Books by past CBC Literary Prizes winners and finalists that came out in 2024
Being a finalist for the CBC Literary Prizes can jump-start your literary career. Need proof? Here are 50 books that were published in 2024 written by former CBC Literary Prizes winners and finalists.
The 2025 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.
A Way to Be Happy by Caroline Adderson
A Way to Be Happy is a short story collection that follows various characters as they try to find happiness. Ranging from mundane to extraordinary, the stories feature everything from a pair of addicts robbing parties to fund their sobriety to a Russian hitman dealing with an illness and reliving his past.
Caroline Adderson is the Vancouver-based author of five novels, including The Sky is Falling, Ellen in Pieces and A Russian Sister. She has also published two short story collections, including the 1993 Governor General's Literary Award finalist Bad Imaginings. Adderson's awards include three B.C. Book Prizes, a National Magazine Award Gold Medal for Fiction. She has received the 2006 Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement.
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.
Zegaajimo edited by Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler and Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm
Zegaajimo: Indigenous Horror Fiction brings together 11 Indigenous writers to tell macabre stories of the monsters already in our midst, and more. This horror anthology features stories by Karen McBride, Waubgeshig Rice, David. A Robertson, Drew Hayden Taylor and Richard Van Camp, among others.
Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler is the writer of the short story mystery and horror collections Ghost Lake, which won a 2021 Indigenous Voices Award and Wrist. He co-edited Bawaajigan and is an artist and filmmaker. He is two-spirit, Jewish, Anishinaabe and a member of Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation. He lives in Vancouver.
Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is a member of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, on the Saugeen Peninsula in Ontario. She teaches creative writing, Indigenous literature and oral traditions at the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus. Her books include the short story collection The Stone Collection and the poetry collection (Re)Generation: The Poetry of Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm. She is the founder, publisher and art director of Kegedonce Press.
Akiwenzie-Damm was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize for her poem restitution OR Nanabush speaks to the settlers.
Perfect Little Angels by Vincent Anioke
Perfect Little Angels is a short story collection set mostly in Nigeria, pondering questions of expectation, desire and duty among its various characters. From boarding school tensions to secret rendezvous between lovers in a hill, the stories explore masculinity, religion, othering, queerness, love and self-expression.
Vincent Anioke was born and raised in Nigeria and now lives in Waterloo. Ont. He has been a finalist for the 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and won the Austin Clarke Fiction Prize in 2021. His work has been featured in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Rumpus, The Masters Review and Passages North. CBC Books named Anioke as one of the 2024 writers to watch.
Anioke's short story Leave A Funny Message At The Beep was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize. His story Utopia was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize twice, in 2021 and 2023.
The Seventh Town of Ghosts by Faith Arkorful
The Seventh Town of Ghosts explores this titular town through songs that help readers grapple with the challenges of existence and independence. The book offers insight into the power of connection, tenderness and the human spirit.
Faith Arkorful has had her work published in Guts, Peach Mag, Prism International, Hobart, Without/pretend, The Puritan and Canthius. She was a semi-finalist in the 2019 92Y Discovery Contest. Arkorful was born in Toronto, where she still resides.
In 2020, Arkorful was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize for Family Affair.
Pearly Everlasting by Tammy Armstrong
Pearly Everlasting is the story of a girl and her domesticated bear during the Great Depression. Pearly must rescue her bear Bruno after he's been kidnapped and sold to an animal trader. Their journey to make their way back home is more than fifty miles and Pearly will have to face what it really means to be family to a bear.
Tammy Armstrong has published two novels and five books of poetry. Her collection, Year of the Metal Rabbit, was a finalist for the Atlantic Book Awards' J.M. Abraham Poetry Award and won the inaugural Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award. Armstrong was longlisted for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize and had previously made the CBC Poetry Prize longlist in 2017.
Our Woolly Bear by Katie Arthur
In Our Woolly Bear, sisters Edie and Lou find a fuzzy caterpillar in their garden named Woolly Bear. The siblings care for the caterpillar until the end of fall — and then Woolly Bear disappears. During the winter, Edie and Lou make lots of memories in their garden and when spring comes, Woolly Bear comes back as a moth.
Katie Arthur is a writer and illustrator living in Nova Scotia. She earned an MA in English Literature from Concordia University in 2011 and previously worked in advertising. Arthur was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize for two consecutive years, in 2015 and 2016.
Heliotropia by Manahil Bandukwala
Heliotropia is an exploration of the power of love during trying social and political times. Manahil Bandukwala's second collection of poems plays with form, structure and imagery to reflect on community, dialogue and personal growth.
Bandukwala is a writer, editor and visual artist. She is the author of Monument which was shortlisted for the 2023 Gerald Lampert Award and co-author of Women Wide Awake with her sister. Bandukwala was selected as a Writer's Trust of Canada Rising Star in 2023. She is the co-creator of Reth aur Reghistan, a multidisciplinary project exploring folklore from Pakistan through poetry, sculpture and community arts.
Bandukwala was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize. She was previously longlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize for her poem To ride an art horse.
Bad Weather Mammals: Poems by Ashley-Elizabeth Best
The poems in Bad Weather Mammals reflect Ashley-Elizabeth Best's own experiences with disability. The poems look back at her childhood, but also her adulthood and even her relationships in her community. The poet explores in a variety of formal constraints both the joys and devastation of living with a disabled body.
Ashley-Elizabeth Best is a disabled poet and essayist from Kingston, Ont. Her debut collection of poetry, Slow States of Collapse, was published in 2016. Best's chapbook Alignment was published in 2021. That same year, Best was also a contributor for Resistance, a collection of poems curated and edited by Sue Goyette.
Best was on the longlist for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize.
Death of Persephone: A Murder by Yvonne Blomer
The poems in Death of Persephone explore the myth of Persephone through the character of Stephanie who lives in a more modern setting than her Greek inspiration. With many displacements to the myth, one question remains: who will survive this altered version of the ancient story?
Yvonne Blomer is a poet and author. She is the author of the travel memoir Sugar Ride: Cycling from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur and the poetry collection As if a Raven. She edited the anthologies Refugium: Poems for the Pacific and Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds. Blomer served as the city of Victoria's poet laureate from 2015 to 2018.
Blomer was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize.
Hard Electric by Michael Blouin
Michael Blouin's poems in Hard Electric are a collection of reflections with a decided slant toward disaster. They are unsettling, not for the faint of heart, but ultimately also life-affirming for the lonely-hearted or those who know them well.
Michael Blouin is a writer from Ontario. Blouin won the 2020 ReLit Award for his novel Skin House. He previously won the ReLit Award in 2009 for his debut novel Chase and Haven. Hard Electric is his third poetry collection.
Blouin was a finalist for the 2009 CBC Poetry Prize for his poem fidelity which is included in Hard Electric.
Takedown by Ali Bryan
Takedown tells the story of Rowan, a 16-year old wrestler who had planned to follow her boyfriend to college. But when an opportunity arises for her to make more money that will help her father, who is suffering from worsening ALS symptoms, she decides to join an illegal fight club instead. Rowan will have to learn some difficult life lessons while she navigates these troubling waters.
Ali Bryan is a writer from Halifax currently based in Calgary. 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. She was also a reader for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize.
The Price of Cookies by Finnian Burnett
The Price of Cookies is a collection of 24 linked stories revolving around a series of characters all living in the same town. The short stories explore the themes of love and grief while also depicting each character's complex relationship with food.
Burnett holds a doctoral degree in English pedagogy and teaches English online for a U.S. college. Their writing explores intersections of identity — fatness, mental health, disability, queer joy. They're currently working on an epistolary novel about a trans man trying to reconcile a complex relationship with his dead mother. Burnett was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Bad Land by Corinna Chong
When Regina's brother shows up on her doorstep with his six-year-old daughter after seven years, her quiet loner life is never the same. The longer they stay, the clearer it becomes to Regina that something terrible has happened — and once the secret is revealed, they're sent on a fraught journey from Alberta to the coast of B.C.
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. In 2023, she published the short story collection The Whole Animal which includes Kids in Kindergarten, the winner of the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize. Chong is one of the upcoming guests on Bookends with Mattea Roach, CBC's new author interview show.
Midway by Kayla Czaga
Midway is a poetry collection that explores the writer's grief in the aftermath of her parents' deaths. The poems travel from the underworld to London's Tate Modern in a way that's both comforting and disconcerting.
Kayla Czaga is also the author of For Your Safety Please Hold On and Dunk Tank. For Your Safety Please Hold On won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and was nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She lives in Victoria and served as the online poetry mentor for Simon Fraser University's Writer's Studio.
Czaga was on the 2014 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for her story Shared and on the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist.
Naked Pictures by Paulette Dubé
Naked Pictures is a hybrid poetry collection and field-photojournalism story relating the relationship of Jasperite poet Paulette Dubé with the Albertan lands, including everything that happened surrounding the XL Keystone pipeline.
Dubé's poetry and prose has been nominated for the Milton Acorn Memorial People's Poetry Award, the CBC Alberta Anthology, the Alberta Writers' Guild Best Novel Award, the Starburst Award, the Exporting Alberta Award and the Fred Kerner Award. She was recently named the writer in residence at the Jasper Municipal Library.
Dubé won second place for the 2005 CBC Poetry Prize.
El Ghourabaa: A Queer and Trans Collection of Oddities edited by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch and Samia Marshy
El Ghourabaa is an anthology that features emerging and established writers of Arab heritage who explore and pay homage to the complexities of queer Arab life. The works underscore the complexity and dimensionality of the Arabophone queer experience and use inventive, playful, sexual and experimental language and structures to provoke thought and dialogue.
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.
Samia Marshy is a Montreal-based writer and massage therapist. She co-wrote The Hands That Planted Them with Lee Lai and was an editor for The Philistine by Leila Marshy.
An Opening in the Vertical World by Roger Greenwald
An Opening in the Vertical World is a poetry collection that reflects on the merits and intention of music, dance and visual art. The work uses narrative, idea and emotional import in an emotional exploration of voice, rhythm, sound and intonation.
Roger Greenwald attended The City College of New York and the Poetry Project workshop at St. Mark's Church In-the-Bowery, then completed graduate degrees at the University of Toronto. He has published three earlier books of poems: Connecting Flight, Slow Mountain Train and The Half-Life. He won the 2018 Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Award from Exile Magazine.
Greenwald won the CBC Poetry Prize in 1994 and First Prize in the CBC Literary Award for Travel Literature in 2003.
Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes by Adrienne Gruber
In Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes, Adrienne Gruber explores the theme of motherhood through a collection of essays. It celebrates bodies, maternal bonds, beauty, but also the uglier side of parenthood, the chaos and even how close we are to death at any given moment.
Gruber is a poet and essayist originally from Saskatoon. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Q & A, and five chapbooks. She placed third in Event's creative non-fiction contest in 2020 and was the runner up in SubTerrain's creative nonfiction contest in 2023.
Gruber was on the longlist for the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize. She was also longlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize and for the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Keep by Jenny Haysom
The novel Keep is a meditation on all the stuff in our lives. Having been recently diagnosed with dementia, Harriet must sell her beloved house. Enter home stagers Eleanor and Jacob who are hired to remove the clutter, but soon find themselves immersed in Harriet's mysterious world while their own lives are unravelling.
Jenny Haysom is a writer from Nova Scotia. Her debut poetry collection, Dividing the Wayside, won the Archibald Lampman Award and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She has published her writing in magazines across Canada. Haysom was longlisted for the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize.
Juiceboxers by Benjamin Hertwig
In Juiceboxers, Plinko is a teenager undergoing basic training before finishing high school. When he moves in with an older soldier, he and the other roommates, people from all different backgrounds, build an unlikely friendship.
After 9/11, the military plans to go to war in Afghanistan, so the young men are sent to the battlefields of Kandahar and are forever changed.
