.