At 26, D W Wilson has become the youngest ever winner of the prestigious BBC National Short Story Award for his story The Dead Roads. He was presented with a cheque for £15,000 by this year’s Chair of Judges, broadcaster Sue MacGregor, as the news was announced live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row from an event at The Free Word Centre in central London.
Wilson was born and raised in British Columbia before coming to England as the recipient of the inaugural MAN Booker Prize Scholarship for the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia, where he is now a PhD candidate in Creative and Critical Writing.
Jon McGregor was runner-up for the second year in a row with his story Wires, receiving a cheque for £3,000. The other shortlisted authors, M J Hyland, Alison MacLeod and K J Orr, each received £500.
Wilson’s winning story is a classic North American road trip with a difference; a muscular and tense tale of two old school buddies trying to win the affections of a free-spirited girl as they drive across the other-worldly landscape of Alberta. The judges described the story as ‘perfectly constructed’ and ‘note perfect’.
Listen to and download all of this years short stories.
Joe Dunthorne on the winner:
