57 books by past CBC Literary Prizes winners and finalists that came out in 2023
Being a finalist for the CBC Literary Prizes can jump-start your literary career. Need proof? Here are 57 books that were published in 2023 written by former CBC Literary Prizes winners and finalists.
The 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize will be open for submissions between Jan. 1 and March 1 at 4:59 p.m. ET. The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their work published on CBC Books.
Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.
Izzy's Dog Days of Summer by Caroline Adderson, illustrated by Kelly Collier
Izzy's Dog Days of Summer is the third book in the humorous early chapter book series about a girl called Izzy and her dog Rolo. Isabel and her best friend Zoë are going to summer camp, but Rolo isn't allowed to join them. Isabel is really excited for camp and is disappointed that the camp counselors at Fun in the Sun Camp keep ruining their fun, so Isabel decides to create her own summer camp in the backyard with Rolo.
Caroline Adderson is a writer from Vancouver. Her previous books include Izzy's Tail of Trouble, Babble!, The Sky is Falling, Ellen in Pieces and A Russian Sister. She has published two short story collections, including the 1993 Governor General's Literary Award finalist Bad Imaginings.
Adderson is a three-time winner of the CBC Literary Prizes. She placed third in the CBC Short Story Prize in 1988 with The Hanging Garden of Babylon. She placed third a second time in 1991 with The Chmarnyk and in 2004, she came in second with Falling.
Kelly Collier is a Toronto artist and illustrator. She is the author-illustrator of two picture books, A Horse Named Steve and Team Steve, and the illustrator of Sloth and Squirrel in a Pickle, Izzy in the Doghouse and Izzy's Tail of Trouble.
Cocktail by Lisa Alward
Cocktail is a short story collection that explores some of life's watershed moments and the tiny horrors of domestic life. Beginning in the 1960s and moving forward through the decades, Cocktail tells intimate and immersive stories about the power of desire — and the cost of pursuing it.
Lisa Alward's short fiction has appeared in The Journey Prize Stories 2017, Best Canadian Stories 2017 and Best Canadian Stories 2016. She is the winner of the New Quarterly's 2016 Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award as well as the 2015 Fiddlehead Short Fiction Prize. She lives in Fredericton.
Alward was on the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Orlando 1974 which is included in her book Cocktail. She is also a reader for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize.
The Almost Widow by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
The Almost Widow is a missing-person thriller that follows Piper as someone is following her. When Piper asks her husband, a natural resources officer, to investigate who is cutting down old-growth trees in the rainforest, a storm blows in and he goes missing. Determined to find him, Piper heads out into the forest long after the search teams have called off their hunt. Out there in the woods, she has the sneaking feeling she isn't alone and that whoever is following her may also know where her husband is.
Gail Anderson-Dargatz is a writer from B.C. Her first novel, The Cure for Death by Lightning, was a finalist for the 1996 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her second novel, A Recipe for Bees, was also a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 1998. Anderson-Dargatz's other books include The Spawning Grounds, Turtle Valley and The Almost Wife.
In 1993, Gail Anderson-Dargatz won the CBC Short Story Prize with The Girl with the Bell Necklace.
Reuniting with Strangers by Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio
Reuniting with Strangers, is a novel-in-stories about how the Filipino-Canadian diaspora experiences family reunification. It follows characters from a caregiver raising her employer's children while missing her own in the Philippines, to an aging musician worried his children have left him behind for new lives in Canada. The nine stories take readers from Montreal to Manila back. Each is somehow connected to Monolith, a non-verbal five-year-old boy.
Reuniting with Strangers is on the longlist for Canada Reads 2024.
Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio is a Filipina-Canadian author based in Toronto whose stories appear in the anthologies Changing the Face of Canadian Literature and Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing. She was a finalist for the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Authors Award.
Austria-Bonifacio was longlisted for the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize for Her Life's Work.
Wires that Sputter by Britta Badour
Britta Badour's debut collection of poetry, Wires that Sputter, explores topics like pop culture, sports, family dynamics and Black liberation.
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Britta Badour's powerful poetry is inspired by her family, community and her experience of Blackness
Badour, better known as Britta B., is an artist, public speaker and poet living in Toronto. She is the recipient of the 2021 Breakthrough Artist Award from the Toronto Arts Foundation. She teaches spoken word performance at Seneca College.
Badour was longlisted for the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize for Spitshine.
Women Wide Awake by Manahil & Nimra Bandukwala
Women Wide Awake is a multi-genre book featuring a collection of stories, poetry, and visual art exploring folklore from the region of Sindh, Pakistan. The sculptures were created using reclaimed materials: sari fabric, wedding invitations on paper, flowers, shells and animal bones.
Manahil Bandukwala is a Pakistani writer, artist and editor currently based in Mississauga. Her debut poetry collection, Monument, was published in 2022. In 2019, Bandukwala was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize for her poem To ride an art horse. She has also been a finalist for the bpNichol Chapbook Award in 2021.
Nimra Bandukwala is a visual artist and maker of crafts using foraged and found materials.
