Leave A Funny Message at the Beep by Vincent Anioke
CBC Books | Posted: April 11, 2024 1:30 PM | Last Updated: April 11
The Nigerian-Canadian writer is on the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize longlist
Vincent Anioke has made the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Leave A Funny Message at the Beep.
The winner of the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and attend a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. The four remaining finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.
The shortlist will be announced on April 18 and the winner will be announced on April 25.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until June 1. The 2025 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January.
About Vincent Anioke
Vincent Anioke is a Nigerian-Canadian software engineer. His short stories have appeared in The Ex-Puritan, The Rumpus, The Masters Review, Carve Magazine and Passages North. He won the 2021 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence and has been shortlisted for multiple contests, including the 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. His debut short story collection, Perfect Little Angels, was released in April 2024.
Entry in five-ish words
"A shopping experience turns paralyzing."
The story's source of inspiration
"Experiencing a stretched period of immense grief while I was an undergraduate student, and being struck by the waves of sheer paralysis that took over my body at the most mundane moments. It's lived with me since then, and I wanted to find a container for the vivid ache of those emotions."
First lines
For 20 minutes, I've been standing at aisle seven of ShopRite, trying to choose between two flavors of scented candles — peach and cedarwood pine — and if you were still here, you'd say this is so like me.
Check out the rest of the longlist
The longlist was selected from more than 1,900 submissions. A team of 12 writers and editors from across Canada compiled the list.
The jury selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the readers' longlisted selections. This year's jury is comprised of Suzette Mayr, Kevin Chong and Ashley Audrain.
The complete longlist is:
- The White Stetson Hat by Dennis Allen (Edmonton)
- Leave A Funny Message at the Beep by Vincent Anioke (Waterloo, Ont.)
- How Far Should You Go? by Anne Baldo (Windsor, Ont.)
- Kind Lady Lives Here by Jennifer Booth (Cambridge, Ont.)
- A Very Full Life by Rebecca Cuneo Keenan (Toronto)
- Four-Boot Fred by Izzy Ferguson (Dundas, Ont.)
- The Sea Comes Pouring In by Phil Glennie (London, Ont.)
- We Asked Too Much From God by Marian Godfrey (Victoria)
- Old Bones by Kate Gunn (Vancouver)
- dark by Mirabelle Chiderah Harris-Eze (Calgary)
- Lamentations by Miriam Ho Nga Wai (Toronto)
- Tremor of the Tongue by Nnamdi Ibeanusi (Kitchener, Ont.)
- How to Make a Friend by Zilla Jones (Winnipeg)
- Shopping by Delailah M. K. Grondin (Windsor, Ont.)
- Tiny Gifts by Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li (Toronto)
- Best by Annick MacAskill (Halifax)
- Transcendence by Britt MacKenzie-Dale (Kelowna, B.C.)
- Outpour by Lauren McNeil (Revelstoke, B.C.)
- The Ball Game by Adam McPhee (Fort McMurray, Alta.)
- Fish Sauce by Alexandra Musten (Ottawa)
- Tamago by Lindsay Naito (North Vancouver, B.C.)
- the worst has already happened by KM Naud (Vancouver)
- A Good Visit by Susan Paddon (Margaree, N.S.)
- Fermentation by June Pyo Park (Montreal)
- The Green Guest House by Mina Sharif (Toronto)
- How to Give Your Grief to the Moon by Traci Skuce (Courtenay, B.C.)
- Disprin by Kailash Srinivasan (North Vancouver, B.C.)
- The Baby by Kailash Srinivasan (North Vancouver, B.C.)
- Smack Dab by D.D.R.Staines (Cambridge, Ont.)
- Permission to Pause by Carley Thorne (Toronto)