M. S. Zandi has made the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Soft Power.

The winner of the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and have the opportunity to attend a two-week 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 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.

Born in Iran and raised in Toronto, M. S. Zandi is a freelance journalist specializing in Middle Eastern art and culture. She holds an MA from McGill University's Institute of Islamic Studies and has written for Architectural Review, Monocle and Beirut.com. She is currently at work on a literary thriller that takes place in Tehran and draws on 10 years worth of ethnographic research. Soft Power is her first work of fiction.

"The other side of fear."

"Schitt's Creek. I binge watched all six seasons in summer 2021. Afterwards, I scoured YouTube for clips of cast interviews. The comment sections were filled with people from all over the world gushing about how the show made them fall in love with Canada. I remember thinking: This is soft power.

"The term soft power is a political construct which was coined around the time I was born and it means, in a narrow sense, shaping people's preferences through culture. We don't often think of geopolitics as a popularity contest, but countries that are more liked have more power on the world stage. Stories are tools of the powerful, and sometimes we underestimate the impact they can have on how people view themselves and others.

"While Schitt's Creek is a love letter to small-town Canada, books and movies about Iran are oftentimes an unfair indictment of Iranian culture. This led me to think about how soft power manifests in destructive ways, and this is how the story was born."

She said that pinching the ends of an infant's nose would give it a nice shape.

"People think you can't mould a baby, but you can if you start early enough," she said as she booped her baby's nose with affection. Wrapped tightly in a blanket, the baby's black saucer eyes and agape mouth gave her a look of perpetual surprise.

"Stop with that nonsense already," her husband said from the aisle seat.

"What? You want your baby to end up with a big nose like you?" she said, clucking her tongue in disapproval.

The winner of the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and attend a two-week 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 work published on CBC Books.

The 2022 CBC Poetry Prize is currently 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.