Announcing the 2025 Pal Saqi and Catherine B. Fogarty Creative Writing Award Winners

The Pal Saqi Award winner Diana Catargiu was born and raised in Romania and moved to Canada in 2003. She lives in Mississauga, where she teaches at Sheridan College. In 2020, Diana was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Award, and in 2019, she won the $1000 Penguin Random House Student Award for Fiction. She was shortlisted for the same award in 2017 and 2018. 

The short stories in Catargiu’s collection, Confiscated, are set in the bleak years of communist Romania or shortly after 1989, when communism collapsed. Despite being scarred by living under a totalitarian regime, the characters in these stories navigate life with grit and, often, with a sense of humour. 

The award jury shared the following about Confiscated: "Diana Catargiu's linked short story collection shows great judgement in creating connections between its individual pieces, making the most of the form through richly explored vignettes of Romania, a memorable cast of characters, and beneficial creative risks. In a stylish and ultra-contemporary voice, Catargiu paints a uniquely complex world where joy and hope shine through immense struggle, without sacrificing the entertainment that comes from a brief story well-told. Catargiu's use of tension and emotion make for a deeply affecting read; it was a delight sitting with these characters to each piece's satisfying end."
 

The Catherine B. Fogarty Award winner Nancy O’Rourke is a writer of essays and memoirs. With a PhD in sociology, specializing in human rights and social justice, she has written widely on issues affecting the rights of women and children. An emerging creative writer, she has won several awards for her essays, and is published in carte blanche, Prairie Fire and Dreamers Creative Writing, among others. In her spare time Nancy paints—abstracts and portraits—sometimes of the characters she writes about.

What the Heart Remembers When the Brain Forgets is a memoir concerning the multifaceted relationship between Nancy and her mother, Barb; one that focuses on identity and the intersection of self. In her later years, afflicted by Alzheimer’s, Barb began speaking of Nancy’s past—Nancy’s career and travels—as those of her own. This confusion was not just a quirk of her illness, but a reflection of the enmeshment that defined their connection as a whole. This memoir examines the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship, and how Nancy came to better understand her mother at a point in her life when she was seemingly no longer understandable.

The award jury shared the following about What the Heart Remembers When the Brain Forgets:

“In this sensitively crafted memoir in vignettes, Nancy O’Rourke transports the reader to her turbulent childhood in the 1950s and ‘60s and conjures the terror and confusion of growing up in an unpredictably violent household. With remarkable precision and empathy, she offers a nuanced portrait of her parents and overturns our expectations of how her relationship with them evolved over time. What the Heart Remembers When the Brain Forgets is a beautiful exploration of complex familial relationships and the limits and possibilities of love.”