Jason Sweeney from Nova Scotia takes first prize in Winnipeg!

(Winnipeg, May 2010) East met West in Winnipeg, in front of an enthusiastic crowd at the funky Gas Station Theatre. Frank Ritcey, the cowboy poet and wilderness guide, and Marc Mackenzie, the medical physicist, represented the West. The Eastern finalists were Saundra Vernon, the cook and former candy-store owner, and Jason Sweeny, an IT specialist and former actor with an impressive 1.2 million following on Twitter.

After the blog, the song, the press release and the 6-word story, the judges -- singer-songwriter David Francey, novelist Daria Salamon and comedian Gerry Barrett - set down their final scores and made Jason the winner.

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The Finalists:

Marc Mackenzie	Saundra Vernon	Jason Sweeney	Frank Ritcey

Katie Sanders from British Columbia takes first prize in Toronto!

(Toronto, April 2009) After weeks of effort and tension and achievement -- from the writing contest in January, through the auditions, the short list, the semi-finals and the finals - it was all over in a couple of minutes. It was a very tight race in the end. Our four finalists fought it out by blog, song, ad and a three-line story. Katie pulled ahead by a crucial point -- and became the winner of Canada Writes 09!
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The Finalists:

Margaret Beach	Kaveh Mohebbi	Katie Sanders	Laurie Schwartz

Jenny Ryan from Saskatoon took first prize in Toronto!



(Toronto, November 2007) In the inaugural year of Canada Writes*, Jenny Ryan took home a laptop and an improvised Golden Mouse award after an exciting, grueling day of one-hour challenges, critiqued by judges Terry O'Reilly, Elvira Kurt and Dione Taylor.

*By the way, there is no Canada Writes 2008! The 2008 games should have taken place in the fall but were delayed into the winter -- and so became Canada Writes 2009.

The Finalists:

Jenny Ryan	Amy Neufeld	Ben Boudreau	Derek Krismanich	Rosemary Rowe

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