Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Fly-Fishing Writing Award Entries Now Open

The John D. Voelker Foundation and the American Museum of Fly Fishing (AMFF) are pleased to announce that submissions are now being accepted for the 2025 Robert Traver Fly-Fishing Writing Award (the Traver Award). The award is named after Robert Traver, pen name for the late John Voelker, author of Trout Madness, Trout Magic, Anatomy of a Fisherman, the 1958 best seller Anatomy of a Murder, and the historical novel Laughing Whitefish.

The Traver Award, which includes a $2,500 prize, was created in 1994 to encourage and recognize “distinguished original stories or essays that embody the implicit love of fly fishing, respect for the sport, and the natural world in which it takes place.” The Traver stories and essays must demonstrate high literary values in one or more of these three categories:

• The joy of fly fishing: personal and philosophic experience
• Ecology: knowledge and protection of the natural world
• Humor: piscatorial friendships and fun on the water

The 2025 Traver Award will be granted for the winning short work of fiction or nonfiction essay in the English language not previously published commercially in print or digital media. “Short work” means 3,000 words or less. An entry fee of $25 will offset the administrative costs of the award program. Previous Traver Award winners are not eligible. All entrants will be required to certify that no part of their entry was generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

The deadline for submissions is midnight on May 31, 2025. The submission form and additional rules and instructions can be found on the Voelker Foundation website (www.voelkerfoundation.com).

The Traver Award winner will be notified in September 2025. The winning entry will be published in the Winter or Spring 2026 edition of the American Fly Fisher, the journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing, as well as on the AMFF and Voelker Foundation websites.

The winner of the 2024 Robert Traver Fly-Fishing Writing Award was “Last Salad on the Gairezi” by George Rogers, a high school science and English teacher from Chateaugay, New York, and Cantwell, Alaska, where he owns and operates Denali Angler, a summer fly-fishing guide service. This is a personal story of fly fishing for nonnative trout in Zimbabwe that provides insightful context for destination fishing in a country with a complicated history.

The Traver Award judges also bestowed Honorable Mention recognition on two other entries:

“Blind Willie’s Pool” by Chris Bishop of Beckenham, Kent, United Kingdom
“How to Say Gila” by Joseph Jackson of Anchorage, Alaska

The 2024 competition drew a field of 100 stories and essays. Entries were judged anonymously, resulting in eight finalists. The other five finalists were:

“Beginnings” by David Wickline III of Lynchburg, Virginia
“Following Filleul” by Michelle Werrett of Tiverton, Devon, United Kingdom
“Between the Snow and the Second Line” by Katie MacDonald of Charlottestown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
“From the Clear Waters” by Mark Cudney of Wayland, New York
“The Man from Leksand” by Moncrieff Cochran of South Orleans, Massachusetts

Since 1994, twenty-six Traver Awards have been given. Two anthologies of the Traver Award winners and finalists have been published: In Hemingway’s Meadow (2009) and Love Story of the Trout (2010).

The Voelker Foundation and the American Museum of Fly Fishing joined forces in 2018 to administer the Traver Award and publish the winner in the AMFF journal. For more information, see www.voelkerfoundation.com and www.amff.org.

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Learn More & Read Past Winners