Michèle Irwin has made the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for You're Going to Dance with Me. 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.

Michèle Irwin has written quietly for many years and is delighted her first non-academic recognition is through CBC Literary Prizes. She is faculty at the University of Toronto, where she teaches writing. Michèle has been in residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Artscape Gibraltar Point, as well as attended Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Michèle has just finished writing her first novel and is at work on a memoir.

"A beautiful tragic love story."

"I initially wrote this story as a record for my daughters, so they wouldn't forget the beauty and grace of their father's death and the story that led to it. But, since writing it, I realize that suffering and the gravitational pull of illness is often invisible. This story is an effort to bring visibility to the hard choices illness can force."

"Put your beer down," I said to him. I'd chosen David from the group of guys milling by the makeshift bar at the Junior Farmers dance. He was a mix of my crushes — Shaun Cassidy and John Boy.

"Why?" he said.

I took the beer from his hand, put it on the bar, and pulled him away from his friends.

"You're going to dance with me."

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.