Benjamin Hertwig is a writer, painter and ceramist who spent time as a soldier. His book Slow War was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. Based in Edmonton, he owns Paper Birch Books, a second hand bookstore, with his partner.
Hertwig was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in both 2018 and 2016. He is one of the readers for the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize.
Oil People by David Huebert
Oil People weaves together two narratives and timelines to unravel family secrets and the toxic yet powerful nature of oil. The first narrative is the story of a young teen girl named Jade Armbruster in 1987, who is living on the family's oil farm, a deteriorating property built by an ancestor, as her parents decide what to do about the land and their business.
The other story is that of Clyde Armbruster in 1862 who built the oil farm and the rivalry he fell into with his neighbours — the reverberations of which are still felt by Jade and her family.
David Huebert is a Halifax-based writer who has won the 2016 CBC Short Story Prize and The Walrus Poetry Prize. He is the author of short story collections Peninsula Sinking, which won a Dartmouth Book Award and was a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and Chemical Valley, which won the Alistair MacLeod Short Fiction Prize. Huebert is one of the readers for the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize.
What Inspires by Alison Hughes, illustrated by Ellen Rooney
What Inspires is a picture book for ages 6 to 8 about what can happen when you open your mind to creativity and imagination. Three young friends go to the park and it appears as though nothing is happening. But as one seemingly small event leads to another, which leads to another, soon the children find themselves having a day filled with laughter, creativity and possibility.
Alison Hughes is a writer from Edmonton. She has written over 20 books for children and young adults, including Fly, Life Expectancy 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, longlisted for the 2011 CBC Short Story Prize and her story Funhouse Mirrors was shortlisted for the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Ellen Rooney is a designer, artist and children's book illustrator. She also illustrated the picture books Her Fearless Run by Kim Chaffee, Grandmother School by Rina Singh and Dusk Explorers by Lindsay Leslie. She lives in the southern Okanagan Valley, B.C.
Disobedience by Daniel Sarah Karasik
In Disobedience, Shael is a young transfeminine person who risks their safety after entering a relationship with an activist. When their love affair is discovered in their prison camp, Shael escapes to a settlement that is attempting to do things differently, with less violence and in more compassionate ways.
Karasik is a writer, playwright and poet from Toronto. They are the author of five books of drama, poetry and fiction including the 2022 poetry collection Plenitude.
Karasik won the 2012 CBC Short Story Prize.
Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr
In Prairie Edge, Isidore (Ezzy) Desjarlais and Grey Ginther live together in Grey's uncle's trailer, passing their time with cribbage and cheap beer. Grey is cynical of what she feels is a lazy and performative activist culture, while Ezzy is simply devoted to his distant cousin. So when Grey concocts a scheme to set a herd of bison loose in downtown Edmonton, Ezzy is along for the ride — one that has devastating, fatal consequences.
Kerr is a Métis/Ukrainian writer who has lived in a number of prairie towns and cities, including Saskatoon. He now lives in Edmonton and teaches creative writing at the University of Alberta. A 2022 CBC Books writer to watch, his previous works include the poetry collection Old Gods and the novel Avenue of Champions, which was longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and won the ReLit award the same year.
Prairie Edge was shortlisted both for the 2024 Giller Prize and for the 2024 Atwood Gibson fiction prize.
Kerr was on the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize longlist. He is also one of the jurors for the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize.
Dayboil by Sharon King-Campbell
Dayboil is a kitchen-table comedy that focuses on four middle-aged women in rural Newfoundland. The play explores the rigidity of gender roles that prevent men from seeking mental help and forces many women to become caretakers.
Sharon King-Campbell is a writer from Ottawa who now lives in St. John's. Her first book was This is How It Is which was published in 2021. King-Campbell made the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize longlist.
Best Canadian series 2024 edited by Anita Lahey
The Best Canadian anthologies are a yearly endeavour shepherded by series editor Anita Lahey. Every year, a featured guest editor is selected for each of the three categories: stories, essays and poetry. In 2024, the guest editor for fiction was Lisa Moore, Marcello Di Cintio edited the nonfiction category and Bardia Sinaee served as the editor of the poetry collection.
