The Malahat Review is pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Jack Hodgins and P. K. Page Founders' Awards in short fiction and poetry, respectively.

Matt Rader won the 2014 Jack Hodgins Founders’ Award for Fiction for his story "All This Was a Long Time Ago," which appeared in the Malahat's Fall 2013 issue (#184). Rader's story was chosen by judge Michael Crummey.

Bruce Rice won the 2014 P. K. Page Founders' Award for Poetry for his poem "Into the Wind," which appeared in the Malahat's Summer 2013 issue (#183). Rice's poem was chosen by judge Anne Simpson.

Of Matt Rader’s story, judge Michael Crummey says: "My first read of Matt Rader’s 'All This Was a Long Time Ago' left me thinking, What the hell is this? It’s oddly paced and oddly balanced. The narrative comes across as much like an essay as a story. The present-day characters barely register on the surface. I had a hard time trying to say what it’s about exactly. Or why it affected me so deeply.

It’s still a bit of a mystery to me, in fact. The writing is terrific, the portrayal of the young James Joyce and Nora Barnacle is completely convincing. The insights into love and desire, into the ways in which art and life intersect without ever becoming one and the same, are uncontrived and compelling. The tension between the ephemeral details of the individual life and the relative permanence of something like Joyce’s 'The Dead' makes the whole thing ring like a bell.

But what the hell is it, exactly, and why does it work? Can’t say. It feels like real life. It feels like art. It’s a terrific story. My favourite of the fiction published in The Malahat Review last year."

View the full announcement page for Rader's win.

Of Bruce Rice's poem, judge Anne Simpson says: "'Into the Wind' is a plainly spoken poem, yet it has the largeness of the land. This is implicit in its long lines, moving―even meandering―across the page. It allows us to hear that 'frail silence' between brothers, between the living and the dead, in this deeply meditative elegy."