Books by past CBC Short Story Prize winners and finalists published in 2025

Being a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize can jumpstart your literary career.

Need proof? Here are books that were written by former CBC Short Story Prize winners and finalists that are being published this year.

The 2026 CBC Short Story Prize is open for submissions until Nov. 1, 2025 at 4:59 p.m. ET.

You can submit original, unpublished fiction that is up to 2,500 words in length.

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.

A Pond, A Poet, and Three Pests by Caroline Adderson, illustrated by Lauren Tamaki

Caroline Adderson’s latest children’s book is inspired by one of Japan’s most famous kaikus, The Old Pond. In A Pond, A Poet, and Three Pests we follow the poet who stops next to an old pond and encounters, not just the infamous frog from the haiku, but also three pests: a mosquito, a lily and a carp.

A Pond, A Poet, and Three Pests is for ages 3-6.

Adderson is the Vancouver-based author of five novels, including The Sky is Falling, Ellen in Pieces and A Russian Sister. She has also published two short story collections, including the 1993 Governor General’s Literary Award finalist Bad Imaginings. Her most recent short story collection is A Way to Be Happy. Adderson’s awards include three B.C. Book Prizes, a National Magazine Award Gold Medal for Fiction. She has received the 2006 Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement.

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.

Lauren Tamaki is a designer and illustrator. Her book with Elizabeth Partridge, Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration received a Sibert Informational Book Medal. She splits her time between New York City and Toronto

What If Marty Doesn’t Like My Party? by Katie Arthur

As Henry’s birthday party approaches, he’s thrilled that the coolest kid in class, Marty, is coming — but anxiety takes over. What if she doesn’t like his dog, his apartment or his grandma’s cake? From the top bunk, his big sister Sam reassures him by flipping his worries into positive possibilities. When Henry asks how she knows things will go well, Sam wisely reminds him that he doesn’t know they won’t. Told in a warm graphic novel format, What if Marty Doesn’t Like My Party? is a heartwarming story celebrating sibling support and offering a gentle approach to managing anxiety.

What if Marty Doesn’t Like My Party? is for ages 5-8. 

Katie Arthur is an illustrator and author from Nova Scotia. She earned an MA in English Literature from Concordia University in 2011 and previously worked in advertising. Arthur was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize for two consecutive years, in 2015 and 2016. She is also the author of Our Woolly Bear.

The Longest Night by Lauren Carter

In The Longest Night, Ash Hayes is locked out of her family home in Minnesota on a cold December night. Looking for shelter, she heads to her neighbours whom she’s never met. The next morning she discovers that their house is completely void of modern technology and all its windows are blocked. Ash will have to figure a way to alter her past in order to reconnect with her future.

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 2015, Carter longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2015 for River’s Edge. She also made the 2017 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). 

Property by Kate Cayley

As neighbours grapple with their to-do lists, the challenges of parenthood and hosting a small dinner party, Property recounts the seemingly inconsequential events of one spring day in a gentrified neighbourhood. But by the end of the day, someone has died — a tragedy that marks the area forever. 

Kate Cayley is the author of the short story collections How You Were Born and Householders, three poetry collections and multiple plays. Her books have won the Trillium Book Award and the Mitchell Prize for Poetry and her work has been published in Best Canadian Poetry, Best Canadian Stories, Brick and The New Quarterly. She lives in Toronto. Cayley made the longlist for the 2016 CBC Short Story Prize and the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize longlist.

Still by Joanna Cockerline

In Still, Kayla lives and works on the streets of Kelowna, B.C. As she searches for her friend Little Zoe, a sex worker, who is missing, she revisits the haunting truths of her past. When Kayla befriends an outreach volunteer with her own struggles, they take photos together, realizing that everything is not always as it appears.

In a story of community, friendship and resilience, Still spotlights a vibrant and unhoused community and explores what it means to find home in others and oneself. Still is on the longlist for the 2025 Giller Prize.

Joanna Cockerline is an author from Kelowna. She won second place in the CBC Short Story in 2002 and her work has been published in Room, The Fiddlehead and En Route.