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. She has been the series editor of the Best Canadian yearly anthologies since 2018.
Lahey was on the CBC Poetry Prize longlists in 2009 for Men and in 2010 for The Foe.
The View From Coffin Ridge: A Childhood Exhumed by Gwen Lamont
Gwen Lamont's memoir The View From Coffin Ridge tells the harrowing story of her childhood. The memoir also details her horrific experience with intimate partner violence in her marriage. Lamont's story is one of resilience, family secrets and facing the truth of your younger self.
Lamont holds a BA in sociology, a BSW, and an MSW with awards for scholarship. In 2019 she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Non-fiction from the University of King's College. Lamont was shortlisted for the 2018 Geist Postcard Contest for What's in A Smile. The View From Coffin Ridge: A Childhood Exhumed, is her first book.
Lamont was longlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize for her story Survivor's Guilt.
Permission to Land: A Memoir of Loss, Discovery, and Identity by Judy LeBlanc
Permission to Land: A Memoir of Loss, Discovery and Identity is a memoir in essays where LeBlanc details the things she learns about her maternal ancestry following her mother's death. LeBlanc uncovers family secrets while dealing with grief and realizing the impact of erasure in her complex family and what that means for her own identity.
Judy LeBlanc is a writer from Fanny Bay, B.C. She is the author of the short story collection The Promise of Water and her previous book was the novel The Broken Heart of Winter published in 2023. LeBlanc taught creative writing at North Island College for years and she won the Sheldon Currie Fiction prize in 2012.
LeBlanc was longlisted for the 2013 CBC Short Story Prize for her story The Truth About Gravity.
Hazard, Home by Christine Lowther
Hazard, Home is a collection of nature poetry with a decolonial lens. The work examines the world with wonder at the animals and plants — and grief due to urbanization, climate change and loss of biodiversity.
Christine Lowther is a writer from Tofino, B.C. She is also the author of four poetry collections. She served as Tofino's poet laureate from 2020-2022.
Lowther was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Votive by Annick MacAskill
An exploration of devotion in different forms, Votive is Annick MacAskill's fourth book of poetry. The poems explore the themes of confusion and curiosity, the quest for love as well as how we connect our experiences.
MacAskill is the author of three previously published poetry collections, including Shadow Blight, winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry in 2022. Her fiction has previously appeared in Canthius and Plenitude. MacAskill lives in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), in Mi'kma'ki, the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq.
MacAskill was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize. Before that, she was also longlisted for the 2014 CBC Poetry Prize.
Limited Verse by David Martin
Limited Verse is a collection of classic poems with a new twist — they're translated into New English, made up of only 850 words.
David Martin is an author of poetry collections Kink Bands and Tar Swan, which was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize.
Martin won the CBC Poetry Prize in 2014.
The Gift Child by Elaine McCluskey
In The Gift Child, a man named Graham Swim goes missing in a fictional Nova Scotia town called Pollock Passage. Questions around his disappearance build as the community of undercover agents and minor criminals piece together odd details like Graham's last sighting, leaving a government wharf with a big tuna head in a delivery bike.
Elaine McCluskey is a fiction writer currently based in Dartmouth, N.S. Her other books include Rafael Has Pretty Eyes and Going Fast (Level D.).
McCluskey longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in both 2019 and 2017.
False Bodies by J.R. McConvey
False Bodies follows Eddie Gesner to Newfoundland where he goes to find out more about a mysterious incident that caused mass casualties on an offshore oil rig and is said to be the work of a kraken. Eddie's obsession with monsters forces him to confront this incredible undersea creature.
J.R. McConvey is a writer and documentary producer from Toronto. His debut short story collection Different Beasts was published in 2019 and won the 2020 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for speculative fiction. CBC Books named him a writer to watch in 2020.
In 2016, McConvey made the longlist for the CBC Poetry Prize.