Away from the Dead by David Bergen
Away from the Dead is set in early 20th century Ukraine as anarchists, Bolsheviks and the White Army come and go — all claiming justice and freedom. The book follows the lives of Lehn, Sablin and Inna, three Ukrainians dealing with the chaos violence around them as the best and worst of humanity are on display. Away from the Dead made the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist.
David Bergen is the author of 11 novels and two collections of stories. His work includes The Time in Between, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, The Matter with Morris and The Age of Hope, which was championed by Ron MacLean on Canada Reads 2013. He currently lives in Winnipeg.
Bergen won the 1999 CBC Short Story Prize for his story How can men share a bottle of vodka.
Burn Diary by Joshua Chris Bouchard
Burn Diary is Toronto poet Joshua Chris Bouchard's debut poetry collection. His writing is gritty, personal, brave and has a strangely beautiful from.
Bouchard is the author of Let This Be the End of Me, which was shortlisted for the 2019 bpNichol Chapbook Award. His poetry has appeared in Event, CV2, Carousel, Poetry is Dead, Prism International, Arc and The Ex-Puritan. Bouchard was longlisted for the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize for Portraits.
Who Owns the Clouds by Mario Brassard
Who Owns the Clouds is a YA novel about a girl named Mila and the dreams she is having of a life left behind. In her dreams, Mila and her family are hoping to move on to better lives — but thoughts of a missing uncle and visions of clouds blur the lines between what's real and what's not. Mila must resolve past pain to move on in the present.
Mario Brassard is an artist and author of children's books from Quebec. Who Owns the Clouds is his first illustrated work. Brassard won the Prix de poésie Radio-Canada 2018 for his poem Séconal.
Gérard DuBois is an artist and illustrator based in Quebec.
The Ridge by Robert Bringhurst
The Ridge is a poetry collection that uses metaphor and provocative imagery to reflect on the ecological history and future of the West Coast of Canada.
Robert Bringhurst is a writer and former Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. His poetry collection The Beauty of the Weapons was shortlisted for a Governor General's Literary Award in 1982 and his nonfiction book A Story as Sharp as a Knife was shortlisted for a Governor General's Literary Award in 2000.
In 1985, he won the CBC Poetry Prize for his poem The Blue Roofs of Japan and later won the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence in 2005. He is also a recipient of the Order of Canada and lives on Quadra Island, B.C.
Swans by Michelle Brown
Swans is a narrative poetry collection following three best friends on a regular night out that quickly turns into a surrealist coming-of-age before dawn. Michelle Brown writes about tense female friendships, alcoholism, spontaneity and sexuality.
Brown is a poet living on the west coast of Canada. Brown's first full-length collection of poetry, Safe Words, was shortlisted for the 2018 ReLit award. Brown was on the longlist for the 2015 CBC Poetry Prize for Invasive Species.
Coq by Ali Bryan
Coq is a cross-country family drama that explores the roles each member takes up in grief after loss and later, in acceptance, as the family reforms. Claudia is used to juggling many family problems at once, whether it's the unruliness of her teenaged children, her brother's broken marriage or her ex-partner's desire to get back together. What Claudia finds she can't tolerate is her father remarrying 10 years after her mother's death. This change prompts the family to take a trip to Paris to reconcile their differences. However, things quickly go astray and the trip that is meant to bring them together could be what pulls them apart.
Ali Bryan is a writer from Nova Scotia. Her first novel, Roost, won the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction. Her second novel, The Figgs, was shortlisted for Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 2019. She published two books in 2023: Coq and The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships.
Bryan was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2014 and in 2010.
The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships by Ali Bryan
The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships follows five key characters connected to karaoke legend Dale Jepson. The community of Crow Valley decides to put on a karaoke competition in his honour. One night before the championship event. Amidst mid-life crises, the news that a murderer has escaped the local prison, stolen cars and more, the residents of Crow Valley must come together to put on their very best show.
Ali Bryan is a writer from Nova Scotia. Her first novel, Roost, won the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction. Her second novel, The Figgs, was shortlisted for Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 2019. She published two books in 2023: Coq and The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships.
Bryan was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2014 and in 2010.
Places Like These by Lauren Carter
Places Like These is a short story collection that covers the globe — from Ecuador to San Francisco to small-town Ontario or northern Manitoba. From a teenager dealing with the emotional toll of the oncoming climate crisis to a widow searching for her late husband through a spiritual guide, each story paints a portrait of a character longing for connection and confronting their demons.
Lauren Carter writes, teaches writing and mentors other writers. She is the author of four books of fiction, including This Has Nothing to Do with You, which won the 2020 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. She has also received the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. Her short story Rhubarb won the Prairie Fire Fiction Award. Her debut novel, Swarm, was longlisted for Canada Reads 2014. She is based in Winnipeg.
In 2017, Carter made the CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Lie Down Within the Night. It was her second time on a CBC Poetry Prize longlist. Before that, she'd made the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Migration (1851-1882). She was also longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2015 for River's Edge.
