Valda Organ has made the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for 1975.

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.

Valda Organ is a full time writer currently living in St.John's. She is the former managing editor of Tuck Magazine, an online human rights global arts and literature publication. Her interviews, articles and book reviews have appeared in places such as Herizons, Reader's Digest and Hercircle. Her poetry and short fiction have been anthologized in various print publications such as the Cuffer Anthology, Vwa, Sibling Rivalry Press and Unbound Content. In 2013, she participated as a panellist at the 40th anniversary of the Writers' Union of Canada conference in Ottawa, to discuss the growth of independent publishing.

"Trauma, survival and complicated love."

"My mother's undiagnosed mental illness and its profound effect on my life. This particular period of time in my early teens has been expanded and is now part of a memoir of our years together. Retrospect is a byproduct of aging and as such I have the opportunity to view certain events with emotional clarity and compassion and to share them with readers. However, I chose that night in 1975 because it was when the dynamics between my mother and I shifted. Buried trauma coupled with the upheaval caused by my father's alcoholism became the catalyst for my mother's mental illness finally being diagnosed. My experience was not singular, it was just one incident that when linked to others, tells the complete story of the abandonment experienced by all children of the mentally ill."

After the unfolding horror, I didn't move from my perch on the stairs. I was like a bird in a tree witnessing activity that didn't appear to involve me. No one looked for or at me, I just didn't exist and although they had the key, I noted that they forgot to lock the door behind them.

That night, my mother was admitted to the psychiatric ward. The Gun was taken by my sister's boyfriend and destroyed. After leaving her at the hospital, my father fled to his brother's apartment, calling me the next day to explain my mother's current circumstances. According to him, she was insane, incoherent and seeing her again would be pointless. There was a brief silence before he announced that he was driving back to Nova Scotia for good. A final detached goodbye was said and the phone went dead. I was 13. I had no money, no food except for a box of mac and cheese, two slices of bread and a bottle of ketchup.

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.