Liking It by Hollie Adams

2020 CBC Short Story Prize longlist

Image | CBC Short Story Prize - Hollie Adams

Caption: Hollie Adams is an assistant professor of creative writing and Canadian literature at the University of Maine. (Jeannine Hashey)

Hollie Adams has made the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Liking It.
The shortlist will be announced on April 15. The winner will be announced on April 22.

About Hollie

Hollie Adams is the author of the novel Things You've Inherited from Your Mother and the chapbook Deliver Me from Swedish Furniture, which was a finalist for the 2018 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Her writing has appeared in Room, The Malahat Review, Carousel, Grain, CV2, Prairie Fire, The Antigonish Review and elsewhere. She holds an MA from the University of Windsor and a PhD from the University of Calgary. Originally from Windsor, Ont., she is currently an assistant professor of creative writing and Canadian Literature at the University of Maine and the fiction editor of The Windsor Review.

Entry in five-ish words

Doing it for the 'gram.

The story's source of inspiration

I was hearing a lot of criticism about people curating their lives for social media and doing something they might not otherwise do just so they could post a photo of it. And while I think this criticism is valid, it made me ask what if people are doing things simply because they want to post about those things, but what they're doing actually ends up being beneficial either to themselves or society?

First lines

It started the year before I quit working at the bank. It was the year the app first started getting really popular. Do you remember when it seemed that at every restaurant we went to at least one person would get up on their chair when their food arrived?
In the beginning it was just fun. The first photos I posted were from our trip to Vancouver. Me standing on the seawall with the city in the background shiny as a souvenir. I only had a few followers at the time, mostly people I knew in real life, old classmates, coworkers, your sister. I didn't bother editing the photos. We were so young and happy, and I was happy other people could see how young and happy we were. I wish I could look at those photos now, but once my account became more popular I deleted all those first photos, the ones that no longer fit the new aesthetic.

About the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize

The winner of the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link), have their work published on CBC Books(external link) and attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity(external link). Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link) and have their work published on CBC Books(external link).