Stubborn Knots by Ari Asho
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Ari Asho has made the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Stubborn Knots.
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 You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1.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 Ari Asho
Ari Asho is a writer in Montreal. They are currently working on a collection of short stories and a novella. Asho's story Compliments to Change the Way You Feel About Me was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2023.
Entry in five-ish words
"Love-sick weekend in the forest."
The short story's source of inspiration
"This story actually began as a Valentine's day gift for a long-ago partner. Re-visiting that original story nearly a decade later, what stood out was the contrast between a repetitive, obsessive attachment to a remote and unreachable love interest, and the tangible, grounded attachment to place, and nature and friendship. This iteration kept those themes, though I changed almost everything else."
First lines
Tomorrow is Valentine's day and tonight you're making bitter pumpkin soup and drinking lingonberry wine and Tal is reading tarot cards. You're all in a cabin in the forest for the weekend: you and Tal, Junie, Ann and Morgan. You choose to ask the deck about the man you're in love with, but the result isn't good. It's the King of Swords, reversed. The card foretells a lack of power, an unpredictability; a need to be wary of deep volatility; of aggression leading to cruelty, to outright chaos. "Can we do it again?" you ask, hoping for a different answer. This time, it's the Devil.
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:
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