Lent by Kate Cayley
Lent is built from the tension, exploring domestic and artistic life amidst the environmental crisis and the surprising ways that every philosophical quandary — large and small — converges in the home, in small objects, conversations and moments. This poetry collection is a work of our era, asking us to contemplate what it means to live in a broken world — and why we still find it beautiful.
Kate Cayley is a fiction writer, playwright and poet based in Toronto. She is also the author of the YA novel The Hangman in the Mirror, the poetry collections When This World Comes to an End and Other Houses and the short story collections How You Were Born and Householders.
Cayley made the longlist for the 2016 CBC Short Story Prize for The Fourteenth Birthday and the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Writers' Bedrooms.
The Whole Animal by Corinna Chong
The Whole Animal is a collection of short stories that examines the power, strangeness and attributes of human and animal bodies. Chong exposes themes of loneliness, loss and self-discovery through stories like that of a child fixating on the hair growing out of her mother's eyelid or a linguist's attempts to connect with a boy who cannot speak.
Originally from Calgary, Corinna Chong lives in Kelowna, B.C. and teaches English and fine arts at Okanagan College. She published her first novel Belinda's Rings in 2013. Her short fiction has been published in magazines across Canada, including The Malahat Review, Room, Grain and The Humber Literary Review.
In 2021, Chong won the CBC Short Story Prize for Kids in Kindergarten, which appears in The Whole Animal.
The Double Life of Benson Yu by Kevin Chong
The Double Life of Benson Yu recounts the difficult adolescence of the titular character growing up in a housing project in 1980s Chinatown. The story takes a metafictional twist, when Yu's grip on memory and reality falters. The unique structure provides a layered and poignant look into how we come to terms with who we are, what happened to us as children and that finding hope and healing lies in whether we choose to suppress or process our experiences.
The Double Life of Benson Yu was a finalist for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Kevin Chong is a Vancouver-based writer and associate professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. His other books include the nonfiction book Northern Dancer and fiction titles like The Plague and Beauty Plus Pity. Chong was announced as one of the jurors for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize. He was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize twice, in 2015 for Empty Houses and in 2020 for White Space.
Peony Vertigo by Jan Conn
Peony Vertigo is a gathering of poems about environments and crisis and our individual consciousness in relation to them. This is a collection of memories and changing landscapes that varies in scale and intimacy.
Jan Conn is a Quebec-born poet, professor and research scientist for the New York State Department of Health. She has written 10 poetry collections, including Botero's Beautiful Horses and What Dante Did With Loss.
After That by Lorna Crozier
Acclaimed Canadian poet Lorna Crozier lost her longtime partner, fellow poet Patrick Lane, in 2019. In her poetry collection, After That, Crozier examines immense grief and loss and highlights the beauty of sorrow and the magic you find in everyday life.
Crozier is a Governor General's Literary Award-winning poet who has written more than 15 books. She won the 1987 CBC Poetry Prize for Angels of Silence. Her other poetry collections include God of Shadows and What the Soul Doesn't Want.
The Clarion by Nina Dunic
Siblings Peter and Stasi are struggling to find their place in the world in the novel The Clarion. Peter is a trumpet player who also works in a kitchen and Stasi is trying to climb the corporate ladder. The Clarion looks at themes of intimacy and performance — and how far one must go to find or lose their sense of self.
The Clarion was longlisted for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Nina Dunic is a freelance writer and journalist living in Scarborough. In 2023, she was named to the CBC Books Writers to Watch list.
Dunic has been longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize four times: in 2023 for The Artist, in 2022 for Youth, in 2020 for Bodies and in 2019 for an earlier version of Bodies.
I (Athena) by Ruth DyckFehderau
Ruth DyckFehderau's debut novel I (Athena) is about a young girl named Athena who suffered hearing damage in the 1960's, but was wrongfully misdiagnosed and subsequently institutionalized. Now that she is out of the institution, she must learn how to live independently in society.
DyckFehderau is an Edmonton-based author. She has written the nonfiction book The Sweet Bloods of Eeyou Istchee in collaboration with James Cree storytellers. DyckFehderau was on the longlist of the 2017 CBC Nonfiction Prize for Charity's Test.
The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society by Christine Estima
The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society is a collection of connected stories traces the immigrant experience of an Arab family through multiple generations. From brave Syrian refugees to trailblazing Lebanese freedom fighters, Azuree knows she comes from a long line of daring Arab women. These stories follow her as she explores ideas of love, faith, despair and the effects of war — and what those family histories mean for her as an Arab woman in the 21st century.
Christine Estima is a writer, playwright and journalist living in Toronto. She was longlisted for the 2015 CBC Nonfiction Prize for her essay Sarajevo Roses. The Syrian Ladies Benevolant Society is her first book.
With My Eyes Wide Open by Michael Fraser
With My Eyes Wide Open explores without filter the themes of grief, family, and resiliency amid the backdrop of racism and near poverty. The poet acknowledges his wanton decisions with creativity and imaginative flair.
