Books by past CBC Nonfiction Prize finalists being published in 2025
The CBC Nonfiction Prize is accepting submissions from Jan. 1 to March 1
Being a finalist for the CBC Nonfiction Prize can jump-start your literary career. Need proof? Here are books that were written by former CBC Nonfiction Prize finalists that are coming out this spring.
The 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize is open for submissions until March 1, 2025 at 4:59 p.m. ET.
You can submit original, unpublished nonfiction that is up to 2,000 words in length. Nonfiction includes memoir, biography, humour writing, essay (including personal essay), travel writing and feature articles.
The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and will have their work published on CBC Books.
Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.
It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished by Kate Gies
When Kate Gies was born without her right ear, plastic surgeons vowed to make her "whole" and craft the appearance of an outer ear. The Toronto author underwent 14 surgeries before the age of 13, many of which failed, leaving permanent scars — both physically and mentally. Gies shares her harrowing experiences and path to accepting her body through poignant vignettes that form her debut memoir, It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished.
It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished is out now.
Kate Gies is a Toronto-based writer and educator. She teaches at George Brown College. Her writing has been published in The Malahat Review, The Humber Literary Review, Hobart, Minola Review and The Conium Review. It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished is her first book and her essay Foreign Bodies will be included in the forthcoming Best Canadian Essays anthology.
Gies was longlisted for the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize for Kids of 7C — which became a chapter in her memoir.
Blockade: Diaries of a Forest Defender by Christine Lowther
In 1992, Christine Lowther was arrested for lying across the Clayoquot Arm bridge while fallers tried to drive to work with their chainsaws. Blockade draws from the daily journals she recorded at the time and tells the struggles and victories of the historic civil disobedience movement.
When you can read it: March 21, 2025.
Lowther is a writer from Tofino, B.C. She is also the author of four poetry collections including Hazard, Home. She served as Tofino's poet laureate from 2020-2022.
Lowther was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize for her piece Environmental Services.
Mrs. Nobody by Y. S. Lee, illustrated by Marie Lafrance
Alice loves to play and get up to no good with her friend Mrs. Nobody. However, after Alice pushes back on her idea because she didn't want to play a game they'd already played, Mrs. Nobody disappears. Alice has to spend a lonely night without her friend and figure out what to say when Mrs. Nobody reappears the next day.
Mrs. Nobody is for ages 3-6.
When you can read it: April 1, 2025.
Y. S. Lee's fiction includes the YA mystery series The Agency, which was translated into six languages. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Event, Room, Rattle and the Literary Review of Canada. Her poem Saturday morning, East Pender Street was longlisted for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize. She lives in Kingston, Ont.
Lee was a finalist for the 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize for her piece Tek Tek.
Marie Lafrance is an illustrator based in Montreal. She won the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award in 2013. Her other illustrated books include The Lady with the Books by Kathy Stinson, Gemma and the Giant Girl by Sara O'Leary and The Brass Charm by Monique Polak.
I Want to Die in My Boots by Natalie Appleton
I Want to Die in My Boots is a captivating, untold portrait of Belle Jane, a larger than life woman who led a gang of cattle thieves in Saskatchewan in the 1920s — defying social conventions and living a life full of rebellion.
When you can read it: April 8, 2025.
Natalie Appleton is a writer from Okanagan, B.C. Her previous work includes the travel memoir I Have Something to Tell You, which evolved from an essay written for the New York Times' Modern Love column. Appleton has won the Prairie Fire's Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award and Room Magazine's Creative Nonfiction Contest. She studied journalism at the University of Regina and creative writing at City University London.
Appleton was on the long list for the 2016 CBC Nonfiction Prize for her story Fourth Son of Fourth Wife.
Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe
In Everything Is Fine Here, a younger sister navigates the challenges of family and societal pressures while offering love and support to her older sister, who is gay, in a country with strict anti-homosexuality laws.
When you can read it: April 22, 2025.
Iryn Tushabe is a Ugandan Canadian writer and journalist based in Regina. Her writing has appeared in Briarpatch Magazine, Adda, Grain Magazine, The Walrus and CBC Saskatchewan, among others. She won the City of Regina writing award in both 2020 and 2024, and was a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2021. In 2023, she won the Writers' Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize.
Tushabe was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2016.
The World So Wide by Zilla Jones
The World So Wide tells the story of Felicity Alexander, a mixed-race opera star, who spends her life chasing love and validation. It is a story of betrayal, revolution — set within the context of the United States invasion of Grenada — and the healing power of music.
When you can read it: April 26, 2025.
Jones is a Black Canadian author based in Winnipeg. She's won many literary awards including the Journey Prize, the Malahat Review Open Season Award, the Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction and the FreeFall short fiction award.
Zilla Jones made the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize long list for Our Father and has longlisted twice for her story How to Make a Friend, in 2022 and 2023; in 2024, Jones was included on the CBC Short Story Prize shortlist. The same year, Jones made the long list for the CBC Nonfiction Prize. She was also named a writer to watch by CBC Books in 2024.
Keener Sounds: A Suite by Roger Greenwald
The poet, when young, listened to a violinist practicing and wondered: "Could words as well be made to say the wordless?" Keener Sounds: A Suite is a sequence of contemporary sonnets in which music, as both subject and inspiration, accompanies explorations of love, grief, time and memory.
When you can read it: May 2025.
Greenwald attended The City College of New York and the Poetry Project workshop at St. Mark's Church In-the-Bowery, then completed graduate degrees at the University of Toronto. He has published three earlier books of poems: Connecting Flight, Slow Mountain Train and The Half-Life. He won the 2018 Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Award from Exile Magazine.
Greenwald won the CBC Poetry Prize in 1994 and First Prize in the CBC Literary Award for Travel Literature in 2003.
Motherness by Julie M. Green
Motherness is a memoir about Julie Green's experiences as a late-diagnosed autistic woman. Almost ten years after learning that her son is autistic, Green was also diagnosed, shedding light on a lifetime of feeling othered and misunderstood. The memoir traces her journey from childhood to motherhood, as she must advocate for her young son while navigating her own struggles.
When you can read it: Sept. 23, 2025.
Julie M. Green's work has appeared in Washington Post, Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Today's Parent and more. She writes The Autistic Mom on Substack. Born in Cornwall, Ont., Green studied creative writing at Concordia University. She spent 10 years in the UK before relocating to Toronto. She currently lives in Kingston, Ont.
Green was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
