Hope this Story has a Happy Ending by Heather Simeney MacLeod
CBC Books | Posted: April 3, 2025 1:30 PM | Last Updated: April 3
The Kamloops, B.C., writer is on the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist
Heather Simeney MacLeod has made the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Hope this Story has a Happy Ending.
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 You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1.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 Heather Simeney MacLeod
Heather Simeney MacLeod is a Red River Metis (Michif) writer born in Treaty 6 and currently residing in the unceded territory of the Secwepemc Nation. She has published four poetry collections with a fifth coming out in the spring of 2026 with Fernwood Press. Her short fiction has appeared in SubTerrain, Geist and a new short story pending with The Capilano Review. She works as an associate teaching professor at Thompson Rivers University in the department of communication and visual Arts. She lives in Kamloops, B.C., with her rambunctious eight-year-old son and an equally rambunctious cat.
MacLeod was previously longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2018 for her essay In the Peace River Valley.
Entry in five-ish words
"Lovers, desire to travel and needs."
The short story's source of inspiration
"The story began over a decade ago. I came across it last year, and I began to rework it. Of course, it took on a different shape based upon time — meaning — I grew up. I quite liked looking back at this character, this young girl in her 20s who couldn't find, you know, a viable relationship that suits her purposes."
First lines
Do I begin with silence? Silence as still and uninterrupted as that moment, and that space between one breath and another before two people agree to kiss. One breath. We were at the 60th parallel. It's an imaginary line, which separates equally imaginary parcels of land — the Northwest Territories and Alberta. All of it seemed made of rock, dirt, small pines, poplars and serenity. You said, "It's never been so quiet."
The arctic falls at my feet. It blows out of my hands like purple petals of fireweed. I can't keep track of the pieces. Everything falls away.
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)