Crystal Semaganis has made the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for kisâkihitin. 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 until November 1st.

Crystal Semaganis is an Indigenous activist living in the Temagami region. Her focus is on Indigenous issues and providing connections for the displaced. She has written for CBC, New Lines Magazine, and is best known by her colonial name, Christine Cameron and for the 2018 CBC podcast Finding Cleo about her family's search for her oldest sister, Cleo Semaganis Nicotine and the 60s Scoop, MMIWG and intergenerational trauma. Crystal volunteers her time to provide connection for around 100,000 indigenous people across Turtle Island and is dedicated to the empowerment of Indigenous people. She is mother of four and Kokomis (Grandmother) to two.

"Celebrating the Sacredness of Self."

"It had taken over five decades to try and learn my own language, my Mother Tongue, that was stolen so long ago. So many reasons not to, so many challenges, and I was reduced to being a Child again. However, the great heaving sobs after speaking my first sentence in my own language — was something that sits with me, still. Sometimes, I still cry to speak these Sacred Sounds."

Sometimes I have to force myself to exist in a socially acceptable manner, while others can just do it without thought. Here I am, consciously willing my heartbeat to slow, and breathing out in a slight stream of air like in those self-help videos online.

Tonight, I spent almost an hour combing through pages looking for something that should be alive in me. Leafing through an alphabet and glimpses of who I should've been, might've been, could've been, and want to be.

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.