The 2021 FBCW Literary Contest winners speak

BY JESSICA COLE

Last year, the Federation of BC Writers hosted its annual literary contest. Hundreds of skilled and talented writers entered, and four emerged as winners: Barbara Black (flash fiction), Diane Massam (poetry), Jaymie Campbell (creative nonfiction), and Kit Pepper (short fiction). I recently caught up with these writers and poets via email to chat about the contest and the inspiration behind each winning piece.

Jessica Cole: Tell us about your winning entry. What was the inspiration behind your piece?

Barbara Black: I won in the flash fiction category. The winning story, titled “We Do Not Lie Down,” is about a woman with an unusual adult son who is outside the norm. […] I wrote the piece while I was listening to “Winter” from Astor Piazzolla’s version of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons […]. There are lines in the story that reference the music, for example: “Goshawks strident in the pines screeched like hard-bowed violins.”

Diane Massam: I wrote my poem, “Late(ral) Move,” in hotel rooms as I was crossing Canada. […] The poem expresses transition as we drive across the country, with the old life falling away and the new life drawing nearer, and it is also a love song to Canada. Crossing during COVID was very intense. Since nothing was open, and we had to isolate, we were pulled entirely into the landscape, as it was all we could experience on our journey.

Kit Pepper: [“Sin Techo,” short fiction.] Grief. And how one can’t come back from the most horrible of horrible losses without the help of something both extraordinary and bare-bones simple. In the case of this story, that something is the inexplicable influence of a waif-like, guardian sprite. The two characters in the story inspired me as they pulled me into their fabulist world.

Jaymie Campbell: My piece, “From This Land,” won the 2021 creative nonfiction category. At its core, the piece is about the journey of a moose hide going through the process of being traditionally tanned and eventually turned into a dancer’s moccasins. It is meant to be a sensory experience, to draw the reader into all the different ways it feels to hold and tan a hide, to be given the privilege of being in relationship with that animal. It is also about exploring the stories behind an artistic medium—in this case beadwork—and exploring the individual processes that go into creating these pieces.

JC: How did it feel to discover you were a contest winner?

Kit: I was extremely pleased and happy to know that K. T. Wagner (gothic horror writer) saw enough in the story to reach across disparate genres and appreciate my work. I think this speaks to her capacity as a writer as well as a judge.

Jaymie: It felt really important to share that story with others, as those processes and activities of reclamation are what have shaped me. There is a very real element of fear and vulnerability with sharing writing pieces, and I am grateful I took a deep breath and moved through that.

Diane: Winning the competition was unexpected and joyous. […] To make the short list, and then to win, was beyond my dreams. It means a great deal to me to win such an honour in my home province.

Barbara: I was very grateful for judge Ursula Vaira’s perceptive comments on the story and for detecting the nuances in my writing. I always like to hear from readers how stories affected them emotionally, so her comments were especially appreciated in that regard.

JC: Thank you, winners, for sharing your words and inspiration with our readers.

Jaymie Campbell is an Anishnaabe artist from Curve Lake First Nation and currently resides on unceded Sinixt territory in British Columbia. Jaymie aims to explore connection to land and culture through beadwork, writing, fashion, and visual arts. She is the designer behind White Otter Design Co, which incorporates traditional artistry techniques with contemporary and personal style. Her work is inspired by her Anishnaabe roots, the land, and her family. Jaymie spent the early years of her career working on consultation, negotiation, capacity building and protection of land. She is a wife, daughter, auntie, and sister and loves to spend her time in the mountains.

Barbara Black is an award-winning poet, short fiction, and flash fiction writer. Her debut short story collection, Music from a Strange Planet, was released in 2021. Her writing has been published in national and international journals and anthologies, including Bath Flash Fiction Volume Five and Six, The Cincinnati Review, Geist, The Hong Kong Review and Prairie Fire. Achievements include: fiction finalist in the 2020 National Magazine Awards; winner of the 2017 Writers’ Union of Canada Short Prose Competition; and, most recently, flash fiction winner of the Federation of BC Writers Literary Contest 2021. She lives in Victoria, BC, where she gardens, collages, and rides her trusty, corner-conquering Triumph motorcycle.

Diane Massam is a poet exploring themes of loss, memory, and transition. Her work appears in Sea and Cedar Magazine, Sad Girls Club, Van Isle Poetry Collective, and Island Writer Magazine. She was a winner in the 2020 Janice Colbert Poetry Contest, and her chapbook, Every Now and Then, placed third in the 2022 Raven Chapbooks contest. A linguist with a long career of academic writing on grammatical theory and Polynesian languages, Diane is currently completing a LITERARY distance education certificate in creative writing at the CONTESTS University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. She lives, learns, and writes in Victoria, BC.

Kit Pepper has lived on Gabriola Island for thirty years, and for the first twenty wrote nothing but poetry. Ten years ago, characters appeared who wanted more than a cameo, so she turned to fiction. She wasn’t prepared for this shift and has spent considerable time trying to figure out how this genre works. The daily practice, skills, knowledge, and “ear” she gained while immersed in poetry serves her well in short fiction. She dances tango and adult ballet and sporadically and frustratingly tries to draw. Her constant companion is Finn, her eleven-year-old Gordon Setter.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Jessica Cole is the managing editor of WordWorks. She enjoys supporting writers and developing their work for publication and writes fiction under the pen name Jess Wesley.