With an introduction by the jury, and now featuring authors’ comments on the inspiration for their stories.

This is the seventeenth edition of The Journey Prize Stories , Canada’s most popular annual fiction anthology. As well as receiving high praise every year, it is an important indicator of up-and-coming writers, presenting the most exciting new Canadian voices from coast to coast. Writers whose stories have appeared in the anthology — Yann Martel, André Alexis, David Bergen, Dennis Bock, Michael Crummey, Elizabeth Hay, Annabel Lyon, Lisa Moore, Eden Robinson, Timothy Taylor, Madeleine Thien, and M.G. Vassanji — have gone on to become finalists for or winners of some of Canada’s most prestigious literary awards.

The stories included in the anthology are contenders for the $10,000 Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, which is made possible by James A. Michener’s generous donation of his Canadian royalty earnings from his novel Journey (M&S, 1988). The winner will be announced in the spring of 2006 as part of The Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Great Literary Awards event.