Tina Wayland has made the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for The Tending of Small Gardens.

The winner of the 2021 CBC Nonfiction 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 Sept. 22 and the winner will be announced on Sept. 29.

If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize is open for submissions until Oct. 31.

Tina Wayland is a freelance copywriter and fiction writer. She has had pieces published in spaces such as carte blanche, Open Door Magazine, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Cabinet of Heed and Halfway Down the Stairs. Her story A Funny Affair won the Foundling Review's Stride the Bright Side contest. She is starting her MA in creative writing at Concordia University in fall 2021.

"City and daughter grow up."

"When COVID-19 hit and Montreal went into lockdown, suddenly we were three people living and working in a confined space. I needed to do something to get me and my daughter out of the house for a little while every day. That ended up turning into a tour of all the back alleys in our neighbourhood and seeing how they changed with the seasons. It also gave us some special times together and great conversations. I watched my then 10-year-old grow up as the weeks went by."

In late winter we walked through a neighbourhood in lockdown, my daughter and me, her 10-year-old hand in mine. In those early days, a tendril of fear ran through everything, grew wild and sudden and unexpected like weeds in the thinnest, most impossible of cracks.

We walked, scarves pulled up like masks, avoiding people, pacing up and down the same streets, over and over. Caught in a loop.

This tree, that park, those stairs.

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