“I never imagined poetry would lead me here”:  Renato Gandia wins RBC Bronwen Wallace Award 

By Carlito Pablo

The morning after winning the 2026 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers in poetry, Renato Gandia found himself “still trying to find the words”.

“When I immigrated to Canada, I never imagined that one day I would stand in a room filled with writers I admired and hear my name called,” Gandia posted on social media. 

“I certainly never imagined that poems about queerness, faith, migration, family, and belonging—poems rooted in my experience as a Filipino-Canadian—would lead me here.”

In a new post the following day, Gandia talked about the same theme: “As someone who came to Canada carrying stories from home and searching for a place within a new country, I never imagined that poetry would lead me here.”

Named after writer Bronwen Wallace, the award was established in 1994 and is administered by the Writers’ Trust of Canada, with the support of the Royal Bank of Canada.

The award grants $10,000 annually to a writer of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Gandia and fellow winners Julia Cottrelle (fiction) and Graham Slaughter (nonfiction) were named at an event in Toronto on June 1.

Philippine Ambassador to Canada Jose Victor Chan-Gonzaga attended the gathering.

“I was also happy to meet other Filipino Canadian writers Patty Rivera, Grace Sanchez MacCall and Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio. Renato joins an increasingly long list of kababayans making their mark on Canadian society,” Chan-Gonzaga posted on social media.

Gandia was one of the contributors in “Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing”, a 2024 compilation edited by Teodoro Alcuitas, C. E. Gatchalian, and Patria Rivera.

Gandia came to Canada in 1997 to study in Alberta to become a priest.

Fate had other plans. He became a journalist and wrote for various mainstream Alberta media outlets. He is now in communications.

Based in Calgary, Gandia lives with his husband.

Gandia was named winner in poetry for his collection titled “Psalmody for the Estranged”.

In a May 22, 2026 post on his website after being named a finalist for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award, the Calgary author explained that the word “psalmody comes from communal singing — the singing of psalms”. 

“I was drawn to it because so many of these poems emerged from the language of Catholic ritual and prayer. I grew up believing holiness lived in cathedrals, in incense, in Latin, in perfectly folded linens and memorized responses. I once believed the sacred required obedience.

“But estrangement became part of my life long before I had language for it.

“Estrangement from the Church. Estrangement from the version of masculinity I inherited. Estrangement from the Philippines after immigrating to Canada. Estrangement even within communities I thought would immediately feel like home. Too gay for some spaces. Too Filipino for others. Not Filipino enough elsewhere. Not quite Canadian enough despite the citizenship certificate folded carefully into a drawer.

“The poems began there, not in certainty, but in the in-between,” Gandia wrote.

Here’s an excerpt from his poem “Eucharist for the Estranged”:

I remember the wafer dissolving on my tongue – 

the taste of paper and surrender. 

Back then, holiness meant hunger, 

the slow miracle of becoming worthy. 

Now I know the body is already sacred, 

even when it trembles.

On social media the morning after winning the award, Gandia talked about his craft.

“Writing has often felt like an act of faith. Most days, it happens quietly: before work, after work, on weekends, in notebooks, in coffee shops, and in moments stolen from ordinary life. There are far more rejections than successes. There are long stretches when no one is reading. You keep going anyway.”

On his website in his May 22 article titled “A small song for living between two worlds”, Gandia noted that many of the poems in his “Psalmody for the Estranged” portfolio asked the same question about building lives “inside forms that once excluded us”.

Gandia went on, “How does a gay Filipino immigrant remake prayer after estrangement from the Church? How does love survive translation? How do you belong to communities that sometimes hesitate before fully claiming you? How do you carry devotion forward after faith changes shape?

“I do not think the portfolio answers those questions completely. But maybe poems aren’t built for answers. Maybe they’re built for sitting inside the question long enough that it starts to sound like something.

“That may be what this portfolio finally became — a small song for living between worlds, a way of blessing the life I once thought I had to refuse,” Gandia wrote.