Robert Everett-Green has made the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for 2-Person Tent.

Robert Everett-Green grew up in Edmonton and on a farm in eastern Alberta. His first ambition was to become an orchestral musician, which for a while he did well enough to keep from starving. After he had freelanced as a writer for a couple of years, the Globe and Mail surprised him by offering him a job. He is currently the paper's cultural correspondent in Montreal. One of his short stories won a National Magazine Award and his long-form narrative In a Wide Country was called "a first novel without a single misstep" in the Montreal Review of Books.

Love conquers all, except sometimes.

"A friend said she wanted to create a private space in the small apartment she shares with her husband, and thought a tent might help."

One damp day in October, Nell came home with a red tent she bought on sale at Canadian Tire. "You hate camping," I said, as she dumped the parts on the floor of our combined living/dining room. It took only a few minutes to slide the flexible support rods through channels sewn into the fabric, and arc them crosswise into a dome. Tents are so easy these days.

I thought we were putting it up just to test it, but that evening Nell crawled in with a sleeping bag and zipped the door flap all the way round. The next morning she ate her breakfast in there, nibbling her half-burnt toast, with her sock feet sticking out on the green carpet.

She went for two days like that, taking all her food into the tent, and her papers and books, and a power cord for laptop and lamp. The door-flap zipper set its teeth between us each night.

The winner of the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, will have their story published on CBC Books and will have the opportunity to attend a 10-day writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their story published on CBC Books.