[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A Fort McMurray author has come away with an international writing award for one of her short stories.

Therese Greenwood earned the 2019 Spur Award from the Western Writers of America for her short story ‘Buck’s Last Ride,’ from her 2018 collection entitled ‘Kill As You Go.’

Greenwood tells Mix News the story is about a cowboy who hates his horse and finds himself at the Calgary Stampede.

“He’s faced with an escaped convict which is a theme I like to explore in a lot of my short stories. Ordinary people who are faced with something completely unexpected and whether they can rise to the occasion or not.”

Greenwood calls the win a “complete and utter surprise.”

The cover of Greenwood’s 2018 collection.

“I’d never written a Western-style story before and I never entered this particular award. They just contacted me to let me know I’d won it and there was no lead-up to it. So, it was sort of mad excitement.”

The author says she’s also got more work on the way.

Next month, she will be releasing a memoir of her perspective of living through the Horse River wildfire.

“Through the process of that book, I explored each object I took from my home, the people I associated with those objects, who’d given it to me. I realized it was actually the things that reminded me of the people who gave me the strength to live through an experience like that.”

‘What You Take With You: Wildfire, Family and the Road Home,’ will be in bookstores on April 1.

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