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Westward by Josée Lafrenière

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

The Montréal-based writer is on the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist

Image | Josée Lafrenière adjusted pic

Caption: Josée Lafrenière is a writer living in Montreal. (Storm Lafrenière-Silliker)

Josée Lafrenière has made the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Westward.
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 You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1.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 Josée Lafrenière

Josée Lafrenière is a Franco-Ontarian who now lives in Montreal and writes in English. She works as a freelance editor, copywriter and translator. Her fiction has appeared in The Fiddlehead, Headlight and the anthology Salut King Kong. Some pieces have also won the QWF-CBC Public's Choice Award and been shortlisted in the QWF-CBC contest and for the Prism International contest.

Entry in five-ish words

"Running away or toward?"

The short story's source of inspiration

"The main character here was a secondary character in an earlier story. I wondered what had happened to him. At the same time I was reading Denis Johnson's Train Dreams and I was also reflecting on how culture within a family line can disappear, based on my own family's history."

First lines

Smoke and dust refract the morning sun in the rail camp as Étienne Myre skulks out of the mess hall with cloth-wrapped sandwiches stowed in his pack. He stays behind the shanties and tents, skirting the walls, heading west.
Sundays are the worst. Other days he works until night, under the stern eye of the rail boss, and then, in a belly-full stupor, drags himself to his cot to drop into sleep. But Sundays the Canadian Pacific gives them the day off for God and worship or drinking and whoring. He's tried them all. But as soon as his body stops moving, he's hounded by images: pennies on eyelids, crows cawing, a wailing infant.

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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