Michael Fraser has won numerous awards, including Freefall Magazine's 2014 and 2015 poetry contests, the 2018 Gwendolyn Macewen Poetry Competition and the League of Canadian Poets' 2022 Lesley Strutt Poetry Prize. He has published poetry collections To Greet Yourself Arriving and The Day-Breakers, which was shortlisted for 2023 ReLit Awards.
Fraser was the winner of the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize. He was named one of CBC Books Writers to Watch in 2022. He was also a reader for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize. Most recently, he was longlisted for the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize for Things to Do around Ottawa when you're Black.
Tales for Late Night Bonfires by G.A. Grisenthwaite
In Tales for Late Night Bonfires, writer G.A. Grisenthwaite blends the Indigenous tradition of oral storytelling with his own unique literary style. From tales about an impossible moose hunt to tales about the "Real Santa," Grisenthwaite crafts witty stories — each more uncanny than the last.
Grisenthwaite is Nłeʔkepmx, a member of the Lytton First Nation who currently lives in Kingsville, Ont. His 2020 debut novel Home Waltz was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction.
Grisenthwaite made the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Splatter Pattern.
Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue by Christine Higdon
Set in the 1920s, Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue centres around the lives of four working-class Vancouver sisters still reeling in the wake of the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed their brother. As they barely scrape by, determined to make the most of the Roaring 1920s, forbidden love and betrayal abound against the backdrop of the complex political and social realities of the time.
Christine Higdon is an author living in Mimico, Ont. Her novel The Very Marrow of Our Bones won the 2018 Foreword Indies Editor's Choice Prize. Her work has appeared in Plenitude and The New Quarterly.
In 2016, Higdon was shortlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize for Because We're Not at the Ocean and in 2020 she made the CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Courage, My Love.
Optic Nerve by Matthew Hollett
Matthew Hollett employs wordplay and a specific kind of playfulness in poems about photography, perception and ways of seeing in the poetry collection Optic Nerve. Hollett dissects the way we see the world, from perspectives such as the inside of an eyeball to the impact of a bomb crater.
Hollett is a writer and visual artist living in St. John's. He published his debut book, Album Rock, in 2018.
In 2020, Hollett won the CBC Poetry Prize for Tickling the Scar. Before that, he was on the CBC Poetry Prize longlist in 2016 for Merchant Vessel and Bomb Crater Behind Vimy Station and the longlist for the 2017 CBC Nonfiction Prize for Painting the Curlew.
Life Expectancy by Alison Hughes
In the YA novel Life Expectancy, Sophie St. John discovers a lawsuit that was launched by her parents when she was a baby, which says she has a reduced life expectancy as the result of a serious disease. She also finds out she might be very wealthy. Sophie is suddenly facing a much shorter life than she expected and she is determined to navigate this new world on her own terms.
Alison Hughes is a writer from Edmonton. She has written 20 books for children and young adults, including Fly and Hit the Ground Running, which was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text. Her writing has been shortlisted for the Writers' Union Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers.
Hughes was longlisted for the 2011 CBC Short Story Prize and her story Funhouse Mirrors was shortlisted for the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Wrack Line by M.W. Jaeggle
In the poetry collection Wrack Line, M.W. Jaeggle explores themes of loss, guilt, loneliness and shows the endless possibilities of language to express feeling.
Jaeggle is the author of three chapbooks, Janus on the Pacific, The Night of the Crash and Choreography for a Falling Blouse. Born in Vancouver, Jaeggle is a PhD student in the Department of English at SUNY Buffalo. He made the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for What I've Learned. Wrack Line is his first book of poetry.
The King of Terrors by Jim Johnstone
The King of Terrors was written after a brain tumour diagnosis early in the pandemic and is a meditation on living with illness and the forces required to heal. These forces are not always what we expect — they may not even be medical. Jim Johnstone's poems are bodily reflections that ask how we can reframe our past to make sense of the present.
Johnstone is a Toronto-based poet, editor and critic. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, including The Chemical Life, which was shortlisted for the 2018 ReLit Award. Currently, he curates the Anstruther Books imprint at Palimpsest Press, where he published The Next Wave: An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry.
Johnstone won second prize in the 2008 CBC Literary Awards for poetry with a collection of poems titled Invertebrate Poems. He also made the longlist for the 2012 CBC Poetry Prize for Revenants.
Pebble & Dove by Amy Jones
Pebble & Dove is the story of Lauren, a woman who is deep in debt and in the midst of a divorce, and her teenager daughter Dove. The two are in Florida, staying at Lauren's late estranged mother's trailer. Lauren is trying to escape her life, while Dove is trying to escape her current circumstances. Dove ends up discovering the abandoned Flamingo Key Aquarium and Tackle, where Pebble, the world's oldest manatee in captivity, still resides. What unfolds is a darkly humorous story of a family falling apart and coming back together again, thanks in part to an unlikely source of inspiration: Pebble.
