Nina Dragicevic has made the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for The Artist.

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.

Nina Dragicevic is a freelance writer who publishes fiction under the name Nina Dunic. Her debut novel The Clarion is coming out with Invisible Publishing in September, with her collection of stories following in 2025. She's won the Toronto Star Short Story Contest twice, took third place in Humber Literary Review Emerging Writers Fiction Contest and has been nominated for the Journey Prize. Nina lives in Scarborough, in Toronto's east end, with her husband and two dogs. This is her fourth time on the CBC Short Story Prize longlist: she previously made the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Youth, the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Bodies and the 2019 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for a previous version of Bodies.

"You should meet your heroes."

"Last year a boy travelled a long distance to see The Weeknd's concert in Toronto, but the show was cancelled during the Rogers blackout. The boy had dressed up like the star in one of his music videos, and a photo of his distraught reaction went viral. The Weeknd later met the boy at a rescheduled show — a heartwarming moment. I wanted to experiment with the 'never meet your heroes' tradition, except without a disastrous outcome — instead, a kind of deeper understanding.

"The second idea I wanted to explore was fame and success and money — they don't 'cure' you. If, as an artist, you are sensitive and shy and lonely and struggle with alcohol, you're still all those things even after you've made it. When you're young, when you idolize someone, I don't think you understand that.

"The last element is a bit autobiographical. As a kid, I had a lot of worries, I went through phases of being moody and withdrawn. I look back and try to remember what I worried about. I tried to look beyond all the specific details and concerns and see the bigger picture... or perhaps distil it down to one ultimate meaning. That's how I knew the last line."

She did her short hair in spikes, mostly upwards on the top of her head, a few sideways, the rest slicked down with heavy gel. It looked alright. She was wearing a purple t-shirt and the purple pants she had seen in the thrift store window, giving her the whole idea in the first place. He wore all purple in his last music video, and his hair like this. After buying the pants in the window she was suddenly thrust forward with new energy, thinking fast, especially at night waiting to fall asleep.

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.