18 books by past CBC Short Story Prize winners and finalists from 2023
Being a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize can jump-start your literary career. Need proof? Here are 18 books published in 2023 that were written by former CBC Short Story Prize winners and finalists.
The 2024 CBC Short Story Prize is open for submissions until Nov. 1, 2023 at 4:59 p.m. ET. The CBC Short Story Prize recognizes original, unpublished works of fiction, up to 2,500 words in length.
The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have the opportunity to attend a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and 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.
Izzy's Dog Days of Summer by Caroline Adderson, illustrated by Kelly Collier
Izzy's Dog Days of Summer is the third book in the humorous early chapter book series about a girl called Izzy and her dog Rolo. Isabel and her best friend Zoë are going to summer camp, but Rolo isn't allowed to join them. Isabel is really excited for camp and is disappointed that the camp counselors at Fun in the Sun Camp keep ruining their fun, so Isabel decides to create her own summer camp in the backyard with Rolo.
Caroline Adderson is a writer from Vancouver. Her previous books include Izzy's Tail of Trouble, Babble!, The Sky is Falling, Ellen in Pieces and A Russian Sister. She has published two short story collections, including the 1993 Governor General's Literary Award finalist Bad Imaginings.
Adderson is a three-time winner of the CBC Literary Prizes. She placed third in the CBC Short Story Prize in 1988 with The Hanging Garden of Babylon. She placed third a second time in 1991 with The Chmarnyk and in 2004, she came in second with Falling.
Kelly Collier is a Toronto artist and illustrator. She is the author-illustrator of two picture books, A Horse Named Steve and Team Steve, and the illustrator of Sloth and Squirrel in a Pickle, Izzy in the Doghouse and Izzy's Tail of Trouble.
Cocktail by Lisa Alward
Cocktail is a short story collection that explores some of life's watershed moments and the tiny horrors of domestic life. Beginning in the 1960s and moving forward through the decades, Cocktail tells intimate and immersive stories about the power of desire — and the cost of pursuing it.
Lisa Alward's short fiction has appeared in The Journey Prize Stories 2017, Best Canadian Stories 2017 and Best Canadian Stories 2016. She is the winner of the New Quarterly's 2016 Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award as well as the 2015 Fiddlehead Short Fiction Prize. She lives in Fredericton.
Alward was on the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Orlando 1974 which is included in her book Cocktail. She is also a reader for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize.
The Almost Widow by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
The Almost Widow is a missing-person thriller that follows Piper as someone is following her. When Piper asks her husband, a natural resources officer, to investigate who is cutting down old-growth trees in the rainforest, a storm blows in and he goes missing. Determined to find him, Piper heads out into the forest long after the search teams have called off their hunt. Out there in the woods, she has the sneaking feeling she isn't alone and that whoever is following her, may also know where her husband is.
Gail Anderson-Dargatz is a writer from B.C. Her first novel, The Cure for Death by Lightning, was a finalist for the 1996 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her second novel, A Recipe for Bees, was also a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 1998. Anderson-Dargatz's other books include The Spawning Grounds, Turtle Valley and The Almost Wife.
In 1993, Gail Anderson-Dargatz won the CBC Short Story Prize with The Girl with the Bell Necklace.
Reuniting with Strangers by Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio
Reuniting With Strangers, is a novel-in-stories about how the Filipino-Canadian diaspora experiences family reunification. It follows characters from a caregiver raising her employer's children while missing her own in the Philippines, to an aging musician worried his children have left him behind for new lives in Canada. The nine stories take readers from Montreal to Manila back. Each is somehow connected to Monolith, a non-verbal five-year-old boy.
Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio is a Filipina-Canadian author based in Toronto whose stories appear in the anthologies Changing the Face of Canadian Literature and Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing. She was a finalist for the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Authors Award.
Austria-Bonifacio was longlisted for the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize for Her Life's Work.
Away from the Dead by David Bergen
Away from the Dead is set in early 20th century Ukraine as anarchists, Bolsheviks and the White Army come and go — all claiming justice and freedom. The book follows the lives of Lehn, Sablin and Inna, three Ukranians dealing with the chaos violence around them as the best and worst of humanity are on display. Away from the Dead made the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist.
David Bergen is the author of 11 novels and two collections of stories. His work includes The Time in Between, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, The Matter with Morris and The Age of Hope, which was championed by Ron MacLean on Canada Reads 2013. He currently lives in Winnipeg.
Bergen won the 1999 CBC Short Story Prize for his story How can men share a bottle of vodka.
Places Like These by Lauren Carter
Places Like These is a short story collection that covers the globe — from Ecuador to San Francisco to small-town Ontario or northern Manitoba. From a teenager deadline with the emotional toll of the oncoming climate crisis to a widow searching for her late husband through a spiritual guide or a sexual assault survivor navigating her boundaries and the expectations of her boyfriend's family, each story paints a portrait of a character longing for connection and confronting their demons.