Jones is a writer from Nova Scotia who now lives in Hamilton, Ont. Her books include the novels We're All in This Together and Every Little Piece of Me and the short story collection What Boys Like. Jones won the 2006 CBC Short Story Prize.
Old Gods by Conor Kerr
Old Gods is a poetry collection in motion. From coyotes that race through the night to buses that drive from region to region or people that search for lost loves on the Internet, Old Gods is a meditation on the travels humans and animals take over time. Conor Kerr places readers in the "Métis mindset," showing that wherever one is in the natural world, there is life in the rivers, the hills and the prairies we travel on.
Kerr is a Métis and Ukrainian educator, writer and harvester. He is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta and is descended from the Gladue, Ginther and Quinn families from the Lac Ste. Anne and Fort Des Prairies Métis communities and the Papaschase Cree Nation. His poem Prairie Ritual was on the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize longlist.
Kerr won the 2022 Novel ReLit Award for his debut novel, Avenue of Champions, which was also longlisted for the 2022 Giller Prize and was a finalist for the 2022 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Kerr was also a reader for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize.
While Supplies Last by Anita Lahey
From traumatic traffic reports during the COVID-19 pandemic to a Cape Breton wildfire in 1976, Anita Lahey touches upon many subjects in the poetry collection While Supplies Last. The book is also a love letter to the Maritimes and Lahey's poetry reads like storytelling with an acute sense of nostalgia. The final section of poems served as the inspiration for the graphic novel Fire Monster, with Pauline Conley, also published in 2023.
Lahey is an Ottawa writer. Her books include Spinning Side Kick, Out to Dry in Cape Breton, The Mystery Shopping Cart and The Last Goldfish, which was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award. She has been the series editor of the Best Canadian Poetry anthologies since 2018. Lahey was on the CBC Poetry Prize longlists in 2009 for Men and in 2010 for The Foe.
Fire Monster by Anita Lahey & Pauline Conley
Fire Monster is a graphic novel about an oil sands worker who returns to his childhood town in Cape Breton, N.S., where a wildfire previously devastated the fishing village. Going back comes with its challenges because the entire community believes he was the one to start the fire.
Anita Lahey is an Ottawa writer. Her books include Spinning Side Kick, Out to Dry in Cape Breton, The Mystery Shopping Cart and The Last Goldfish, which was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award. Her latest poetry collection, While Supplies Last, is also being published in 2023. She has been the series editor of the Best Canadian Poetry anthologies since 2018. Lahey was on the CBC Poetry Prize longlists in 2009 for Men and in 2010 for The Foe.
Pauline Conley recently transitioned from painting to comics. Fire Monster is her first graphic novel.
Sigrene's Bargain With Odin by Zoë Landale
This unique, epic poem explores little-known Norse mythology and pays special attention to form, sound, and imagery. Sigrene's Bargain with Odin contemplates the age-old quandary of where our loyalties lie and how to act with integrity to find peace in a troubled world.
Zoë Landale has published 10 books, edited two books and her work has appeared in more than 50 anthologies. She taught for 15 years as a faculty member in the creative writing department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Vancouver. Landale won the 2002 CBC Poetry Prize for Once a Murderer: Poems for Three Voices.
Last Winter by Carrie Mac
When Ruby survives and avalanche that kills her father and peers on a school overnight trip, she is left devastated and is determined to find him herself. Meanwhile, for her mother, who has bipolar and is reckoning with her own grief, her brazen trek back into the snow might push her to the breaking point.
Carrie Mac is the author of contemporary novels for teens, speculative YA, literary short fiction and creative nonfiction. Her accolades include a BC Book Prize and Arthur Ellis Award. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia's School of Creative Writing and is a mentor at Simon Fraser University's Writer's Studio. Mac was the winner of the 2015 CBC Nonfiction Prize for if you have a good seal, the chest will rise. She also made the 2017 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for The Third Bad Thing.
Kink Bands by David Martin
Kink Bands is a lyrical exploration of Canadian landscapes and family histories. David Martin explores the natural world through geology and reflects on modern-day environments.
David Martin works as a literacy instructor in Calgary and as an organizer for the Single Onion Poetry Series. In 2014, he won the CBC Poetry Prize for his poem Tar Swan. In 2018, Tar Swan became a published book-length narrative poem.
Frank's Wing by Jacob McArthur Mooney
Written as a sequence of "ghost ekphrastics" (poems inspired by works of art that neither the poet nor most living people have ever seen), Frank's Wing constructs a whole world of lost or destroyed artifacts that have been rearticulated and resurrected, brought back to life by a fictional property baron as a dying gift to Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario.
Jacob McArthur Mooney's previous collections have been shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award in Poetry and the Dylan Thomas Prize. Originally from Nova Scotia, he now lives in Toronto. Frank's Wing is his fourth book. He was on the longlist for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2014 for a poetry collection titled Bindled Back: Three Travel Poems.
Anecdotes by Kathryn Mockler
Anecdotes is a hybrid collection in four parts examining the pressing realities of sexual violence, abuse and environmental collapse. These varied, immersive works bristle with truth in the face of unprecedented change. They are playful forms for serious times.