Crying Dress by Cassidy McFadzean
Crying Dress is a poetry collection rooted in the tradition of lyric poetry while adopting its own spin and linguistic play that challenges an idea of poetic coherence. It spans various locations and brings together scenes from intimate moments in domestic life to ones featuring the ghosts of Brooklyn.
Cassidy McFadzean is a writer who was raised in Regina and currently lives in Toronto. Her poetry books are Drolleries and Hacker Packer, which won two Saskatchewan Book Awards. She also wrote a crown of sonnets called Third State of Being. She was raised in Regina and currently lives in Toronto.
McFadzean was a finalist for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2013.
A Year of Last Things by Michael Ondaatje
A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje's long-awaited return to poetry. Drawing on his personal experiences, this collection goes back in time to all the borders that he's crossed with imagery at once witty, moving and wise.
Ondaatje is a Canadian literary icon. His novels and poetry have earned international acclaim, and he was the first Canadian ever to win the Man Booker Prize — in 1992, for the wartime story The English Patient. Born in Sri Lanka and educated in England, Ondaatje moved to Canada when he was 18 to attend university.
Ondaatje began his writing career in 1967 as a poet, winning two Governor General's Literary Awards for poetry before turning to fiction. Over his career, he's won the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award and France's prestigious Prix Medicis.
In 1982, Ondaatje won the CBC Short Story Prize.
The Coincidence Problem by Stephen Osborne
The Coincidence Problem is an essay collection charting a range of subjects including the city, global terrorism, violence against Indigenous people and climate change in the Arctic. It brings together selected essays Osborne has written over the past 23 years and presents them in one cohesive work that is approachable and intimate.
Stephen Osborne is a writer and the founder of Arsenal Pulp Press. He is the author of Ice and Fire: Dispatches from the New World, 1988-1998. His previous work has received the Vancouver Arts Award for Writing and Publishing and the National Magazine Foundation Special Achievement Award. Osborne lives in Vancouver.
Osborne won the CBC Nonfiction Prize, formerly called the Travel Writing Award, in 2003.
Empires of the Everyday by Anna Lee-Popham
Anna Lee-Popham's debut poetry collection Empires of the Everyday explores the themes of modern city living, violence and dealing with artificial intelligence.
Lee-Popham is a poet, writer and editor from Toronto. She is a graduate of the MFA in creative writing at the University of Guelph, the Writer's Studio at Simon Fraser University and University of Toronto's School of Continuing Education creative writing certificate.
Lee-Popham was on the longlist for the 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
The Salmon Shanties: a Cascadian Song Cycle by Harold Rhenisch
Harold Rhenisch's The Salmon Shanties is a vibrant collection of poems that focus on the settler and Indigenous experiences on land and water in the Pacific Northwest. The work uses rhythm, cadence and visual imagery to explore memories of people, place and the meaning of home.
Harold Rhenisch is an editor, poet and fruit tree pruner from British Columbia's Okanagan Valley where he writes the blog Okanagan Okanogan. Rhenisch previously wrote The Tree Whisperer published in 2022. In 2013, he was the artist-in-residence at Klaustrid in East Iceland.
Rhenisch won the CBC Poetry Prize second place in 2007 for Catching a Snare Drum at the Fraser's Mouth and was shortlisted in 2017 for Saying the Names Shanty. He also was longlisted for the 2014 CBC Poetry Prize for The Art of Weaving. Most recently, he was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize.
This Is a Tiny Fragile Snake by Nicholas Ruddock, illustrated by Ashley Barron
This Is a Tiny Fragile Snake is a picture book that explores various encounters with animals through 15 poems and illustrations. The book encourages its readers to respond with tenderness when coming across those animals. This Is a Tiny Fragile Snake is for ages 3 and up.
Nicholas Ruddock is a physician and writer who has worked in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Yukon and Ontario. He has had novels, short stories, poetry published since 2002 in Canada, U.K., Ireland and Germany. He is the author of the 2021 novel Last Hummingbird of West Chile.