She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2022 and co-authored the short story collection Seeing Our Sisters with Munira Hussein, Rehema Zuberi, Hellen Mwololo, Ellah Hallets and Jacque Nzioka.

Suddenly Light by Nina Dunic

With striking realism, the collection Suddenly Light brings together 15 short stories that explore the joys and challenges of life and the threads that tie us together.

Nina Dunic is an Ontario writer of the novel The Clarion, which won the Trillium Book Award and was on the 2023 Giller Prize longlist. She has been longlisted four times for the CBC Short Story Prize: in 2023 for The Artist, in 2022 for Youth, in 2020 for Bodies and in 2019 for an earlier version of Bodies. 

She’s a Lamb! by Meredith Hambrock 

Jessamyn St. Germain is convinced that she’s destined to be a big star. While others might see her dreams as delusional, She’s a Lamb! follows Jessamyn’s relentless quest — revealing the oppressive weight of patriarchy and the depths she will sink to, for a chance to make her dreams a reality. 

Meredith Hambrock is a novelist and television writer from Saskatoon. Her story You Should Go Over There was longlisted for the 2016 CBC Short Story Prize. She is also the author of the novel Other People’s Secrets. 

More or Less by Alison Hughes, illustrated by Oge Mora

In More or Less, a picture book that celebrates how less can be more — a young boy inspires his family and friends to donate items, to live sustainably and to get rid of their clutter. The community then comes together for a swap party. 

More or Less is for ages 4 to 8.

Alison Hughes is a writer from Edmonton. She has written over 20 books for children and young adults, including Fly, Life Expectancy, What Inspires 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, longlisted for the 2011 CBC Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

Oge Mora has written and illustrated numerous books for children. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island. 

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 and finds herself caught up in the military coup during the 1983 Grenada revolution and is placed under house arrest. What unfolds next is a saga that spans decades and reflects on race, love, belonging and revolution.

Zilla Jones is a Winnipeg author and has been a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize on four occasions, and the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2024. She’s also 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.

Tunes for Dancing Bears by Irena Karafilly

In September 1991 Montreal, Lydia has just given birth to a stillborn child. She and her husband’s relationship and marriage come under intense scrutiny from the Greek community who feels that Lydia has failed her husband. Tunes for Dancing Bears explores the complexities of grief and challenges of being an immigrant woman.

Irena Karafilly is an award-winning writer based in Montreal. She is the author of many stories, poems, and articles, including the novels Arrested Song and House on Selkirk Avenue and her work has been featured in The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. Her short stories have earned Canada’s National Magazine Award, and her story Hoodlums won the CBC Short Story Prize in 1990. 

Cattail Lane by Fran Kimmel

When Nick Ackerman gets a note from a stranger, everything in his life changes. Nick learns he has a 14-year-old son, Billy, whose grandma can’t look after him anymore. Now, Nick has to take care of Billy and Billy can’t seem to let go of his responsibilities towards his grandma so they move to Prairie View Manor and meet Sarah, a housekeeper at the dementia ward who is also a single mother of an energetic five-year-old. Cattail Lane is a story of forgiveness, second chances and found family.

Fran Kimmel is the author of numerous short stories, theater and radio plays and the novels No Good Asking and The Shore Girl. She lives in Lacombe, Alta., and was born and raised in Calgary. Kimmel was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2009.

Wild Life by Amanda Leduc

In Wild Life, Josiah is banished to work as a missionary in Siberia to rid him of his belief that animals have a divine power. When a natural disaster kills the other missionaries there, Josiah is saved by two talking hyenas and brought home to Scotland safely.

He starts a religion based on the notion that God allowed these hyenas to speak because of his own fervent faith and as part of a plan to fix humanity. As he gains more followers, more animals begin to talk to humans and a mass exodus of captive animals causes everyone to reckon with their own wildness.

Amanda Leduc is the author of the novels The Miracles of Ordinary Men and The Centaur’s Wife, and the nonfiction book Disfigured, which was shortlisted for the 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction. She was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2014 and 2019, as well as the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2014. She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ont.

