Eyeball Tacos by Jessica Wegmann-Sanchez

Jessica Wegmann-Sanchez has made the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Eyeball Tacos.

The winner of the 2024 CBC Nonfiction 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. 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 Sept. 19 and the winner will be announced on Sept. 26.

If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize is open for submissions until Nov. 1. The 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January and the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April.

• The 2025 CBC Short Story Prize is currently accepting submissions

About Jessica Wegmann-Sanchez

Jessica Wegmann-Sanchez has a PhD in English, taught university-level composition and literature for twenty years, and has published academic articles in the areas of medieval studies and cross-border critical race theory. Her heart spans the divide between Edmonton, where she grew up and now lives with her family, and Guanajuato, her husband's home state in Mexico. In the past five years, she transitioned to more flexible employment in business to leave time for creative writing courses, beta readers, writing events, and learning the craft.

Entry in five-ish words

"Blepharospasm: an eye-opening ordeal."

The story's source of inspiration

"Members of my online support group for blepharospasm (eyelid spasms), meige (oral/facial dystonia), and other neurological disorders commiserate over how their spasms are misunderstood and misinterpreted when they leave the house. With my story, I wanted to bring blepharospasm into the public eye, as it were. Through visceral descriptions, I hoped to capture the impact of living with dystonia and to snapshot the struggle towards resilience."

First lines

To horrify Canadians, my husband boasts of his love for eyeball tacos, a traditional street food in his hometown of León, Mexico. He describes the taquero lifting the lid on the pan to reveal dozens of cow eyeballs lolling in grease, as though rolling their irises at you in a gesture of mock exasperation or disbelief. Chopped up, tossed into a tortilla, and topped with spicy salsa, their gelatinous stickiness succulently balances the texture of the onions and cilantro.

I thought of tacos de ojos as the surgeon sliced through the sclera — the white — of my eye with his scalpel and popped out the jelly-like vitreous. I was awake. 

Check out the rest of the longlist

The longlist was selected from more than 1,400 submissions. 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 Michelle Good, Dan Werb and Christina Sharpe. 

The complete longlist is: 

• The Memory Tree by Laura Anderson (Victoria)
• The Sensibilities of Dogs by Antoinette Bekker (Medicine Hat, Alta.)
• The Swell That Follows by Bianca Bernstein (Montreal)
• On Not Knowing Cree by Ted Bishop (Edmonton)
• Awl by John Blackmore (Ottawa)
• My Father's Four Funerals by Lizz Bryce (Toronto)
• Quiz by Aaron Chan (Vancouver)
• Ice Safety Chart: Fragments by Aldona Dziedziejko (Rocky Mountain House, Alta.)
• The Archaeologist's Last Visit by Machenka Eriksen (Victoria)
• Teddys to Manhattan by Kelsey Gilchrist (Toronto)
• The Ferris Wheel by Julie M Green (Kingston, Ont.)
• A Quieter War by Batya Guarisma (Vaughan, Ont.)
• Green for Home, Always by Theresa Harold (Vancouver)
• All the King's Men by Paul Hetzler (Val-des-Monts, Que.)
• The Next Breath by Shana Hugh (Vancouver)
• Mitigoog Call Me Home by Tay Aly Jade (Winnipeg)
• Talking for a Living by Zilla Jones (Winnipeg)
• A Love Letter to the Super Tenant by Marianne Mandrukiak (Montreal)
• Senseless by Laura Mensinga (Stone Mills, Ont.)
• Glass Eyes by G. Robert Morrison (Montreal)
• Et Cetera, Etcetera, Etcetera by Maureen Ott (Ottawa)
• The Weight of the Crown by Deanna Patterson (Regina)
• Not in Their Names by Alison Pick (Toronto)
• Is Life a Tossed Salad? by Evelyn N. Pollock (Coldwater, Ont.)
• Ruth by Gordon Portman (Regina)
• Dad's the Word by Emi Sasagawa (Vancouver)
• Tomorrow, The Next Day, and the Day After That by Kelly S. Thompson (Colorado Springs, U.S.)
• The Weight of a Gaze by Salina Jane Vanderhorn (Deep River, Ont.)
• Random Acts of Walking or What An Australian Cockatoo Taught Me by Kelly Watt (Rockton, Ont.)
• Eyeball Tacos by Jessica Wegmann-Sanchez (Edmonton)