Longtime Memorial staff member and Faculty of Arts alumna Beth Ryan was recently named the recipient of the Telegram's 2014 Cuffer Prize for her short story, Campfire Stories.

“Winning the Cuffer Prize has really motivated me to get back to writing short fiction," said Ms. Ryan. "Ever since I published my collection, I have been trying to come up with a novel and I've written chapters for two different books. But I seemed to stall out at a certain point. The buzz created by the Cuffer Prize in the last few years has raised the profile of short fiction in the province and it's got me excited about the short story form again. So now I am eager to get back to work on a new collection of stories.”

Ms. Ryan graduated with her BA (English and women’s studies) in 1987 and has worked on and off with Memorial since 1988, most recently with the First Year Success program in the Faculty of Arts. She was a member of Memorial’s famed Burning Rock writers group in the mid-1990s and says that it was meeting regularly with writers like Larry Mathews, Claire Wilkshire, Lisa Moore and Jessica Grant that helped developed her skills and confidence as a writer.

She published a collection of short stories in 2003, titled What is invisible, which won the John and Margaret Savage award for best first book in Atlantic Canada. Her stories have also appeared in anthologies and literary journals including TickleAce, The New Quarterly, Hearts Larry Broke, The Cuffer Anthology, and Weather’s Edge.

A video of Ms. Ryan receiving the award and discussing it can be found here.