CBC BOOKS, CBC’s online home for literary content, together with its partners the Canada Council for the Arts and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, have announced the finalists for the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize.
The finalists are:
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Kids in Kindergarten by Corinna Chong (Kelowna, B.C.)
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Deville at Home by Brooks McMullin (Prince Albert, Sask.)
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Stump by Miranda Morris (Hamilton)
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Leaving Moonbeam by Ben Pitfield (Toronto)
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Her First Palestinian by Saeed Teebi (Toronto)
The short stories were selected from nearly 3000 entries received from across Canada. The public can read the shortlisted stories on CBCBooks.ca. The winner of this year’s prize will be announced on Thursday, April 29.
The 2021 CBC Short Story jurors are Souvankham Thammavongsa, Craig Davidson and Lee Maracle.
Souvankham Thammavongsa’s debut book of fiction, How to Pronounce Knife, won the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The title story was a finalist for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She is also the author of four poetry books: Light, winner of the Trillium Book Award for Poetry; Found; Small Arguments, winner of the ReLit Award; and, most recently, Cluster. Born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand, Thommavongsa was raised and educated in Toronto, where she is at work on her first novel. CBC Books named Thammavongsa a 2020 writer to watch.
Craig Davidson has published several books of literary fiction including Cataract City, which was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2013, Rust and Bone, which was made into an Oscar-nominated feature film of the same name, The Fighter and The Saturday Night Ghost Club. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He also writes horror novels under the name Nick Cutter. Davidson’s memoir Precious Cargo was defended by Greg Johnson on Canada Reads 2018.
Lee Maracle published her first book in 1975. It was an autobiographical novel called Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel and it was one of the first Indigenous works published in Canada. Since then, Maracle has written award-winning and critically acclaimed books in almost every genre. She’s also a teacher, a lifelong political activist and an expert on First Nations culture and history. Her books include I Am Woman, My Conversations with Canadians, Celia’s Song and Ravensong. Maracle was named to the Order of Canada in 2018.
In addition to a cash prize of $6000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Grand Prize winner will receive a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and will be published on the CBC Books website. The four other finalists will each receive $1000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and will be published on CBC Books.
For more information on the CBC Literary Prizes, please visit CBCBooks.ca.
