Congratulations to our 2025 longlisted writers!
From more than 400 submissions,
our readers selected a longlist of 30 stories.
Our 2025 judge, Sharon Butala, will select the shortlist by early October.
The winner of the 2025 International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir will be announced on Friday, October 17.
To learn more about the award, click HERE.
THE 2025 AMY AWARD LONGLIST
*PLEASE NOTE: The longlisted stories are not available to read, but you will be able to read the shortlisted stories in October. We have also an Honourable Mention category for a number of stories that were very close to being on the longlist. (See below.)
Nan Pokerwinski - Nexus
Gail Purdy - Dormancy
Jennifer Robinson - Blue Morpho
Kathryn Rolfe - Somewhere the Light Still Found Me
Amy Roost - The Red Blanket
John Scott Scherer - Driveway Lap
Kristie Schmidt - Molasses Brain: Notes from a Mind Rearranged
Esther Sleeth-Keppler - What Kind of Mother
Joan Thompson - In Between Purgatory and Grace
Mary Tillinghast - Crime and Punishment
Danuta Valleau - Catching the 6 am bus
Norah Wakula - After
Kathy Watson - A Farewell to Breasts
Jacqueline West - Presentiment
Barbara Yardy - Las Palmas School for Girls
Laurie Bahlke - Spoons
Ruth Boydell - Solo Passage
Jane Cantley - A Musing, Heartfelt
Morgan Charles - Lot 44, in Very Good Condition
Mary Lynn Cloghesy - Miracle Baby
Amy Cooke - Fireseeds
Liz Gold - Buttermilk
Georgine Hodgkinson - The Fish Car
Parnaz Kaur - A Fight Unfinished
Mark Liebenow - Red Curry Chicken
Sandy Lubert - She Walks
Carla Lucchetta - The Swan Watchers of Lost Lagoon
Peggy Michael-Rush - Souther Storm
Karen Moore - Lakeshore West
Nan Pokerwinski - Lunar Cycle
HONOURABLE MENTION
(Stories that were extremely close to making the longlist.)
Congratulations to all of you, too!
Nancy Backes - Killing Time
Shirley Bekins - The Orchid
Sharon East - On Either Side of the Great Divide
Mary Lynn Cloghesy - Miracle Baby
Heidi Grogan - Fishing
Tamara Kramer - The Gymnast(s)
Angela Normand - Inherited Fear, Borrowed Brave
Elaina Parsons - Berries and Blues
Patricia Darling Tomkins - Mother Theresa
Izabela Wlodarczyk - Freshly Pressed
Eveline Zoutendijk - Dark Marie
If you submitted a story to this year’s contest but do not see your name anywhere on this page, please don’t despair! While we do our best to give every story a fair chance, wonderful stories can still fall through the cracks. In the end, it is difficult (impossible?) to ‘rank art,’ so please know that this is not a judgement on your ability as a writer. In fact, two of the previous winners of the Amy Award had been rejected by other magazines or contests first. In every case, the writer did more revisions, sought more feedback, tightened the writing even more, submitted the story again.
Last year’s Runner-Up, Sophie Kohn, also has a beautiful approach to dealing with disappointment. Here’s to curiosity!
CONTEST ENTRANTS: If your story is not on the longlist, your story will be ‘released’ back to you from Submittable in the coming days. There is no need to formally ‘withdraw’ it.
PLEASE NOTE: Owing to the volume of submissions we received, we cannot offer editorial comments on individual stories. Sorry!