Kathryn Mockler is the author of five books of poetry. She co-edited the print anthology Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis and is the publisher of the Watch Your Head website. She runs Send My Love to Anyone, a literary newsletter, and is an assistant professor at the University of Victoria where she teaches screenwriting and fiction. Mockler was longlisted for the 2012 CBC Poetry Prize for a collection of poems titled Ice Fishing, Neighbours, Stones, Looking for Crayfish as well as in 2009 for Onion Man.
How to Be Alone by Heather Nolan
How to Be Alone is a duet of poetic novellas documenting the double-edged sword of self-acceptance. Nolan depicts the euphoric highs of a queer awakening and the crushing lows of feeling othered in a world that isn't built for you. The poems explore themes such as isolation, trauma and loss.
Heather Nolan is a writer from St. John's. They are the author of Land of the Rock and This is Agatha Falling, which was shortlisted for the ReLit Award and longlisted for the BMO Winterset Award. Nolan was on the longlist of the 2017 CBC Poetry Prize for Home and Native Land. Nolan was also a reader for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize.
A knife so sharp its edge cannot be seen by Erin Noteboom
Erin Noteboom uses the lyric form to write about illness, grief and loss in A knife so sharp its edge cannot be seen. The physicist-turned-writer tests hypotheses about sadness, science and love to ask important existential questions.
Noteboom is a former physicist who currently writes poetry and young adult novels. Originally from Nebraska, Noteboom came to Canada in 1997. Her poetry collections include Seal Up the Thunder.
Noteboom won the CBC Poetry Prize in 2001 for her poem Poems for Carl Hruska and made the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for her poem How to write at the end of the world.
Noteboom publishes YA fiction under the name Erin Bow. Her novels include Plain Kate, The Scorpion Rules, The Swan Riders, Stand on the Sky and Sorrow's Knot. Plain Kate won the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award in 2011.
Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow
Simon Sort of Says is a middle-grade novel that follows Simon O'Keefe. Simon is a natural storyteller who has just moved with his family to the National Quiet Zone — a community where there is no internet so that radio astronomers can listen for signs of extraterrestrial life. Simon also happens to be the sole survivor of a school shooting and is set on writing a new story and life for himself. Simon Sort of Says is an uplifting book of perseverance and healing.
Simon Sort of Says is for ages 9 to 12.
Erin Noteboom publishes YA fiction under the name Erin Bow. Her novels include Plain Kate, The Scorpion Rules, The Swan Riders, Stand on the Sky and Sorrow's Knot. Plain Kate won the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award in 2011.
Noteboom won the CBC Poetry Prize in 2001 for her poem Poems for Carl Hruska and made the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for her poem How to write at the end of the world.
Song & Dread by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek
Otoniya J. Okot Bitek wrote her latest collection, Song & Dread, inside during the early days of the pandemic, observing the emotions and experiences of a slow life in isolation. Song & Dread takes inventory of the value of community and what becomes normalized in the face of survival.
Bitek is a poet and scholar. Her collection 100 Days was nominated for the BC Book Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, the Alberta Book Awards and the Canadian Authors Award for Poetry. It won the 2017 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for poetry and the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. She was also longlisted for the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize for Gauntlet.
A History of Burning by Janika Oza
A History of Burning is an epic novel about how one act of rebellion can influence a family for generations. It's 1898 and a 13-year-old boy in India named Pirbhai needs to make money to support his family and ends up inadvertently being sent across the ocean to be a labourer for the British. He has a choice to make and what he does will change the course of his life and his family's fate for years to come. The story takes readers to Uganda, India, England and Canada in the wake of Pirbhai's choice as the novel explores the impacts of colonialism, resistance, exile and the power of family.
Janika Oza is a writer, educator and graduate student based in Toronto. She won the 2019 Malahat Review Open Season Award in fiction for her short story Exile, the 2020 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Award and the 2022 O. Henry Award. Her writing is published in a number of journals, including The Columbia Review, Into The Void, Hobart and Looseleaf Magazine.
Oza made the 2019 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for The Gift of Choice, which is a chapter in A History of Burning. She is also a reader for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize.
A Grandmother Begins the Story by Michelle Porter
A Grandmother Begins the Story tells the story of five generations of Métis women as they raise children, reclaim lost heritage, heal past traumas, tell stories that will carry healing forward and make peace in the afterlife. Introducing the women at different life stages, including after death, the book showcases a diversity of voices and personalities.
A Grandmother Begins the Story was shortlisted for the 2023 Writers' Trust Atwood Gibson Prize.
Michelle Porter also wrote the memoir Scratching River, the nonfiction book Approaching Fire, which was shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Award in 2021, and a book of poetry, Inquiries, which was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She lives in Newfoundland and Labrador. Porter made the 2019 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for her story Fireweed. Before that, she'd also made the 2017 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Slicing Lemons in April and the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Between you and home.