How to Share an Egg by Bonny Reichert 

When Toronto-based journalist Bonny Reichert turned 40, she quit her job and enrolled in culinary school — a life-changing decision that pushed her to explore her relationship with food in writing. This exploration, along with a critical bowl of borscht in Warsaw, led Reichert to writing the memoir, How to Share an Egg, which dives into how food shapes her history as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and shares her dad’s story of survival.

Bonny Reichert is a journalist and chef based in Toronto. She was formerly an editor at Today’s Parent and Chatelaine and has written for The Globe and Mail. She won a National Magazine Award and was on the longlist for the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize. She teaches writing at the University of Toronto. 

Planet Earth: Stories by Nicholas Ruddock

Planet Earth is a collection of short stories and novellas that explores themes of love and passion with a specific awareness of humans’ carelessness in burning up the world in fresh and unexpected ways. The provocative and contemplative stories are humorous, quick-witted, paradoxically positive with a fondness for humans and their failings.

When you can read it: Nov. 4

Nicholas Ruddock is a physician and writer who has worked in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Yukon and Ontario. He has had novels, short stories, poetry published since 2002 in Canada, U.K., Ireland and Germany. He is the author of the 2021 novel Last Hummingbird of West Chile.

Ruddock has been a finalist for each of the CBC Literary Prizes. He made the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Storm as well as the 2016 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for The Hummingbirds. Most recently, Ruddock was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize for his story, Marriage.

Your War, Our Lives by Mina Sharif

Blending storytelling with original illustrations, Your War, Our Lives offers a vivid look at everyday life in Afghanistan. Through a range of fictional Afghan voices, Mina Sharif writes short stories shaped by her years living in Afghanistan and a lifetime in the diaspora.

Sharif lives in Scarborough, Ont., where she advocates for the rights of Afghan people. Her essays and commentary have appeared in various publications including Al Jazeera, Teen Vogue and Femina Magazine. She was shortlisted for the Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award in 2023 and was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize with her story The Green Guest House which is included in Your War, Our Lives.

Where the Jasmine Blooms by Zeina Sleiman

In Where the Jasmine Blooms, Yasmine returns to Lebanon to escape a messy divorce and reconnect with her cultural roots, having been raised in Toronto. During her visit, she reunites with an old lover and uncovers long-hidden political secrets within her family, all while grappling with the effects of grief, displacement and war.

Zeina Sleiman is an Edmonton-based Palestinian Canadian writer and educator. With over a decade of experience in post-secondary education, she has contributed to research focused on creating barrier-free communities. Sleiman, a former mentee in the Writers’ Union of Canada’s BIPOC Connect Program, was awarded the 2024 Silk Road Creative Arts Grant. Where the Jasmine Blooms is her debut novel. Sleiman is a finalist for the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize for her story My Father’s Soil.

A Friend to Words by Damian Tarnopolsky

In the chapbook A Friend to Words, Charles is a member of the Worst Writing Group in the World and wants to write the great book that will answer all our questions. What will he achieve? Damian Tarnopolsky’s comic story is a retelling of Nakajima Atsushi’s The Expert.

Damian Tarnopolsky is a Toronto-based writer, editor and teacher. His novel Goya’s Dog was shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book (Canada/Caribbean). His short fiction has appeared in The Puritan, The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, subTerrain and Audeamus. Tarnopolsky has twice been nominated for the Journey Prize.

In 2007, his story You Guys, featured in Every Night I Dream I’m a Monk, Every Night I Dream I’m a Monster, was shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize. 

You Will Not Kill Our Imagination by Saeed Teebi

You Will Not Kill Our Imagination explores what it means to be Palestinian today, while they endure relentless assault not only on their homeland but on their very identity. The book delivers a scathing indictment of global complicity in the face of violence and offers a powerful reflection on art and imagination as tools of defiance and survival.

Saeed Teebi is a Toronto-based writer and lawyer, born in Kuwait. His debut short story collection Her First Palestinian was a finalist for a number of awards, including the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Prize. The titular story was shortlisted for the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize. Teebi’s work has also been featured in The Globe and Mail and The New Quarterly, among others. 

Most Grievous Fault by Meg Todd

Crystal Constantine is a single parent who cannot see beyond the piles of bills, the weight of her past and the relentless needs of her teenage daughter Becky, who is suspected of having fetal alcohol syndrome. Most Grievous Fault is a story of a young mother desperate to deny her complicity in intergenerational trauma.

