PEN Canada is accepting submissions for the 2025 RBC PEN Canada New Voices Award.
The award encourages new writing and provides a space for unpublished writers (age 17 and over). Writers can submit short stories, creative non-fiction, journalism, prose and poetry. Submissions can be made up to 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday May 12, 2025.
This year’s longlist of entries will be adjudicated by a jury of distinguished Canadian writers. We’re excited to announced this year’s aware will be judged by Lydia Perovic, Madeleine Thien, and Shashi Bhat.
Lydia Perovic
Lydia Perovic‘s most recent book is Lost in Canada: An Immigrant’s Second Thoughts. She’s been writing an arts and culture newsletter, Long Play, since 2021 and can be found these days in The Hub (where she reviews Canadian non-fiction) and the Wholenote (for topics on opera and classical).
Madeleine Thien
Madeleine Thien is the author of four books, most recently Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Folio Prize, and won the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction, among other honours. Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages, and her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. Madeleine lives in Montreal and teaches part-time at The City University of New York. A new novel, The Book of Records, is forthcoming in 2025.
Shashi Bhat
Shashi Bhat is the author of three books, most recently the story collection, Death by a Thousand Cuts, longlisted for the Giller Prize. She was a finalist for the 2022 Governor General’s Award for fiction and won the 2018 Journey Prize.
