Niresha Velmurugiah has made the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Stain.

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.

Niresha Velmurugiah is an emergency physician living in Vancouver. She dreams about working in long form journalism, but she enjoys writing in all forms. She received the Penelope Gray-Allan Memorial CJEM Writing Award in 2015.

"A cultural disconnect becomes dangerous."

"Children growing up with immigrant parents often distance themselves from their roots in service of better assimilating into their new culture. A lot of my friends and I have experienced the disillusionment of realizing that we don't quite belong in either culture. I wanted to write about someone coming to that realization."

Eric's mother didn't lock their front door. Avi knew this by the time he was invited for Thanksgiving dinner, but he still hesitated on the welcome mat. At his own house, the doorbell triggered a panicked ritual. His mother would shush him and the TV into silence and creep upstairs, leaving Avi to assess the threat. The hammered glass of the front door distorted the Girl Scouts and mailmen whom his mother was hiding from. Avi would watch their silhouettes recede before yelling "They're gone!" so they could resume their day.

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.