Daryl Sneath has made the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Easily Torn.

The shortlist will be announced on April 15. The winner will be announced on April 22.

Daryl Sneath was born in a small town by a lake. His fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as The Antigonish Review, Prism International, Wascana Review, Nashwaak Review, paperplates, Zouch Magazine, Quilliad, FreeFall, subTerrain, Filling Station, The Dalhousie Review and the Literary Review of Canada. He has also written for the New York publication Weekly Humorist. His two novels are All My Sins and As the Current Pulls the Fallen Under. He currently lives in another small town by a river with his wife, Tara, and their three children: Ethan, Penelope and Abigael.

Painter, mother, reader, lover, torn.

"Easily Torn is an excerpt from a longer project called In the Country in the Dark which aims to explore how obsession, (in)fidelity, isolation, art, and our myriad inner voices inform and manipulate our narrative lives, both imagined and lived."

Another winter falls over Lowbone and they settle in. They live the days and sleep the nights. Wood burns in the stove. Coffee brews in the pot. Tea is made and sipped on. Dishes clank. In the evening, on occasion, the record player spins. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don't. They both read. Every day ends with them reading. There is more dark than there is light and more quiet than there is not. In the quiet Joy paints the moon and Landon builds a bookcase. Luna, their infant son, remains amazed by his own little fist. In his crib he pulls at the fabric of the blanket that covers him. His little mouth twists with the effort. There is a patch on the blanket where Joy had to mend it. The patch itself is an image of the moon.

The winner of the 2020 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.