On a Tuesday in November by Aaron Schneider
CBC Books | Posted: April 3, 2025 1:30 PM | Last Updated: April 3
The London, Ont., writer is on the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist
Aaron Schneider has made the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for On a Tuesday in November.
The winner of the 2025 CBC Short Story 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 their work will be 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 April 10 and the winner will be announced on April 17.
If you're interested in other CBC Literary Prizes, the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is currently accepting submissions. You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1.
The 2026 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2026 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January.
About Aaron Schneider
Aaron Schneider is a queer settler, writer and publisher living in London, Ont. He is the founding Editor at The /tƐmz/ Review, the publisher at 845 Press and an assistant professor in the department of writing studies at Western University. His stories have appeared in a variety of literary journals and been nominated for The Journey Prize and The Pushcart Prize. He has written the novella Grass-Fed, the collection of experimental short fiction What We Think We Know and the novel The Supply Chain.
WATCH | Aaron Schneider on why he wants to keep writing about London, Ont.:
Entry in five-ish words
"She finds her wildness."
The short story's source of inspiration
"The opening line, 'On a Tuesday in November, Rebecca turns into a wolf,' came to me as a complete sentence and with it the image of Rebecca's transformation. It was then a process of discovering who she was and why this was happening to her, of finding my way into her life and into the story. I spend a lot of time walking and biking along the river in London, and that ribbon of green space and the experience of stepping out of the city and into a different world fed into the writing."
First lines
On a Tuesday in November, Rebecca turns into a wolf. It doesn't happen like it does in the movies. It isn't violent or dramatic. Her skin doesn't writhe and stretch, it doesn't bulge with lumps of new muscle to a soundtrack of wet tearing noises and ominous crunching. She doesn't collapse forward onto all fours as her skeleton folds her into a new geometry or grow a coat of soft grey fur flecked with black or sprout canines from a mouth that has distended itself into a muzzle. Her teeth are the same dull teeth she has had since the last ivory nub poked through her gums when she was ten.
Her hands are still hands instead of paws. And her fingers still end in fingernails complete with chipped mint nail polish instead of claws. It isn't a visible transformation, but it is an indisputable one: Rebecca is a wolf.
Check out the rest of the longlist
The longlist was selected from more than 2,300 entries. 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 Conor Kerr, Kudakwashe Rutendo and Michael Christie.
The complete list is:
- Love is the Enemy by Vincent Anioke (Waterloo, Ont.)
- Stubborn Knots by Ari Asho (Montreal)
- The Troll Artist by Pam Barnsley (Comox, B.C.)
- Zodiac Attack by Andrea Bishop (Salt Spring Island, B.C.)
- Point of Origin by Alison Braid-Fernandez (Summerland, B.C.)
- Sour Milk by Sarah Christina Brown (New Westminster, B.C.)
- Slug Lord by Petra Chambers (Hornby Island, B.C.)
- Cultus Spring by Jan Crerar (Salmon Arm, B.C.)
- 108th & Central by Barbara Darby (Lethbridge, Alta.)
- Savages by Lewis DeSoto (Toronto)
- Mothers Day, 2017 by Gráinne Downey (Vancouver)
- Driving in a Snowstorm by Izza Farhan (Toronto)
- Sudbury Saturday Night by Emily Groot (Sudbury, Ont.)
- Juicy Fruit, 1947 by Henry Heavyshield (Standoff, Alta.)
- Glow by Linda Kingston (Ottawa)
- Westward by Josée Lafrenière (Montreal)
- Ghostworlds by Trent Lewin (Waterloo, Ont.)
- Hope this Story has a Happy Ending by Heather Simeney MacLeod (Kamloops, B.C.)
- You (Streetcar at Night) by Dorian McNamara (Halifax)
- Apple Cake by Aleksandra Merk (Fonthill, Ont.)
- What About Sam by Rachael Riley (Montreal)
- Lessons from a peach by Emi Sasagawa (Vancouver)
- Grocery List for the Common Witch by Claire Scherzinger (Bremerton, Wash.)
- On a Tuesday in November by Aaron Schneider (London, Ont.)
- Real is Love by Michelle Sinclair (Ottawa)
- My Father's Soil by Zeina Sleiman (Edmonton)
- Personnel Unknown by John Sudlow (Oakville, Ont.)
- Dirty Gert by Pamela van der Woude (Picton, Ont.)
- Mount Zoo by Paul Warren (Duncan, B.C.)
- How To Watch Your Daughter Die by Jessica Wegmann-Sanchez (Edmonton)
- Self Care by Erin Wilk (Kitchener, Ont.)
- Gold by Julia Williams (Calgary)