Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 Short Grain Contest! Our 37th annual fiction and poetry contest attracted writing from talented writers and poets from across Canada and beyond, with nearly double the entries from last year! Look for the six winning pieces in the Fall 2025 issue of Grain, Vol. 53.1. And the winners are,
1st Place - Fiction for "Jackpot"
Katie Martí is a Mexican-Canadian poet, singer-songwriter, and author of short stories. Her work was longlisted for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize and has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of journals and anthologies, including Room, EVENT, CV2 and PRISM International. Born in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, she now lives on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in rural Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia, where she is completing her MFA in Creative Writing (Distance Education) through the University of British Columbia.
2nd Place - Fiction for "The Orange"
Bibiana Tomasic would like to thank the Short Grain Contest editors and The Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Foundation for their sponsorship. She is also grateful for the following publications: Event 54.I for her short story “One Sunday in ’63;” So Large an Animal, published by Leaf Press; Revolutions per Minute and The Libyan Sea, both by The Alfred Gustav Press. Her poems have been anthologized in A Verse Map of Vancouver, Anvil Press, editor George McWhirter and in Worth More Standing, Caitlin Press, editor Christine Lowther. Her poems have appeared in numerous Canadian literary journals.
3rd Place - Fiction for "On a Tuesday in November"
Aaron Schnieder is a Founding Editor at The /tƐmz/ Review and the publisher at the chapbook press 845 Press. His stories have been nominated for The Journey Prize and The Pushcart Prize and longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize. He has published three books, the novella, Grass-Fed (Quattro Books), a collection of experimental short fiction, What We Think We Know (Gordon Hill Press), and the novel The Supply Chain (Crowsnest Books).
1st Place - Poetry for "Braiding Strands of DNA"
Jennifer B.S. Williams is a Gitksan/Sekani writer and mother who weaves inspiration from her Indigenous heritage into her poetry and prose. As a recent recipient of the 2025 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose, her work has been featured in Yellow Medicine Review, Carnation Zine, and the University of Calgary’s chapbook Indigenous Writers Circle: Voices. With an Associate’s Degree in Aboriginal Studies from Langara College and a BFA in Creative Writing from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, she is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. JenniferBSWilliams.ca.
2nd Place - Poetry for "2 Years 2 Days Ago"
Kennedy Willier (she/they) is a Cree poet and multidisciplinary artist from Sucker Creek First Nation, born in Mohkínsstsisi (Calgary) and living on lək̓ʷəŋən territory (Victoria, BC). Their work traces grief, intimacy, and Indigenous futurity through a lens of relationality, memory, and everyday noticing. Engaged with the colonial present, their poetry weaves critique of Canadian political structures with explorations of Indigeneity, kinship, and decolonial love.
3rd Place - Poetry for "All Progress Will Be Lost"
Dominique Bernier-Cormier’s work has won The Fiddlehead ’s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest, The Malahat’s Open Season Award, Arc Poetry ’s Poem of the Year, and a silver medal at the National Magazine Awards. His most recent book, Entre Rive and Shore, was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Prize. He teaches Grade 9 English in Vancouver.
