Latest news with #2025CBCNonfictionPrize
CBC
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Books by past CBC Nonfiction Prize finalists being published in 2025
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 You can submit original, unpublished nonfiction that is up to 2,000 words in length.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. Blockade 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: Feb. 28, 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. 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 After listening to a violinist practice his music, poet Roger Greenwald asked himself: "Could words 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.
CBC
11-02-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Meet the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize readers
Every year, CBC Books enlists the help of established writers and editors from across Canada to read the thousands of entries submitted to our prizes. Our readers compile the longlist, which is given to the jury. The jury, comprised of Zoe Whittall, Danny Ramadan and Helen Knott, will then select the shortlist and the eventual winner from the longlisted selections. You can meet the readers for the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize below. The 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize is currently accepting submissions until March 1, 2025. The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have the opportunity to attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their work published on CBC Books. Here are the writers who will be reading the submissions to the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize. Sadiya Ansari Sadiya Ansari is a Pakistani Canadian journalist whose work has been featured in the Guardian, VICE, Refinery29, Maclean's, The Walrus and the Globe and Mail. She co-founded the Canadian Journalists of Colour. She is currently based in London, U.K. In this personal account, investigative journalist Sadiya Ansari looks for answers surrounding a family secret. In In Exile: Rupture, Reunion and my Grandmother's Secret Life, she strives to understand why her grandmother left her seven children to follow a man from Karachi to Punjab — and what she did for the 20 years after she eventually left him. In Exile examines cultural expectations, child marriage and what it means to be a woman who doesn't follow what's set out for her. Sean Carleton Sean Carleton is a historian and associate professor in Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba. His research looks at the history and political economy of schooling and settler colonialism in Canada. He also contributed to When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance with Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel which was on the longlist for Canada Reads 2025. Lessons in Legitimacy: Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Rise of State Schooling in British Columbia is a book that looks at how the B.C. government created school systems — including Indian residential schools, Indian day schools and public schools for white students — to reinforce systemic racism, inequality and white supremacy. The book explores how better understanding this part of history, which ran from 1849 to 1930, can better inform attempts at reconciliation in education, policy and public awareness today. Justin Giovannetti Lamothe Justin Giovannetti Lamothe is a Montreal-based journalist who has covered major events such as the Lac-Mégantic rail explosion and the Fort McMurray wildfires. He was born in rural Quebec and has lived in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. In Poutine: A Deep-Fried Road Trip of Discovery, journalist Justin Giovannetti Lamothe writes about the odd, winding origins of the closest thing Canada has to a national dish. Through his research, he learns more about Canadian history and draws closer to the Québécois heritage he used to drift away from. Adrienne Gruber Adrienne Gruber is a poet and essayist originally from Saskatoon. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Q & A, and five chapbooks. She placed third in Event's creative nonfiction contest in 2020 and was the runner up in SubTerrain's creative nonfiction contest in 2023. Gruber was on the longlist for the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize. She was also longlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize and for the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize. In Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes: Essays on Motherhood, Gruber explores the theme of motherhood through a collection of essays. It celebrates bodies, maternal bonds, beauty, but also the uglier side of parenthood, the chaos and even how close we are to death at any given moment. Joseph Kakwinokanasum Joseph Kakwinokanasum is a member of James Smith Cree Nation and a writer based in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. He was one of five writers named as a 2022 Writers' Trust of Canada Rising Star and was also published in the anthology Resonance: Essays on the Craft and Life of Writing in early 2022. Kakwinokanasum's story Ray Says was a finalist for the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize. In 2023, he won the PMC Indigenous Literature Award in the young adult/adult category and in 2024, he was selected as the Indigenous Storyteller in Residence at Vancouver Public Library as well as the Writers' Trust fiction mentor. My Indian Summer is a novel about reconciliation, survival and identity set during the summer of 1979. When his mother returns home only to collect the last two months' welfare cheques, Hunter Frank is left behind in Red Rock with his two siblings to fend for themselves. The siblings become involved in an adventure involving a trio of elders and a stash of cash hidden in 12-year-old Hunter's mattress. The coming-of-age story is based loosely on Kakwinokanasum's childhood, exploring intergenerational trauma and the understanding that some villains are also victims. My Indian Summer is Kakwinokanasum's debut novel. Perry King Perry King is a Toronto journalist, communications officer and author. His writing focuses on themes of sports, community, culture and education. His work can be seen in Spacing Magazine, Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. examines the ties between sports, community, environment and the transformative power of urban communities whose residents are physically active and socially connected. Amy Lin Amy Lin is a Calgary-based writer whose work has been published in Ploughshares. She has also received residencies from Yaddo and Casa Comala. Here After is her first book. Here After tells the powerful love story between Lin and her husband Kurtis and how she copes with his sudden death. Lin shares how this loss upended her ideas of grief, strength and memory. Here After was shortlisted for the 2024 Hilary Weston Prize for Nonfiction. Lori McKay Lori McKay is a journalist, editor and writer based in Dartmouth, N.S. She was a newspaper and magazine editor for over 20 years and Searching for Mayflowers: The True Story of Canada's First Quintuplets is her first book. Searching For Mayflowers tells the story of McKay's mission to understand the real story surrounding Canada's first documented quintuplets. In 1880, Little Egypt, N.S., Maria Murray gave birth to five children. Unfortunately, all five died within days of being born but their existence made headlines locally and across the border causing the Murrays to bury the babies in a secret location. When McKay discovers that her great-great-grandmother delivered the babies, she embarks on a quest to find out what happened. Jared Tailfeathers Jared Tailfeathers is an Indigenous multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the art, history and future of the Blackfoot and other Treaty 7 Nations. 14 Canadian books to help motivate and inspire you in 2025 The Art of Making: Rediscovering the Blackfoot Legacy follows Tailfeathers' land-based journey to explore and understand his cultural and historical identity as a Blackfoot man. It goes into detail about the evolution of the Blackfoot Confederacy and all that came after it. Josie Teed Josie Teed is a writer from Pelham, Ont. Her work has been published in Bad Nudes Magazine and Graphite Publications. Her memoir British Columbiana was a finalist for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction in 2024. She lives in Montreal. In British Columbiana, Teed recounts when after graduation, she accepted a position at a remote heritage site in British Columbia showcasing the 19th-century gold rush. Living in a nearby village with a population of 250 and no cell reception, Teed questions her future and tries to find connection and purpose while living in a place frozen in time.
