TORONTO - A library worker from Ontario has joined the ranks of authors such as Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike by winning first prize in the prestigious O. Henry Awards, among the top prizes for literature in North America.

Mary Swan's story The Deep took the honour, the highest she's received over 20 years of writing and publishing in literary magazines. The O. Henry awards are given each year to the best short fiction by Canadian and American authors published in Canadian and American magazines. All of the 3,000 or so stories published over the year are whittled down to about two dozen, which are then published together in one volume, called Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards collection.

"It's very flattering and gratifying to have my work appear in a volume with writers I've been reading for years," said Swan, who has worked at the University of Guelph since she graduated from there in the early 1980s.

The Deep is the story of twin sisters and their experiences during the First World War. It was first published in the Summer 2000 issue of the University of Victoria's Malahat Review.

Dan Chaon took second prize for Big Me, and Alice Munro was third with Floating Bridge.

Swan said Munro, whom she's known since the early 1970s, called to congratulate her on her first-place finish.

"She's been very encouraging and supportive over the years, and this has been important to me," Swan said.

Porcupine Quill Press plans to publish The Deep next fall along with a collection of Swan's work.