Language Matters by Carolyn Higgins
CBC Books | Posted: September 7, 2023 1:30 PM | Last Updated: September 25, 2023
2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist
Carolyn Higgins has made the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Language Matters. The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 14 and the winner will be announced on Sept. 21.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize is open for submissions.
About Carolyn Higgins
Carolyn Higgins is an educator in the public school system in Fredericton. This is her first work published outside of her personal blog, Poetry, Prose, Perspective and Practice. She holds a BA, BEd and MEd from the University of New Brunswick. Carolyn is a yoga instructor and loves facilitating classes, painting and gardening.
Entry in five-ish words
"How we speak can heal."
The story's source of inspiration
"The current political and environmental climate inspired me to use writing to work through the feeling of powerlessness that I have felt with local government creating dissidence among communities with policy change and actions taken that are regressive and threaten the autonomy of the individual. It was more evident to me that language would be a powerful tool in the reconciliation of so many of the current issues and I felt compelled to share this perspective from my heart and experience."
LISTEN | Carolyn Higgins discusses making the CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist on Information Morning
First lines
Did I always know that my silence communicated my fear of being judged, wrong or worse, unseen or misunderstood? Shy slipped comfortably off the tongue of most well-meaning adults I encountered from a very early age. Perhaps my silence was as much a restraining of my words because I knew how powerful they were. If I knew that my language mattered, then I may have been lost in a search for the right words to tell someone no without hurting them to their core. To have a boundary in a boundary-less family.
About the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize
The winner of the 2023 CBC Nonfiction 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 2024 CBC Short Story Prize is currently open until Nov. 1, 2023 at 4:59 p.m. ET. The 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January 2024 and the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April 2024.