Courtney Baird-Lew has made the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Absence.

The winner of the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and win a two-week writing residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point. 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 12 and the winner will be announced on April 18.

If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until May 31.

Courtney Baird-Lew is a writer and editor based in Montreal. A full-time marketing professional and graduate of Concordia University's communication studies and creative writing programs, she also serves as one of two lifestyle editors at Sticky Rice Magazine — an e-zine and non-profit organization.

"Grief in its many facets."

"This story was inspired by a handful of visits to my Chinese grandparents' house as a half-Chinese, half-Canadian child. There's a certain kind of tension that comes from being 'half' of anything — you exist in two worlds simultaneously, without truly belonging to either. I wanted to revisit this conflicting feeling through a different set of eyes."

He was sad for the fish. The dead ones, compressed into sticks, shedding their fried and battered skin on the plastic plate in front of him. They were fresh from the frosted box wedged into the back of the freezer — the box kept specifically for him when his grandparents didn't know what to feed him. It's what white kids eat, they thought. White kids eat french fries and chicken nuggets and fried chicken and white bread and breaded white fish in blue boxes with white fishermen smiling cordially at them from behind white beards. His grandmother shuffled over in her bedazzled slippers and smacked her palm against a jar of plum sauce until it oozed on his plate in all its viscous, light brown glory.

The winner of the 2023 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 Artscape Gibraltar Point. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.

The 2023 CBC Poetry Prize is currently open until May 31, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. ET. The 2024 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January 2024.