Meet the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize readers
Every year, the CBC Literary Prizes enlists the help of established writers and editors from across the country to help us discover some of Canada's greatest writers.
Our readers compile the longlist, which is given to the jury. The jury then selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the longlisted selections. This year's CBC Short Story Prize winner will be announced on April 17, 2018. The jury for the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize is comprised of Eden Robinson, Kevin Hardcastle and Heather O'Neill.
The winner of the CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, attend a 10-day writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their story published on CBC Books. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and will have their story published on CBC Books.
If you are interested in entering the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize is now open.
Here are the 10 writers who served as readers for the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize.
Nathan Adler
Nathan Adler is a writer and an artist who works in many different mediums, including audio, video, film, drawing, painting and glass. He is the author of Wrist, an Indigenous monster story. He is working on a second novel and a collection of short stories. He is a member of Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation and currently resides in Mono, Ont.
Sharon Bala
Sharon Bala's bestselling debut novel, The Boat People, was a finalist for Canada Reads 2018. She won the 2017 Writers' Trust/ McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her short story Butter Tea at Starbucks and had a second story on the longlist. Sharon is a member of The Port Authority, a St. John's, N.L., writing group. Her short fiction has been published in The Journey Prize 29, Hazlitt, Grain, PRISM international, The Dalhousie Review, The New Quarterly, The Newfoundland Quarterly Online, Room, Riddle Fence and in an anthology called Racket: New Writing Made in Newfoundland.
Kate Cayley
Kate Cayley's first collection of short fiction, How You Were Born, won the 2015 Trillium Book Award and was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction. She has published two collections of poetry, When This World Comes to an End and Other Houses. She was a playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre from 2009-2017, and wrote two plays for Tarragon, After Akhmatova and The Bakelite Masterpiece, which had its American premiere in 2016 and a third production at the New Repertory Theatre in Boston this spring. She is working on her first novel.
Francine Cunningham
Francine Cunningham is a Canadian Indigenous writer, artist and educator. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in The Malahat Review, the anthology Boobs: Women Explore What It Means to Have Breasts and The Best Canadian Essays 2017, among others. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in The Puritan, Joyland, Echolocation, The Maynard and more. She is a graduate of the UBC MFA program for creative writing, a recent winner of The Hnatyshyn Foundation's REVEAL Indigenous Art Award and a recipient of the 2017 Telus STORYHIVE web series grant.
Dave Margoshes
Dave Margoshes writes short and long fiction and poetry on a farm west of Saskatoon. He has published seven collections of short stories, including Bix's Trumpet and Other Stories, which was book of the year at the 2007 Saskatchewan Book Awards and a ReLit Award finalist, and A Book of Great Worth which was named one of Amazon's top hundred books for 2012. He has appeared six times in Best Canadian Stories and been a Journey Prize finalist.
Craig Francis Power
Craig Francis Power is an artist and writer from St. John's, N.L. His first novel, Blood Relatives, won the Percy Janes First Novel Award, the Fresh Fish Award for Emerging Writers, the ReLit Award, and was shortlisted for the BMO Winterset Award. His visual art has been shown at galleries across Canada. In 2008, he was nominated for the Sobey Art Award, which recognizes the work of Canadian artists under the age of 40.
Alison Preston
Alison Preston was born and raised in Winnipeg. After trying out Calgary, Alta., London, Ont., and Vancouver, B.C. she returned to her hometown, where she currently resides. She is a graduate of the University of Winnipeg and was a letter carrier for 28 years. Preston has written seven novels. Her books have been shortlisted many times over the years for various Manitoba Book Awards. Her sixth book, The Girl in the Wall, won the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction in 2012.
Alejandro Saravia
Canadian-Bolivian Alejandro Saravia has lived in Quebec since 1986. His publications include the novel Red, Yellow, Green and the poetry collections Lettres de Nootka, Jaguar con corazón en la mano and L'homme polyphonique. His work has appeared in magazines and anthologies in Canada, Mexico and the United States. He is the director of the Hispanic-Canadian literary magazine Apostles Review in Montreal. He's currently preparing a volume of poetry titled Respiration de l'île.
Kaie Kellough
Kaie Kellough is a novelist, sound performer and poet. He was named one CBC Books' 17 writers to watch in 2017. His debut novel Accordéon was shortlisted for the 2017 Amazon.ca First Novel Award. He is currently near the equator working on new and old ideas.
Tanya Roach
Tanya Roach is Inuk and Scottish with roots in Nunavut and Nova Scotia. As a child she and her family travelled a lot. This influence inspired her to explore how people find purpose and community on the winding path. Her work can be found in Up Here magazine and Write magazine. She lives in the Northwest Territories where she writes nonfiction and continues the practice of traditional Inuit throat singing.