Ruddock has been a finalist for each of the CBC Literary Prizes. He made the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Storm as well as the 2016 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for The Hummingbirds. Most recently, Ruddock was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize for his story Marriage.
The Work by Bren Simmers
The poems in The Work explore the themes of loss and grief and how one can make themselves whole again after being broken. From the sudden death of her father, her mother's dementia and her sister-in-law's terminal illness, Simmers' poems show us how healing can come from love.
Bren Simmers is the author of four books, including the wilderness memoir Pivot Point and Hastings-Sunrise, which was a finalist for the Vancouver Book Award, and a collection of poetry titled If, When. The Work was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.
Simmers won the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize for her poetry collection Spell World Backwards, which is included in The Work. She was previously longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2013 and in 2012 for Science Lessons.
Every Night I Dream I'm a Monk, Every Night I Dream I'm a Monster by Damian Tarnopolsky
Every Night I Dream I'm a Monk, Every Night I Dream I'm a Monster is a short story collection that transports readers through time and place, from 1980s England to Renaissance France and current Canada. While each story stands alone, connections can be found in the most unexpected ways.
Damian Tarnopolsky is a Toronto-based writer, editor and teacher. His novel Goya's Dog was shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Canada/Caribbean). His short fiction has appeared in The Puritan, The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, subTerrain and Audeamus. Tarnopolsky has twice been nominated for the Journey Prize.
In 2007, his story You Guys, featured in Every Night I Dream I'm a Monk, Every Night I Dream I'm a Monster, was shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize.
A Blueprint for Survival by Kim Trainor
A Blueprint for Survival is a poetry collection that starts in wildfire season and then explores the forms of resistance and survival in the context of climate change. It examines each of these forms as a blueprint for being in and seeing the world.
Kim Trainor is the author of the poetry collections A thin fire runs through me, Karyotype and Ledi. Her poems have won the Fiddlehead's Ralph Gustafson Prize, the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize and the Great Blue Heron Prize. She lives in Vancouver.
Trainor was on the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize longlist.
Precedented Parroting by Barbara Tran
The poems in Precedented Parroting explore themes of loss, the natural world, Asian stereotypes and our feathered friends. It's also a book about survival through generations and how both loss and feathers can enable and necessitate flight.
Barbara Tran is a poet whose work has appeared in Women's Review of Books, Ploughshares and The New Yorker. Her honours include a MacDowell Colony Gerald Freund Fellowship, Pushcart Prize and Lannan Foundation Writing Residency. She was born in New York City and currently lives in Toronto. Precedented Parroting was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.
Tran was longlisted for the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari
In Songs for the Brokenhearted, Zohara is a 30-something Yemeni Israeli woman living in New York City, a life that feels much simpler than her childhood growing up in Israel. When her sister calls to let her know of their mother's death, she gets on a plane with no return ticket and begins the journey of unravelling lost family stories.
Ayelet Tsabari is the author of The Art of Leaving, which won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir and was a finalist for the Writer's Trust Hilary Weston Prize, and The Best Place on Earth, which won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. She teaches in the MFA creative writing program at the University of Guelph, the MFA in Fiction program at the University of King's College and the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University. She lived in Toronto for a number of years and currently resides in Tel Aviv.
Tsabari's short story Green was shortlisted for the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize.
Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi
Scientific Marvel is a poetry collection that looks into the history of and current life in Winnipeg. With humour and surprise, it delves into deeper themes of racism, queerness and colonialism while keeping personal lived experiences close to the page.
Chimwemwe Undi is a Winnipeg-based poet, editor and lawyer. She is the Winnipeg Poet Laureate for 2023 and 2024. She won the 2022 John Hirsch Emerging Writer Award from the Manitoba Book Awards and her work can be found in Brick, Border Crossings, Canadian Literature and BBC World, among others. Scientific Marvel won the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.
Undi was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize.
