Talking for a Living by Zilla Jones
CBC Books | Posted: September 12, 2024 1:59 PM | Last Updated: September 12
The Winnipeg writer is on the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist
Zilla Jones has made the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Talking for a Living.
The winner of the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their work published on CBC Books. 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 Sept. 19 and the winner will be announced on Sept. 26.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize is open for submissions until Nov. 1. The 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January and the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April.
About Zilla Jones
Zilla Jones is an African-Canadian writer from multiple Diasporas, based in Treaty 1 (Winnipeg.) She has won first place in the fiction contests and been published by the Malahat Review, Prism International, Freefall and Grain, second place in the Prairie Fire and ex-Puritan contests, and Honourable Mention in the Room contest. Her work also appears in The Fiddlehead and Bayou Magazine. In 2023, she was a Journey Prize winner and a finalist in the RBC/Bronwen Wallace fiction competition. Her debut novel, The World So Wide, is forthcoming with Cormorant Books in spring 2025, and her short story collection in 2026. Jones shortlisted for the 2024 Writers' Union of Canada's Annual Short Fiction Competition.
Jones previously made the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Our Father and has longlisted twice for her story How to Make a Friend, in 2022 and 2023, before shortlisting in 2024. She was also named a writer to watch by CBC Books in 2024.
Entry in five-ish words
"How we start building bridges."
The story's source of inspiration
"As described in the story, I often travel from Winnipeg to rural areas of Manitoba in the course of my work as a defence lawyer. In late January 2024, I had a trial in Norway House, 800 km north of Winnipeg, and I was driving to Thompson to join the official court party's flight when I sustained damage to my front passenger tire and rim. I was stranded in the dark on the coldest night of the winter in an unmarked remote location. What happened next was a testament to the best aspects of human nature in a world rife with conflict. I was rescued by an RCMP officer and forced to confront my fear and mistrust of police. The simple act of conversation helped heal rifts and bring people together."
First lines
Even though I have been expecting the police, I am startled by the whine of the sirens and the red and blue lights flashing through the night. I grip my steering wheel as my chest tightens, and I wish I had put my hair up so it wouldn't look so wild and curly. I think of starlight tours, where officers drive Indigenous people to remote locations and abandon them. As a mixed-race Black woman, my Afro-Chinese heritage is often read as Afro-Indigenous. Being either Black or Indigenous is dangerous when it comes to the cops.
Check out the rest of the longlist
The longlist was selected from more than 1,400 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 composed of Michelle Good, Dan Werb and Christina Sharpe.
The complete longlist is:
- The Memory Tree by Laura Anderson (Victoria)
- The Sensibilities of Dogs by Antoinette Bekker (Medicine Hat, Alta.)
- The Swell That Follows by Bianca Bernstein (Montreal)
- On Not Knowing Cree by Ted Bishop (Edmonton)
- Awl by John Blackmore (Ottawa)
- My Father's Four Funerals by Lizz Bryce (Toronto)
- Quiz by Aaron Chan (Vancouver)
- Ice Safety Chart: Fragments by Aldona Dziedziejko (Rocky Mountain House, Alta.)
- The Archaeologist's Last Visit by Machenka Eriksen (Victoria)
- Teddys to Manhattan by Kelsey Gilchrist (Toronto)
- The Ferris Wheel by Julie M Green (Kingston, Ont.)
- A Quieter War by Batya Guarisma (Vaughan, Ont.)
- Green for Home, Always by Theresa Harold (Vancouver)
- All the King's Men by Paul Hetzler (Val-des-Monts, Que.)
- The Next Breath by Shana Hugh (Vancouver)
- Mitigoog Call Me Home by Tay Aly Jade (Winnipeg)
- Talking for a Living by Zilla Jones (Winnipeg)
- A Love Letter to the Super Tenant by Marianne Mandrukiak (Montreal)
- Senseless by Laura Mensinga (Stone Mills, Ont.)
- Glass Eyes by G. Robert Morrison (Montreal)
- Et Cetera, Etcetera, Etcetera by Maureen Ott (Ottawa)
- The Weight of the Crown by Deanna Patterson (Regina)
- Not in Their Names by Alison Pick (Toronto)
- Is Life a Tossed Salad? by Evelyn N. Pollock (Coldwater, Ont.)
- Ruth by Gordon Portman (Regina)
- Dad's the Word by Emi Sasagawa (Vancouver)
- Tomorrow, The Next Day, and the Day After That by Kelly S. Thompson (Colorado Springs, U.S.)
- The Weight of a Gaze by Salina Jane Vanderhorn (Deep River, Ont.)
- Random Acts of Walking or What An Australian Cockatoo Taught Me by Kelly Watt (Rockton, Ont.)
- Eyeball Tacos by Jessica Wegmann-Sanchez (Edmonton)