Congratulations to members of the UBC Creative Writing community who were honoured as University of Lethbridge School of Liberal Education 2026 Bridge Prize winners. Two of them earned the top billing in the graduate and undergraduate categories.
Winners
- Tristan Hay Lee, MFA ‘26, wins the Graduate Student Category with her short story, Margo Makes a YouTube Channel.
- Gia Bruce, BFA student, wins the Undergraduate Student Category with her short story, Blue.
Finalist
- Scotty Olsen, MFA student, is a finalist in the Graduate Student Category for his short story, Three Wolves Howling at the Moon.
The Bridge Prize was established in 2020 by the School of Liberal Education at the University of Lethbridge as a biennial competition to encourage creative writing at the post-secondary level in Canada. The Main Jury is composed of notable established and emerging writers from throughout Canada. Winners are awarded a $5,000 prize for their submissions, and finalists are awarded $1,000.
Juror Sharon Bala of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, praises Hay Lee for conquering a major challenge writers often face in her winning piece, “Compelling story about a woman taking charge of her life. Nuanced portrait of a complicated and imperfect character. Reader roots for the protagonist despite her flaws – that’s no easy feat for a writer to pull off.”
Juror Ian Williams of Toronto highlighted the rich characters and authentic setting in Bruce’s writing, “The story is bursting with the drama of young life. The characters are richly and convincingly drawn in the best contemporary fluid way. The writing is easy, energetic. The story captures small town life as a fact, without being fashionably critical of it, but esteems it as a legitimate setting.”
