Oleksandra Budna has made the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Geometry of Meaning. 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.

Oleksandra Budna grew up in Ukraine. She now lives in Toronto, Treaty 13 territory, with her family and works as a communications professional for a social justice and health equity organization. When she moved to Canada 20 years ago, she brought with her memories of childhood summers spent with her grandparents in a tiny village in Ukraine and hikes in the Carpathian Mountains. Love of nature continues to drive her outdoor pursuits as she explores incredible landscapes across Turtle Island, on foot and in a canoe, trying to capture the beauty of these lands and waters in pictures and words. Oleksandra shares her stories on her Gone Camping blog. Her photos and essays also appeared in The Globe and Mail, Blank Spaces magazine; she was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2020 for Fantastic fungi and where to find them.

"Ancestral memory and search for meaning."

"Last year, when Russia started a full-scale invasion of my home country, I, like many immigrants from Ukraine, had to grapple with the grief and horror of the war, which even across the ocean felt so painfully close. In the summer, during my trip back home, I visited my grandparents' village where I used to spend a lot of time as a child. The trip brought back many memories. It also pushed me to re-examine my connection to and responsibility for the land where I grew up as well as the land where I live now. This essay is an attempt to find meaning and explore belonging through my grandmother's rushnyk, or embroidered towel, an important part of Ukrainian culture that is believed to hold ancestral memory and special protective powers."

I spread my grandmother's rushnyk on the shelf above our dining table and nail its corners to the wall so that the beautiful embroidery on this six-foot long towel is clearly visible. I then step back to study the familiar patterns. This rushnyk, now arched on the wall of our apartment in Toronto, is a scroll of ancient tales, a map of memories from my childhood summers spent in a small village in the west of Ukraine. I pore over this verse in cross-stitch, and as I pull on one thread, I find that it's connected to the other stories told in neatly arranged squares, triangles and rhombuses, all woven together.

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.