Tay Aly Jade has made the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for The Monarch and the Matriarch. 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.

Tay Aly Jade is a writer, speaker and activist of mixed Anishinaabe-European heritage. Taylor's work explores themes of Indigeneity, sexuality, feminism and mental health. They have commentated and written for various organizations and media outlets, including the United Nations, Oxfam, the Canadian Women's Foundation, and the Tyee. Taylor is currently a Master of Arts student in the Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice program at the University of British Columbia. Upon graduation, Taylor plans to write their first memoir.

"An intergenerational exploration of matriarchy."

"Whenever I am struggling in life, nimomma (my mother), reminds me, "You come from a long line of strong women. You are one of them." Last year, before I left to begin my studies abroad, nimomma gifted me a pair of ashkibagoog (monarch butterfly) earrings, with a letter explaining their meaning: these tiny creatures undertake a migration journey that spans thousands of kilometres, powered only by their generational will to push forward. The migration story of the ashkibagoog inspired me to write a piece about the journey my own family started generations ago, and the direction I'll guide it in the future."

Aashkibagoog, the monarch butterfly.

They represent change and transformation, strength and endurance, hope and resilience.

Monarch butterflies have a north-south migration pattern; a multigenerational migration, which takes four generations to complete.

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I am a collision of two opposite worlds: one upper middle class white Canadian, the other working class Anishinaabe.

My mother grew up in a small municipality in rural Manitoba, went to university and met my father in towns hardly any larger, and raised me outside the city. Her siblings, and now my cousins, are strewn throughout cities and towns in Treaty 1, 2 and 5 territory.

Nookomis (my mother's mother) is the most beautiful woman I have not met. She was forty six years old when she passed. She should still be here.

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.