Simone Garneau has made the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for State of Being.

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.

Simone Garneau is an engineer turned writer. In 2020, she completed Humber's graduate certificate program in creative writing, working on a novel in progress. In 2022, she was a finalist in the Writers' Union of Canada Short Prose Competition. Her writing has also been shortlisted for the Quebec Writing Competition and Canscaip's Writing for Children Competition. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in an anthology by Vehicule Press, Montreal Writes and Cosmonaut's Avenue. Simone was born in Halifax, lived in many places, and now calls Montreal home. She previously made the 2010 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for her story Parting Ways.

"One's essence is what matters."

"I liked the idea of creating a story through a series of snapshots and I was very taken with a definition I read for the term 'sublimation.' That was really the genesis of the story."

My parents are the kind of parents that kiss in front of other people. They say syrupy sweet stuff to each other all the time and they can't be in the same space without touching. My mother runs her fingers along the back of my father's neck while he drives and he puts his arm around her when they walk down the street. At the end of the day, when they come home from work, their bodies slide together like magnets. The fearlessness of their love embarrasses me.

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.