“Lost Boys” shortlisted

“Lost Boys” by PEI author Trevor Corkum has been shortlisted for the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. 

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from any of the Commonwealth’s 56 Member States. The 28 stories on the 2023 shortlist were selected from a total of 6642 entries, and tackle subjects from illness, human trafficking and decay, to relationships and hope—as well as family secrets, growing up gay in a hostile world, generation gaps, bittersweet friendships, and making one’s way in the world of work. They span genres from speculative and comic fiction to historical fiction and crime.

Corkum’s “Lost Boys” tells the story of Gideon, a 17-year old boy sent to a remote re-education camp for 2SLGBTQIA+ teenagers by his religious parents. 

“It’s a story about the challenges of growing up queer in a hostile world—particularly at a time of increasingly violent backlash,” says  Corkum. “But it’s also a story about competing ideologies of masculinity, and the lasting damage toxic ideas of masculinity enact upon us all.” 

Corkum’s debut novel The World After Us will be published by Doubleday Canada in 2024. He lives in Epekwitk (PEI), where along with his partner Joshua Lewis, he is a co-proprietor of The Hideout, a rural riverside property which offers retreats and self-directed residencies for Canadian and international writers.