Real is Love by Michelle Sinclair

Michelle Sinclair has made the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Real is Love. 

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. 

• 32 writers from across Canada make 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist

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 You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1.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 Michelle Sinclair 

Michelle Sinclair worked as a human and labour rights policy analyst for many years. Her fiction and reviews have been published in The Antigonish Review, CRAFT Literary and The Literary Review of Canada. Her first novel, Almost Visible, received The Miramichi Reader's 2022 best books award for fiction and was translated to Arabic in 2025 by Al Arabi publishing. She lives in Ottawa with her spouse and three children, and is working on a second novel. 

Entry in five-ish words

"What if death isn't forever?" 

The short story's source of inspiration

"The five-word summary above paraphrases a line in Anne Michaels's novel, Held: 'We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?' Popular writing advice invites us to consider what we love or what we fear. I love thinking about the wonder and mystery of our lives — philosophical questions for which we'll likely never have answers. However, I fear our digital behaviour continues to transform our habits and our social, emotional and political lives. What if we tried to get the better of death, or the mystery around it, by 'doing away' with grief?

The story was inspired by concern over our online footprints and the concept of  'digital ghosts' — how a person's online content can remain, even after they have passed on. When I began writing the story, I hadn't yet heard about generative technologies being used on the voices of deceased persons, or how data can be used to simulate someone's personality, but what I thought was fiction may slowly become reality." 

First lines

In the bar's dim, uneven lights, Alex's forehead takes on an orange hue. Voices simmer at a low volume and the music is just right — a steady, slow percussion with a haunting yet hopeful melody. Soft colours but enough wood to feel manly. Alex and I shared a bottle of Zinfandel while we ate, and now we're each enjoying a pint. He said I'd need a beer for what he wanted to tell me. 

He'd been miserable for so long, after what happened to Clem. She'd lured him to the light — smitten as she was with the wonder of reality — and just as quickly she was gone. I wanted to help him during the interminable winter, the empty bottles, the mountains of dirty snow, but Alex's apartment was a particularly cold and lonely place. The old floorboards groaned with resentment, the stale air smelled like peanuts and sadness. 

I only visited once.

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)