Meg Todd grew up in Alberta and now lives on Vancouver Island. Her debut short story collection, Exit Strategies, was a finalist for both the ReLit Award and the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. She studied Eastern Religious Studies at the University of Calgary and creative writing at the University of British Columbia. 

Todd has been on the shortlist for the CBC Short Story Prize twice: in 2017 with Warrior and in 2019 with Green is the Colour of Calm. She also made the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize longlist.

I Am Aani LittleCrab by Julia VanDyke, illustrated by Twana MacArthur

Julia Jenkins, who writes under the pen name Julia VanDyke turned her CBC Short Story Prize shortlisted story into a children’s book of the same title. I Am Aani LittleCrab takes place in a village on the northwest coast and follows a young girl who is seriously injured after falling into a fire pit. She uses sticks fitted with deerskin gloves to move around after her injury, hence her nickname “LittleCrab.”

Jenkins is a writer and retired business woman who lives on Vancouver Island. She credits her schooling at Qualicum and the University of Victoria with shaping her creative writing.

Jenkins was on the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize shortlist for I Am Aani LittleCrab.

Twana MacArthur is a metis artist based on Vancouver Island.

Shelter in Text by Myra Bloom and Kasia Van Schaik 

Shelter in Text is a collection of academic essays and creative nonfiction that explores the relationship between shelter and narrative. It looks at issues of care, disability and housing inequality, and considers decolonial perspectives on land and space.  

Myra Bloom is an associate professor of English at York University’s Glendon campus. Her work has been featured in a number of academic journals and magazines.

Kasia Van Schaik is an assistant professor of English and creative writing and co-director of the creative writing program at the University of New Brunswick. Her other books include We Have Never Lived on Earth, which was nominated for the 2023 Giller Prize, the Concordia University First Book Prize and the ReLit Prize for short fiction. It was also named one of the best books of 2023 by the Miramichi Reader. 

Ladder to Heaven by Katie Welch

In 2045 an earthquake ravages the Pacific Coast of North America and the world shifts. Suddenly people and animals can understand each other in Ladder to Heaven. Del Samara finds her life spiralling out of control and decides to leave everything and everyone behind to disappear to a fishing cabin. When she emerges three years later, she begins a dangerous journey to Vancouver Island and finds that the world has become a very different place.

When you can read it: Oct. 14

Katie Welch writes fiction and teaches music in Kamloops, B.C. She grew up in Ottawa and holds a BA in English literature from the University of Toronto. Her debut novel, Mad Honey, is a 2023 OLA Evergreen Prize nominee. She was first runner-up in UBCO’s 2019 Short Story Contest. Ladder to Heaven is her second novel.

Welch’s story Bird Emergent was a finalist for the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize.  

Wolf, Moon, Dog by Thomas Wharton

When Wolf is left out of his pack, he is drawn to the strange animals that walk on two legs, humans. In exchange for food, he protects them through the night, and they realize that they’re not all that different after all. Wolf, Moon, Dog spans cultures, space and time to show the emotions and many iterations of the relationship between humans and dogs. 

Thomas Wharton is the author of The Book of Rain, which was shortlisted for the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; Icefields, which was a finalist for Canada Reads 2008, and Salamander, which was shortlisted for the 2001 Governor General’s Award for fiction and was also a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. He is based in Alberta. Wharton was on the longlist for the 2013 CBC Short Story Prize.

Welcome to the Neighbourhood by Clea Young

Welcome to the Neighbourhood is a short story collection distinctly rooted in the Pacific Northwest. The characters within these stories are women and girls who live in the mountains and neighbourhoods in and around Vancouver — these are characters who seek connection and an escape from isolation. The stories feature themes of love, loss, fear and survival.

Clea Young is a writer based in B.C. Her writing has been featured in publications such as the 2025 Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories, where her stories have been included three times and been shortlisted for the award twice. Her debut story collection, Teardown, was published in 2016. She made the 2012 CBC Short Story Prize shortlist and the 2019 CBC Short Story Prize longlist.