Meet the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize readers
These 12 readers determined the longlist for the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize
Every year, CBC Books enlists the help of established writers and editors from across Canada to read the thousands of entries submitted to our prizes.
Our readers compile the longlist, which is given to the jury. The jury then selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the longlisted selections.
The 2022 jury is comprised of Omar El Akkad, Casey Plett and David Bergen.
The winner of the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, attend a two-week writing residency at the 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 will have their work published on CBC Books.
The shortlist will be announced on April 21 and the winner will be announced on April 28.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until May 31, 2022. The 2023 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January 2023.
Here are the 12 writers who served as readers for the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize.
Alison Taylor
Originally from Hamilton, Alison Taylor spent 20 years working as a video editor for film and television in Toronto before moving to Fredericton in 2018. They have published short stories in literary journals, dabbled in stand-up comedy and made a number of internationally screened experimental short films. Their debut novel Aftershock received the Atlantic Book Awards First Book Award and was shortlisted for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. Their second novel is tentatively titled Confessions of a Binge Drinker.
Andrew David MacDonald
Andrew David MacDonald grew up in Edmonton. He is the author of When We Were Vikings, which was shortlisted for both the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. He has an MFA from the Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Andrew Wedderburn
Andrew Wedderburn is a writer and musician from Okotoks, Alta. His stories have been published by filling Station and Alberta Views. His debut novel, The Milk Chicken Bomb, was shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His new novel, The Crash Palace, was published in 2021. As a musician and songwriter, Wedderburn has written, recorded and toured extensively in the groups Hot Little Rocket and Night Committee, releasing seven full-length albums over the last two decades.
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia's debut novel, The Son of the House, was shortlisted for the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2021 Nigeria Prize for Literature. It won the 2020 SprinNG Women Authors Prize 2020 and the Best International Fiction Book Award at the 2019 Sharjah International Book Fair. Onyemelukwe-Onuobia is a lawyer, academic and advocate who works in health law, policy and violence against women and girls. She divides her time between Lagos and Halifax.
David Homel
David Homel was born in Chicago and has lived in Montreal for many years. He is the author of eight novels, including Electrical Storms, The Speaking Cure and The Teardown, one memoir, Lunging into the Underbrush and five novels for younger readers with co-writer Marie-Louise Gay. He has directed documentary films, worked in TV and radio — as a print journalist and as a literary translator — for which he received two Governor General's Literary Awards. He won in 1995 for Why Must a Black Writer Write About Sex? and in 2001 for his co-translation of Fairy Ring by Martine Desjardins. He has a new novel coming out in 2022.
H Nigel Thomas
H. Nigel Thomas was born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and has lived in Québec since 1968. He has published dozens of essays in literary journals and anthologies as well as 13 books that include short fiction, novels, essays and poetry. His novels Spirits in the Dark and No Safeguards were nominated for the Hugh MacLennan Fiction Prize. Des vies cassées was nominated for le prix Carbet des Lycéens. He's received the Jackie Robinson Professional of the Year Award, the l'Université Laval's Hommage aux créateurs Award and the Black Theatre Workshop's Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award. He is the founder and English-language coordinator of Lectures Logos Readings. He recently published a collection of poems called The Voyage.
Norma Dunning
Norma Dunning is an Inuk writer, professor and grandmother. Her books Annie Muktuk and Other Stories and Eskimo Pie: a poetics of Inuit Identity have been translated into French. Her second collection of short stories, Tainna (the unseen ones), won the 2021 Governor General's Literary Prize for fiction and is awaiting French translation. Her fourth book on the Eskimo Identification Canada system is scheduled to release in 2022; her second collection of poetry, Akia: the other side, is releasing in 2023. The focus of Dunning's work is on the Inuit who live beyond the tundra or south of sixty.
Premee Mohamed
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton. She is the author of novels A Broken Darkness and Beneath the Rising, which was a finalist for the Crawford Award, Aurora Award, British Fantasy Award and Locus Award. She has also authored novellas These Lifeless Things, And What Can We Offer You Tonight and The Annual Migration of Clouds, which is shortlisted for the 2022 Alberta Literary Awards. Her next novel, The Void Ascendant, is the final book in the Beneath the Rising trilogy and is out in 2022.
Sheung-King
Sheung-King, Aaron Tang is a Canadian writer and editor. His debut novel, You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked, was a finalist for the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award and the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction. It was also longlisted for CBC's Canada Reads 2021 and named one of the best book debuts of 2020 by the Globe and Mail. Born in Vancouver, Sheung-King grew up between Canada and Hong Kong. He taught creative writing at the University of Guelph and Sheridan College. He is currently the creative writing coach at Avenues: The World School, Shenzhen campus.
Silmy Abdullah
Silmy Abdullah is a Bangladeshi-Canadian author, lawyer and social justice advocate. Her debut collection of short stories, Home of the Floating Lily, explores the Bangladeshi immigrant experience in Toronto. Set primarily in a Bengali neighbourhood in the Scarborough/East York Area, the stories are inspired by her own lived experience as an immigrant, as well as the work she does in her community as a lawyer. She provides legal services to low-income South Asian clients in Ontario, many of whom are newcomers. Her practice focuses on the intersection of immigration, poverty and gender-based violence.
Tanya Boteju
Tanya Boteju is a part-time English teacher and writer living in Vancouver. Her novel, Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens, was named a Top Ten Indie Next Pick by the American Booksellers Association. Her latest YA novel, Bruised, was selected as a Gold Standard book by the Junior Library Guild. In both teaching and writing, she is committed to positive, diverse representation.
Tawhida Tanya Evanson
Tawhida Tanya Evanson is an Antiguan-Québécoise poet, author, artist and arts educator. She's the author of two poetry collections, Bothism and Nouveau Griot, and novel Book of Wings, which was on the Canada Reads 2022 longlist. With 25 years of practice in spoken word, she tours internationally, has released four studio albums and is the program director at Banff Centre's Spoken Word Residency. In 2013, she was Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and received the Golden Beret Award for her contribution to the genre. Evanson is based in Montreal.
