Celebrate Writing

Meet the jury for the 2026 New Voices Award

April 17, 2026 | PEN Canada

PEN Canada is accepting submissions for the 2026 RBC / PEN Canada New Voices Award.

This annual award encourages new writing and provides a space for unpublished writers (age 17 and over). Writers can submit any genre of writing, including but not limited to short stories, creative non-fiction, scripts, journalism, prose and poetry. Submissions can be made up to 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday May 7, 2026.

Each year, the longlist of entries is adjudicated by a jury of distinguished Canadian writers. We’re excited to announce this year’s award will be judged by Ann Y. K. Choi, francesca ekwuyasi, and Joshua Whitehead.

ELIGIBILITY + HOW TO SUBMIT

THE JURY

Ann Y. K. Choi

Ann Y. K. Choi is a Toronto-based author and educator. She serves on the program advisory committee for gritLIT, Hamilton’s literary festival; mentors emerging writers in a group she founded called Writers in Trees (WiT); and teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto. Her new novel, All Things Under the Moon, was published in September 2025.

THESOCIALHUB BOOKREADING @danaraffaela 32

francesca ekwuyasi

francesca ekwuyasi is the author of Butter Honey Pig Bread and co-author of Curious Sounds: A Dialogue in Three Movements. She won the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Emerging LGBTQIA2S+ writers, and has been short and Longlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, the Governor General Award, the Amazon First Novel Prize, the Giller Prize, and the Dublin International Literary Award and others. She lives between Montreal and Halifax.

Joshua Whitehead

Joshua Whitehead is a Two-Spirit, Oji-Cree member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer, Jonny Appleseed, Making Love with the Land, and Indigiqueerness: a Conversation About Storytelling as well as the editor of Love after the End: an Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction. Whitehead is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary (Treaty 7).