John V. Hicks Manuscript Awards

I'm very happy to have received honourable mention in the 2014 John V. Hicks Manuscript Awards.

My manuscript Curios Cabinet is a non-fiction novel that juxtaposes the 3 months I spent travelling Europe with the first year of my MFA at Iowa. I started working on this project after taking a course on Poetic Fragments, and the novel's form is inspired by Roland Barthes' Mourning Diary as well as the work of Sheila Heti, Sarah Manguso, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Francis Ponge, and probably Karl Knausgaard.

The comments I received from the jury are incredibly encouraging and will motivate me to continue revising the novel:

“Curios Cabinet is a part travelogue, part love story of often poetic intensity. There's a depth of emotional and physical detail here that shows the writer's engagement with the world as intense and, ultimately, joyous in observation.”

“The inventive style of Curios Cabinet creates a natural buoyancy in the narrative. Small, framed moments of a traveled life expose the microcosms of place and identity with a larger connection to the world and a renewed connection to the self. Each burst of a scene stands alone in solitary strength, yet combined with others creates a more complex, honest pursuit of understanding.”

My thanks to the jury and congratulations to the three winners!