The Animal People Choose a Leader by Richard Wagamese, illustrated by Bridget George
In the picture book The Animal People Choose a Leader, a group of animals, who share the same language, come together to decide who should be their leader. The different animals give their reasons why they should be considered for this revered position, and then they decide that the animals must race one another around a mountaintop lake. This tradition-steeped story reflects on respecting the land, wisdom and kindness.
The Animal People Choose a Leader is for ages 5-9.
Richard Wagamese was an Ojibway writer from the Wabaseemoong First Nation in Ontario. He is the author of six novels, including Indian Horse, which was a finalist on Canada Reads 2013, defended by Carol Huynh. He also wrote a collection of poetry and three memoirs. He was shortlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2015 for Finding Father. Wagamese died in 2017 at the age of 61.
Bridget George is an Anishinaabe writer and illustrator from London, Ont. She was raised on the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, and she belongs to the bear clan. Her first picture book that she also wrote was It's a Mitig!. She has illustrated numerous children's books including Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior by Carole Lindstrom.
Relative to Wind: On Sailing, Craft, and Community by Phoebe Wang
Even though humans have sailed for centuries, when you step on a boat for the first time, the learning curve is steep. Relative to Wind is a collection of essays that recognizes the parallels between sailing and a creative life. The book is structured to help readers apply sailing lessons and techniques to their art, but also their community.
Phoebe Wang is an Ottawa-born poet and author. Her debut poetry collection Admission Requirements, which explores stories of the land and searches for a secure sense of belonging, was shortlisted for the 2018 League of Canadian Poets Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.
Wang made the CBC Poetry Prize longlists in 2016, 2013 and 2012.
The Lantern and the Night Moths by Yilin Wang
The Lantern and the Night Moths is a translation of poems by five contemporary and modern Chinese poets, Qiu Jin, Fei Ming, Dai Wangshu, Zhang Qiaohui and Xiao Xi. The poems are translated next to their original text and the book includes essays about the art of poetry translation.
Yilin Wang is a writer, poet and Chinese-English translator. Her fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in Clarkesworld, The Malahat Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Grain, CV2, carte blanche and The Tyee. She is based in Vancouver.
Wang was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize.
The Weeping Degree by Kelly Watt
The Weeping Degree is an edgy, experimental and intense testament to the power of the human soul to heal over time and space. Framed into three sections — The Home for Little Girls, The Buddha and The Pink Futon and Hands Across the World — The Weeping Degree uses poetry to peer into the longstanding effects of childhood trauma as it tracks its journey through pain, mental health, spirituality, healing and joy.
Kelly Watt has previously published two books, the gothic novel Mad Dog and the nonfiction title Camino Meditations. She has lived in five countries but now makes her home in Ontario.
Watt has been longlisted four times for CBC Literary Prizes: in 2019, for the CBC Nonfiction Prize for Mexican Parade and for the CBC Short Story Prize in both 2015 and 2018 for two different versions of Fall of the High Waters. Most recently, Watt was on the longlist for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Homing by Alice Irene Whittaker
Homing is a memoir about the author's experience of abandoning a busy commuter lifestyle to move to a cabin in the woods with her family. The book also touches upon the journey of repairing her fractured relationship with both herself and the natural world.
Alice Irene Whittaker is a writer and environmental leader who lives with her family in a cabin in the woods in Quebec. She is the executive director of Ecology Ottawa and the creator and host of Reseed, a podcast about repairing our relationship to nature.
Whittaker has been longlisted for all three CBC Literary Prizes. She was on the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize longlist, the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist and she was also on the CBC Short Story Prize longlist in 2012.
Water Quality by Cynthia Woodman Kerkham
Water Quality is a book of lamentations, monologues and haibun: a Japanese form of both prose and haiku. Focusing on water as a central force that covers a swimmer's body, the poet follows the movement and purpose of water across lakes, seas and oceans. From Hong Kong to the Pacific Northwest, the poet questions what water wants and how we can best steward it.
Cynthia Woodman Kerkham is the Victoria-based author of Good Holding Ground and the co-editor of Poems from Planet Earth. Woodman Kerkham was shortlisted for the 2014 CBC Poetry Prize.
