Redeemer was front and centre at this year’s Short Works Prize for Writing (SWP), a partnership of Bryan Prince Bookseller, Hamilton Arts & Letters magazine and the Hamilton Public Library to promote Hamilton authors. It sponsored the Redeemer University College Prizes for Writing, given to two emerging unpublished writers. Richard Van Holst ’86 (who received the Short Works Prize for Fiction last year) was a juror for this year’s awards, and Brent van Staalduinen ’01 won the City of Hamilton Ward 1 Fiction Prize for his short story “Mum 2 Mum.” Brent also received an honourable mention in the non-fiction category for a piece called “Finding Iraq.”

It’s been an impressive year for van Staalduinen, who also won the 2015 Bristol Short Story Prize for his haunting story, “A Week on the Water.” Van Staalduinen is an alumnus of Redeemer’s English program and teaches creative writing as a part-time instructor at Redeemer. The Bristol Short Story Prize is an international writing competition open to published and unpublished writers. Van Staalduinen’s story is included in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology, Volume 8, which features the three winning stories plus 17 other shortlisted stories. Dr. Deborah Bowen, chair of English at Redeemer, says, “We’re really excited that Brent will be teaching for us this winter. It’s a fantastic opportunity for our students to learn from a successful young author, and to imagine what they themselves might accomplish in the future as graduates of the writing program.”