Newest News:-)
Hot off the press! I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that I’ve been awarded a Research and Creation grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to research and create a short story/flash fiction collection! Absolutely over the moon. Huge thank you to Canada Council for the Arts!
I’m thrilled to announce that I received a Letter of Distinction from mentor Marina Endicott, a Giller Prize finalist, at the Humber School for Writers where I completed a Creative Writing Graduate Certificate in April, 2025.
I’m also honoured to announce my story “Pack” placed 2nd in the 2025 Bath Flash Fiction Award contest! This is a dream competition, and I’m so grateful my story was selected as a finalist! The amazingly talented Sarah Freligh judged this year’s contest, and I was overwhelmed by her kind comments:
Second Place: Pack
Everything in this story – from the title to the last words – establishes and then supports the conceit of these teenage girls as something feral and predatory, something to be feared and obeyed or else: “our power a warning, a thirst, a howl echoing in the sky.” The title “Pack,” with its evocation of survival in numbers, sets the table so effectively for the feast that follows and the plural first-person point of view of the collective “we” is the perfect vehicle to drive that notion. Paired early on with verbs like “prowl” and “scuttles,” the reader is immediately dropped into a world of mock-or-be-mocked and each repetition of “we” and what they do to maintain their place in the pecking order raises the stakes and deepens and expands the characterization of this group. I love, too, how, in the last paragraph, the girls finally morph into animals with their “tuffs of down, thick as cream”—I swear I can smell the blood on their whiskers! Above all, there’s something universal at work here, something that speaks uneasily to the present day where cruelty rules and kindness is something weak, an underbelly to be attacked for its hopeful vulnerability.
Also, super excited to have two manuscripts on submission to editors at publishing houses. Fingers, toes, everything that could be crossed is crossed that one (or both!) get picked up! In the meantime, I’m also working on a new work-in-progress manuscript!
2024 News:
So many wonderful things happened this past year. Being the 2024 winner of the Toronto Star Short Story Contest was such a highlight (I was SO surprised…nervous…grateful!). It opened up a wonderful opportunity for me to attend The Humber School of Writers in the Graduate Creative Writing program. Such an amazing opportunity!
I was also thrilled to announce representation by literary agent Joanna Rasheed at Ultra Literary! Joanna is a real go-getter, and I’m incredibly lucky to have her in my court!
2024 was also the year of many publications, and the introduction of our puppy Maizie to our household. She’s been an absolute delight, and we can’t imagine our lives without her.
All the best to all the readers and writers out there!
Dawn x
Dawn Miller