Therese DesCamp has made the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Singing the Red Dress Song. 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.

At the age of six, Therese DesCamp wrote her first memoir; she's been trying to decipher the mystery of life using the written word ever since. She has authored essays, columns, articles, sermons, grants, newsletters, reviews, speeches, lectures, curricula, workbooks and decades of journals. Her writing has appeared in Willamette Week, Pastoral Psychology, The Whole Earth Catalog, Religious Studies News, The Monterey Herald, Broadview Magazine (and its predecessor, The United Church Observer) and The Valley Voice. Her published academic work includes a book and multiple research articles. DesCamp is currently finishing a book of essays and shredding the journals.

"Life as messy, heartbreaking joy."

"This past year has been ridiculously challenging. A friend who'd had a psychotic break moved in with us. My husband suddenly lost motor skills and was plunged into a lengthy, grueling diagnostic process. My brother announced a terminal cancer diagnosis. The news from Ukraine and Iran and Syria was horrifying; a nasty conflict was brewing in my village. I felt overwhelmed and burdened with grief, so one night as I went to sleep, I asked for a reprieve. This dream, and this essay, emerged."

I roll over to turn off the light and address a silent prayer to my deepest part, to the Holy, to my unconscious, to whatever or whomever prescribes the nightly play that goes on when I slump into sleep: May I please have some joy in my dreams tonight?

I've been tired, bone tired. The recent big crisis is resolved, at least for a while. But crises never really end, do they? When the immediate situation gets better — someone gets out of the psych ward, someone gets into treatment, someone finishes chemo, someone dies after the long illness — then the dam that held everything back starts to leak.

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.