Lauren McNamara has made the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Deaf Girl. 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.

Lauren McNamara is writer, researcher, educator and education consultant. She holds an MS in Learning Sciences from Northwestern and a PhD in educational psychology from Simon Fraser University. Her writing focuses on social connection and well-being and she has published extensively in academic and professional contexts. She is currently exploring the topic of social connectedness through creative nonfiction, bridging art and science to highlight how our interaction patterns take root in childhood and shadow us across our lifespans — for better or for worse. She is currently writing her first novel, a fictional autobiography.

"Our inexplicable need for connectedness."

"As my father progressed through the stages of Alzheimer's disease and his short-term memory faded, many of his childhood memories came to the surface. At first, he shared beautiful stories full of fun and love. But as those memories, too, faded away, it seemed the last ones standing were those of trauma of disconnection: stories of exclusion, isolation, and social harm. He rarely told us about those experiences, yet here he was describing them as if they were happening in real time, with sobs, discomfort, and fear that could no longer be masked by grown-up 'strategies.'

"As I listened, it was strikingly clear to me that these buried experiences shaped his entire lifespan — but most especially, it was strikingly clear to me why connecting with others, especially his own daughters, was so hard for him. I felt a gentleness and closeness towards him that I hadn't felt before. It was heartbreaking to watch him relive those memories, yet it illuminated for me, in the spookiest of ways, just how critically fundamental social connections are to our well-being — and how massively damaging disconnection is. I saw so much of myself in him, and it was unsettling to realize that I am quite possibly on the same trajectory. I wanted to create art from this, something that will encourage others to not only discuss the topic of connection, but to explore and prioritize ways to prevent disconnection in the first place."

I lost my hearing in a skating accident. On my sixth birthday.

Of all my childhood memories, my happiest was skating alongside my dad. When I was old enough to walk, I became part of his Sunday routine. My earliest memory is from the passenger seat of his red Corvette: he'd set the radio, stop for gas and coffee, clear his throat, adjust his baseball cap and drive quietly, hands in race-car position at nine and three o'clock. Tall and slim, in my memories he almost always wears shorts, running shoes, and a crisp, white hoodie that amplifies his jet-black hair.

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.