Lauren Carter writes, teaches writing and mentors other writers. She is the author of four books of fiction, including This Has Nothing to Do with You, which won the 2020 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. She has also received the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. Her short story Rhubarb won the Prairie Fire Fiction Award. Her debut novel, Swarm, was longlisted for Canada Reads 2014. She is based in Winnipeg.
In 2017, Carter made the CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Lie Down Within the Night. It was her second time on a CBC Poetry Prize longlist. Before that, she'd made the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Migration (1851-1882). She was also longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2015 for River's Edge.
Lent by Kate Cayley
Lent is built from the tension, exploring domestic and artistic life amidst the environmental crisis and the surprising ways that every philosophical quandary — large and small — converges in the home, in small objects, conversations and moments. This poetry collection is a work of our era, asking us to contemplate what it means to live in a broken world — and why we still find it beautiful.
Kate Cayley is a fiction writer, playwright and poet based in Toronto. She is also the author of the YA novel The Hangman in the Mirror, the poetry collections When This World Comes to an End and Other Houses and the short story collections How You Were Born and Householders.
Cayley made the longlist for the 2016 CBC Short Story Prize for The Fourteenth Birthday and the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Writers' Bedrooms.
The Whole Animal by Corinna Chong
The Whole Animal is a collection of short stories that examines the power, strangeness and attributes of human and animal bodies. Chong exposes themes of loneliness, loss and self-discovery through stories like that of a child fixating on the hair growing out of her mother's eyelid or a linguist's attempts to connect with a boy who cannot speak.
Originally from Calgary, Corinna Chong lives in Kelowna, B.C. and teaches English and fine arts at Okanagan College. She published her first novel Belinda's Rings in 2013. Her short fiction has been published in magazines across Canada, including The Malahat Review, Room, Grain and The Humber Literary Review.
In 2021, Chong won the CBC Short Story Prize for Kids in Kindergarten, which appears in The Whole Animal.
The Clarion by Nina Dunic
Siblings Peter and Stasi are struggling to find their place in the world in the novel The Clarion. Peter is a trumpet player who also works in a kitchen and Stasi is trying to climb the corporate ladder. The Clarion looks at themes of intimacy and performance — and how far one must go to find or lose their sense of self.
Nina Dunic is a freelance writer and journalist living in Scarborough. In 2023, she was named to the CBC Books Writers to Watch list. Her debut novel, The Clarion, was longlisted for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist.
Dunic has been longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize four times: in 2023 for The Artist, in 2022 for Youth, in 2020 for Bodies and in 2019 for an earlier version of Bodies.
Tales for Late Night Bonfires by G.A. Grisenthwaite
In Tales for Late Night Bonfires, writer G.A. Grisenthwaite blends the Indigenous tradition of oral storytelling with his own unique literary style. From tales about an impossible moose hunt to tales about the "Real Santa," Grisenthwaite crafts witty stories — each more uncanny than the last.
Grisenthwaite is Nłeʔkepmx, a member of the Lytton First Nation who currently lives in Kingsville, Ont. His 2020 debut novel Home Waltz was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction.
Grisenthwaite made the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Splatter Pattern.
Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue by Christine Higdon
Set in the 1920s, Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue centres around the lives of four working-class Vancouver sisters still reeling in the wake of the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed their brother. As they barely scrape by, determined to make the most of the Roaring '20s, forbidden love and betrayal abound against the backdrop of the complex political and social realities of the time.
Christine Higdon is an author living in Mimico, Ont. Her novel The Very Marrow of Our Bones won the 2018 Foreword Indies Editor's Choice Prize. Her work has appeared in Plenitude and The New Quarterly.
In 2016, Higdon was shortlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize for Because We're Not at the Ocean and in 2020 she made the CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Courage, My Love.
Life Expectancy by Alison Hughes
In the YA novel Life Expectancy, Sophie St. John discovers a lawsuit that was launched by her parents when she was a baby, which says she has a reduced life expectancy as the result of a serious disease. She also finds out she might be very wealthy. Sophie is suddenly facing a much shorter life than she expected and she is determined to navigate this new world on her own terms.
Alison Hughes is a writer from Edmonton. She has written 20 books for children and young adults, including Fly and Hit the Ground Running, which was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text. Her writing has been shortlisted for the Writers' Union Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers,
Hughes was longlisted for the 2011 CBC Short Story Prize and her story Funhouse Mirrors was shortlisted for the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Pebble & Dove by Amy Jones
Pebble & Dove is the story of Lauren, a woman who is deep in debt and in the midst of a divorce, and her teenager daughter Dove. The two are in Florida, staying at Lauren's late estranged mother's trailer. Lauren is trying to escape her life, while Dove is trying to escape her current circumstances. Dove ends up discovering the abandoned Flamingo Key Aquarium and Tackle, where Pebble, the world's oldest manatee in captivity, still resides. What unfolds is a darkly humorous story of a family falling apart, and coming back together again, thanks in part to an unlikely source of inspiration: Pebble.
