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From nearly 3,000 submissions, 30 writers from across Canada have made the 2026 CBC Short Story Prize longlist.
The complete list is:
- YSL Classes by Oluwatoke Adejoye (Burnaby, B.C.)
- Things I Know for Sure by Katrina Agbayani (Toronto)
- Pattern Recognition by Amber Allen (Guelph, Ont.)
- Big Plane, Small Plane by Jeremy Audet (Montreal)
- Not Too Hard, Not Too Easy by Anne Baldo (Windsor, Ont.)
- Dog Song by Elizabeth Ball (Montreal)
- Anniversary by Kate Cayley (Toronto)
- My Mother, Margaret, and the Man Who Irons His Jeans by Lorna Crozier (North Saanich, B.C.)
- Hard Neck by Carmella Gray-Cosgrove (Vancouver)
- nindikwewimin: we are women by Dawnis Kennedy (Winnipeg)
- The Dermis by Robin Koczerginski (Toronto)
- A Season of Crows by Larah Luna (Vancouver)
- How to Break Up with a Monster by Carrie Mac (Vancouver)
- The Ball Game by Adam McPhee (Fort McMurray, Alta.)
- Tamago by Lindsay Naito (North Vancouver, B.C.)
- Red House by Nolan Natasha (Halifax)
- Graveyard Shift by Brett Nelson (Vancouver)
- Minuet or Maqsum by Farangis Nurulla-Khoja (Montreal)
- A Second Storey by Barbara Parkin (Vancouver)
- In Whose Name by Earle Peach (Vancouver)
- The Quiet Profession of Being Mrs. Khan by Zinnia J. Qureshi (Mississauga, Ont.)
- Highway 11 by Nicholas Ruddock (Guelph, Ont.)
- Barometer by Sally Rudolf (Vancouver)
- Low Water by Andy Stefan (Ottawa)
- Do No Harm by Kelly S. Thompson (New Hartford, NY)
- Vivian by Maureen Anne Tucker (London, Ont.)
- Found Piece by Kasia Juno Van Schaik (Fredericton)
- Bloom by Marcia Walker (Montreal)
- A Public Space by J. T. Wickham (Montreal)
- Dryfire by D. W. Wilson (Montreal)
Submissions are processed by a two-tiered system: the initial texts are screened by a reading committee chosen from a group of qualified editors and writers across the country. Each submission is read by two readers.
The readers come up with a preliminary list of approximately 100 submissions that are then forwarded to a second reading committee. It is this committee who will decide upon the approximately 30 entries that comprise the longlist that is forwarded to the jury.
Works are judged anonymously on the basis of the participant’s use of language, originality of subject and writing style.
The jury selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the readers’ longlisted selections. This year’s jury is composed of Maria Reva, Terry Fallis and Tracey Lindberg.
The shortlist will be announced on April 30 and the winner will be announced on May 7.
The winner of the 2026 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 have their work published on CBC Books.
Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and also have their work published on CBC Books.
Last year’s winner was Dorian McNamara for his story You (Streetcar at Night).
The longlist for the French-language competition has also been revealed. To read more, go to the Prix de la nouvelle Radio-Canada.
If you’re interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2026 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until June 1. The 2027 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2027 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January.