Nothing in Truth Can Harm Us by Colleen René
Nothing in Truth Can Harm Us tells the story of three women struggling to repair bonds fractured by a decade-old tragedy. Eva is an 18-year-old who has dropped out of school and is working as a dishwasher in Montreal. Her aunt Maddie has reluctantly been her guardian for the last decade despite the anger she feels towards Eva's mother Gaby — who is an inmate in a women's jail. With Gaby's parole just weeks away, her sole focus is to find her daughter — as all three women try to escape the spectre of Eva's dead father Adam.
Colleen René is a Toronto-based writer originally from Nova Scotia. Her work has appeared in journals across Canada and her short story All That's Left won Dalhousie University's James DeMille Short Story Prize in 2016. Nothing in Truth Can Harm Us is her first novel.
René was on the CBC Short Story Prize longlist in 2022 for Growing Pains.
I Got a Name by Eliza Robertson, with Myles Dolphin
Eliza Robertson reopens the case of Krstal Senyk's murder in the book I Got a Name. When Senyk stepped up to help her best friend leave an abusive husband, Senyk became the outlet for the husband's rage. Ronald Bax terrorized and threatened Senyk for months, until one day, she was shot and killed at her home in the Yukon and Bax was nowhere to be found. Robertson pieces together Senyk's story and examines gender-based violence and the failings of law enforcement.
Robertson is the author of the novel Demi-Gods, which won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Her first story collection, Wallflowers, was shortlisted for the East Anglia Book Award and selected as a New York Times Editor's Choice. She lives in Montreal.
In 2013, Robertson was shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize for her story L'Étranger.
Diagnosing Minor Illness in Children by Kerry Ryan
In Diagnosing Minor Illness in Children, poet Kerry Ryan stares at everything in her path: family, grief, dog obituaries, fine-toothed lice combs, quotidian gore, a waterslide that is "not a slide, it's a throat closing in" and herself as a mother. The collection provides a glimpse of the poet struggling to suckle a wolf pup while admiring the softness of her daughter's cheek. Through humour and immersion in nature, Ryan comes to terms with the self-doubt and dislocation of motherhood. Staying close to home, she sees herself (and others) in birds blown thousands of kilometres off course and reindeer defending their young.
Ryan is the author of The Sleeping Life and Vs., which was a finalist for the Acorn-Plantos Award for Peoples' Poetry. In 2022, she was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize for Grief white. Ryan was previously longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2020 for Driver's Seat & Grief Knot. Diagnosing Minor Illness in Children is her third poetry collection. She lives in Winnipeg.
Siteseeing by Ariel Gordon & Brenda Schmidt
Between February 2021 and March 2022, Ariel Gordon and Brenda Schmidt wrote Siteseeing, a collaborative poetry manuscript formatted like a call and response. They wrote birds and trees, mushrooms, pronghorns and also the people making their way through it all.
Gordon is a writer and editor based in Winnipeg. She is the ringleader of Writes of Spring, a National Poetry Month project with the Winnipeg International Writers Festival that appears in the Winnipeg Free Press. Gordon is also the author of the nonfiction book Treed and was a co-editor on the anthology Gush.
Schmidt was the seventh poet laureate of Saskatchewan. She is the author of five books of poetry and a book of essays. Her work has been nominated for Saskatchewan Book Awards, received the Alfred G. Bailey Prize for Poetry and is included in The Best of the Best Canadian Poetry in English: Tenth Anniversary Edition. Schmidt was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2010 for The Wire.
The Cobra and the Key by Sam Shelstad
The Cobra and the Key is a satirical novel centered around the life of a writer named Sam Shelstad who is busy at work on a book about his failed relationship, while he awaits word from a publisher about the manuscript he's sure will make him a star. He's also got another project in the works: a how to book for aspiring fiction writers detailing the finer points of the craft.
Sam Shelstad is a writer currently based in Toronto. He was a runner-up for the Thomas Morton Memorial Prize. He has previously published a short story collection called Cop House. His debut novel was Citizens of Light.
Shelstad was longlisted for the 2014 CBC Short Story Prize for Frank.
The Legend of Baraffo by Moez Surani
A mythic work of sweeping literary imagination, The Legend of Baraffo speaks to our current social climate and the ingredients for progress. This coming-of-age story, of a boy and a town, asks prescient questions about the nature of social change: is it better accelerated by those who seek total transformation or attained by those trying to work within the system?
Moez Surani is the author of four poetry books, including Operations and Are the Rivers in Your Poems Real. His writing has been published in Harper's Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry and the Globe and Mail.
Surani was longlisted for the 2015 CBC Poetry Prize for The Day We Lay in Bed Like John Lennon.
Dandelion Daughter by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, translated by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
Dandelion Daughter is an autobiographical novel of author Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay's young life as a trans person who felt isolated, scared and trapped in the wrong body. The novel chronicles her coming-of-age story, including first loves, struggling with gender identity and conversation about the decision to transition, all while her parents' marriage was failing and she faced the alienation that comes with being discriminated against in society.