Jones is a writer from Nova Scotia who now lives in Hamilton, Ont. Her books include the novels We're All in This Together and Every Little Piece of Me and the short story collection What Boys Like.
Jones won the 2006 CBC Short Story Prize.
A History of Burning by Janika Oza
A History of Burning is an epic novel about how one act of rebellion can influence a family for generations. It's 1898 and a 13-year-old boy in India named Pirbhai needs to make money to support his family, and ends up inadvertently being sent across the ocean to be a labourer for the British. He has a choice to make, and what he does will change the course of his life, and his family's fate, for years to come. The story takes readers to Uganda, India, England and Canada in the wake of Pirbhai's choice as the novel explores the impacts of colonialism, resistance, exile and the power of family.
Janika Oza is a writer, educator and graduate student based in Toronto. She won the 2019 Malahat Review Open Season Award in fiction for her short story Exile, the 2020 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Award and the 2022 O. Henry Award. Her writing is published in a number of journals, including The Columbia Review, Into The Void, Hobart, and Looseleaf Magazine.
Oza made the 2019 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for The Gift of Choice, which is a chapter in A History of Burning. She is also a reader for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize.
Nothing in Truth Can Harm Us by Colleen René
Nothing in Truth Can Harm Us tells the story of three women struggling to repair bonds fractured by a decade-old tragedy. Eva is an 18-year-old who has dropped out of school and is working as a dishwasher in Montreal. Her aunt Maddie has reluctantly been her guardian for the last decade despite the anger she feels towards Eva's mother Gaby — who is an inmate in a women's jail. With Gaby's parole just weeks away, her sole focus is to find her daughter — as all three women try to escape the spectre of Eva's dead father Adam.
Colleen René is a Toronto-based writer originally from Nova Scotia. Her work has appeared in journals across Canada and her short story All That's Left won Dalhousie University's James DeMille Short Story Prize in 2016. Nothing in Truth Can Harm Us is her first novel.
René was on the CBC Short Story Prize longlist in 2022 for Growing Pains.
I Got a Name by Eliza Robertson, with Myles Dolphin
Eliza Robertson reopens the case of Krstal Senyk's murder in the book I Got a Name. When Senyk stepped up to help her best friend leave an abusive husband, Senyk became the outlet for the husband's rage. Ronald Bax terrorized and threatened Senyk for months, until one day, she was shot and killed at her home in the Yukon and Bax was nowhere to be found. Robertson pieces together Senyk's story and examines gender-based violence and the failings of law enforcement.
Robertson is the author of the novel Demi-Gods, which won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Her first story collection, Wallflowers, was shortlisted for the East Anglia Book Award and selected as a New York Times Editor's Choice. She lives in Montreal.
In 2013, Robertson was shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize for her story L'Étranger.
The Cobra and the Key by Sam Shelstad
The Cobra and the Key is a satirical novel centered around the life of a writer named Sam Shelstad who is busy at work on a book about his failed relationship, while he awaits word from a publisher about the manuscript he's sure will make him a star. He's also got another project in the works: a how to book for aspiring fiction writers detailing the finer points of the craft.
Sam Shelstad is a writer currently based in Toronto. He was a runner-up for the Thomas Morton Memorial Prize. He has previously published a short story collection called Cop House. His debut novel was Citizens of Light.
Shelstad was longlisted for the 2014 CBC Short Story Prize for Frank.
The Book of Rain by Thomas Wharton
The Book of Rain is a science fiction novel set in a world where ghost ore, a new minable energy source much more lucrative than gold can disrupt time and space and slowly make an environment inhospitable. In one of three ghost ore hotspots in the world, the mining town of River Meadows, residents have been evacuated, except Amery Hewitt can't seem to stay away. The former resident frequently returns to River Meadows to save the animals still living in the contaminated zone. When Amery goes on another dangerous trip and doesn't return, her game designer brother, Alex, enlists the help of his mathematician friend to help get her back. All they need to do is break the laws of physics. Amery's story is one plot line of three in this mind-bending epic by Wharton.
Alberta-based author Thomas Wharton has written several books, including his first novel, Icefields, which won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in Canada and the Caribbean. Icefields was a finalist for Canada Reads 2008, when it was defended by Steve MacLean. His novel Salamander, was shortlisted for the 2001 Governor General's Award for fiction and was also a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize the same year.
Wharton was on the longlist for the 2013 CBC Short Story Prize for Sleight of Hand.
