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Sour Milk by Sarah Christina Brown

CBC Books | Posted: April 3, 2025 1:30 PM | Last Updated: April 3

The New Westminster, B.C., writer is on the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist

Image | Sarah Christina Brown

Caption: Sarah Christina Brown is a writer based in New Westminster, B.C. (Submitted by Sarah Christina Brown)

Sarah Christina Brown has made the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Sour Milk.
The winner of the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link), a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity(external link) and their work will be published on CBC Books(external link). The four remaining finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link) and have their work published on CBC Books(external link).
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(external link), 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 You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1.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 Sarah Christina Brown

Sarah Christina Brown is an author interested in themes of caregiving, consciousness and the body. Her writing has been shortlisted for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award, longlisted for the Journey Prize and was most recently anthologized in Through the Portal: Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia. She works as an English instructor and is currently completing her first novel.
Brown previously longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2017.

Entry in five-ish words

"A complicated relationship with technology."

The short story's source of inspiration

"A couple summers ago I was reading Alejandro Zambra's novel Chilean Poet, which briefly references a poem narrated by a toaster. I loved that idea. I was also thinking about an old Twilight Zone episode called The Lonely as a meditation on the complications of human (and non-human) relationships."

First lines

Everything lives inside of me. The milk lives in the top, the eggs in the middle, the bullets in the coldest pole of my body — the bottom, near the floor. Whenever he opens me, the warmth floods my insides. It is a warmth which makes me panic, slightly, because I can never let myself get too hot. But it also feels good. It means I am being filled and put to use.
This morning, I wait again to see if he will come.

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:

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