Boulianne-Tremblay is a writer, actress, model and trans activist. Her other books include the poetry collections Le Ventre des volcans and Les secrets de l'origami, and La voix de la nature, a book for young adults.
Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a mixed-race Arab poet from Montreal. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry, The Puritan and The New Quarterly. They were longlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize for Nancy Ajram Made Me Gay. They were also a reader for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize.
Still, I Cannot Save You by Kelly S. Thompson
In Still, I Cannot Save You, Kelly S. Thompson explores her relationship with her older sister, Meghan. As the two grow into adulthood their paths diverge and Meghan faces an addiction that drives a wedge in their relationship. When Meghan becomes a mother, the sisters are able to face past hurts together. But a shocking new diagnosis pushes the pair to share all that they can in the time that they have.
Thompson is a retired military officer who holds an MFA and a Ph.D. in creative writing. She has been published in Chatelaine, Maclean's, the Globe and Mail and more. Her memoir Girls Need Not Apply was named among the Globe and Mail's top 100 books of 2019. In 2021, she made the longlist for the CBC Nonfiction Prize for Dear CAF. Most recently, she was a finalist for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize for The Edge of Change.
A thin fire runs through me by Kim Trainor
A thin fire runs through me examines the tiny and mundane moments in life that exist amid ecological disaster and political turmoil. Written during a period of heartbreak, depression and new love, Kim Trainor's collection of short poems pull from many places, including current events, Jewish liturgy and lyricism.
Trainor is the Vancouver-based author of the poetry collections Karyotype and Ledi. Her poems have won the Fiddlehead's Ralph Gustafson Prize, the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, the Great Blue Heron Prize.
Trainor has a long history with the CBC Literary Prizes: her poem Desolation made the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize longlist. She was also longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2018 for Sweetgum (7 readings of the I Ching), in 2014 for Peredelkino 1956-1960, in 2013 for In Baghdad it is Night and in 2012 for On the gravity of light (10 exposures in the manner of Francesca Woodman). In 2015, she appeared on the CBC Poetry Prize longlist three times for her poetry collections glass, clay, Lascaux, Winter ghazals and You tell me in the summer the light.
Soldiers, Hunters, Not Cowboys by Aaron Tucker
Soldiers, Hunters, Not Cowboys centres around a man as he tries to find his ex-girlfriend amid a disastrous event that hits Toronto. Employing tropes about Western films and modern masculinity to characterize his protagonist, Tucker chronicles the downward spiral of man trying to make his way through a city in chaos.
Aaron Tucker is the author of three books of poems as well as the novel Y: Oppenheimer, Horseman of Los Alamos, which was translated by Rachel Martinez into French in 2020 as Oppenheimer. He is currently completing his PhD at York University. In 2022, Tucker made the CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for A Cowboy's Work.
The Book of Rain by Thomas Wharton
The Book of Rain is a science fiction novel set in a world where ghost ore, a new minable energy source much more lucrative than gold can disrupt time and space and slowly make an environment inhospitable. In one of three ghost ore hotspots in the world, the mining town of River Meadows, residents have been evacuated, except Amery Hewitt can't seem to stay away. The former resident frequently returns to River Meadows to save the animals still living in the contaminated zone. When Amery goes on another dangerous trip and doesn't return, her game designer brother, Alex, enlists the help of his mathematician friend to help get her back. All they need to do is break the laws of physics. Amery's story is one plot line of three in this mind-bending epic by Wharton.
Alberta-based author Thomas Wharton has written several books, including his first novel, Icefields, which won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in Canada and the Caribbean. Icefields was a finalist for Canada Reads 2008, when it was defended by Steve MacLean. His novel Salamander, was shortlisted for the 2001 Governor General's Award for fiction and was also a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize the same year.
Wharton was on the longlist for the 2013 CBC Short Story Prize for Sleight of Hand.
Fifteen Thousand Pieces by Gina Leola Woolsey
Fifteen Thousand Pieces shares the story of the 1998 international flight that crashed on coast of Nova Scotia. The chief medical examiner of the Shearwater military base, Dr. John Butt faces the most challenging job of his career: going through the dismembered body parts of the 229 people who died in the crash. Throughout this gruesome process, he begins to accept himself as a gay man and find his place in the world.
Gina Leola Woolsey left her corporate career mid-life to pursue an education in creative writing, earning a BFA from the University of British Columbia and an MFA from the University of King's College. She splits her time between small-town Alberta, downtown Montreal and her hometown of Vancouver. Woolsey was the winner of the 2010-2011 CBC Nonfiction Prize for My Best Friend.
More Sure by A. Light Zachary
A. Light Zachary's debut collection, More Sure, is about the process of finding oneself again and again through time, experience and community. The poet explores themes of queerness, neurodivergence, labour, love and family.
Zachary is a writer, editor and teacher living in Toronto and Grande-Digue, N.B. Zachary was longlisted twice for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize for their poems Two Girls and Why bury yourself in this place you ask.
