2024 Place and Home Contest Results
Congratulations to the winners of the Dreamers 2024 Stories of Migration, Sense of Place and Home Contest!
This year’s entries were impressive, making it hard for us to choose the winners. After much thought, we decided to award a tie for first place and give out two honorable mentions. Congratulations to everyone who participated, and we look forward to seeing what you come up with next!
Thank you to our judge, Phil McNichol, long-time newspaper reporter, award winning columnist, and author of the popular blog, Finding Hope Ness.
And now, without further delay, we are thrilled to announce the winning entries!
First Place:
Arrival
Nonfiction by Nancy O’Rourke
“Later that evening, sitting on the front porch, I stare at the abundance of stars shining bright against an inky black sky. Transfixed. I’ve never seen so many stars and feel remarkably small, a pin-prick speck of dust, given the magnitude of the brilliant heavens above me. And yet, despite their luminance, I realize that if I hold my hand up in front of me, I can barely see it. I’m stunned by the utter blackness surrounding me, preventing sight of anything nearby.
But I can hear. The girls’ choir up at the school. They’re singing Ave Maria. At first, a single line of melody, maybe thirty or forty voices. Their tone is sweet, full, and carries well across the field between the teacher’s compound and the school. But then another layer of music begins and seconds later another—three-part harmony. There must be more than a hundred voices. And it occurs to me I’ve never heard anything so moving, the various tones weaving in and out like an intricate dance, a haunting that reverberates throughout the nearby hills and valleys.
I sit still, keen to hear more, and barely notice the tears sliding down my cheek.”
Children of the Border
Fiction by Dean Gessie
“And Carlos read the lips of each. And each spoke slowly to Carlos and with great care. And then he, Carlos, used his hands to share his story. He did so over and over again with the whole group. And each member of the group understood some small part of what Carlos said with his hands. And all of them, together, built the story of Carlos.”
Honorable Mentions:
What We Lost
Nonfiction by Heather McClean
“As a child, I hoped that one day I would find or make a place of my own and finally shed that constant sense of never being either/or. I know now, though, that the loneliness and isolation, the never quite fitting in, the questioning of who I am and whether anywhere will feel comfortable is as much a part of me as the oval shaped birthmark on my left leg.”
-ed
Fiction by Murielle Gingras
“I’ll never forget the song that played on the radio when we left the airport
Watching you soar through the skies
I still hear it from time to time
And I think about how that was the first time I ever had my heart broken”
Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who entered the contest!
Our 2025 Sense of Place and Home Contest is now open for submissions! Submit your stories of migration and/or your sense of place, of home or lack of, for your chance to win! Submissions are due by January 31.
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Meanwhile, at Dreamers…
Dreamers Magazine Issue 18 Now Available
We’re pleased to announce the release of Issue 18 of the Dreamers Magazine, featuring our Haiku Contest winners. Get your copy now!
Enter the Dreamers Flash Contest – Due Sept. 30
Submit a fiction or nonfiction story of between 300 and 1000 words for your chance to win! The winner will receive $150 CAD and a copy of the Dreamers magazine.