Gord Grisenthwaite has made the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Splatter Pattern.

The winner of the 2021 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 22 and the winner will be announced on April 29.

Gord Grisenthwaite is Nłeʔkepmx, a member of the Lytton First Nation, and has earned an MA in English literature and creative writing from the University of Windsor. His first novel, Home Waltz, is now available. His work has appeared in FreeFall, Exile Quarterly, The Antigonish Review, Our Stories Literary Journal, Prism International, ndnCountry, Offset 17 and Bawaajigan: Stories of Power. He has earned a number of prizes, including the 2014 John Kenneth Galbraith Literary Award.

"Dark magic inhabits a boy."

"Me-Who-Looks-At-Me appears in some other stories and I wanted to work with him again."

We think that kid's, the boy's, mother pretty smart to up and leave that father. Pretty cruel to leave that kid, the boy, behind, but.

When we ask that kid, the boy, what happen? He tell us, "O, just clumsy me. O, just weak me. O, just stupid me." Shrug and slosh away that kid, the boy. Slosh away like that turtle with head inside shell. Rain slosh down. Wind catch it, splatter air with grey spray. Wet footprints stain the ground behind him. So few words we think maybe that kid, the boy, wrong in the head. Maybe not enough oxygen inside the mother? Maybe they drop that kid, the boy, on his head?

Maybe?

Who knows. We're not shrinks or doctors.

Maybe?

Who knows. We got our own stuff to worry about.

The winner of the 2021 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 the 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 2021 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until May 31, 2021. The 2022 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January 2022.