Ghostworlds by Trent Lewin
The Waterloo, Ont., writer is on the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist
Trent Lewin has made the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Ghostworlds.
The winner of the 2025 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 their work will be 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 April 10 and the winner will be announced on April 17.
If you're interested in other CBC Literary Prizes, the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is currently accepting submissions. You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1.
The 2026 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2026 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January.
About Trent Lewin
Trent Lewin is a writer of East Indian origin, an immigrant to Canada and a climate advocate, that has been published by Boulevard, december, Grain, FreeFall and Ex-Puritan. He has also been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Lewin is hard at work on two novels and numerous short stories, all of which seek to blend the literary across a variety of genres. He has a background in education and engineering/science and lives in Waterloo, Ont.
In 2014, Lewin was a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize for his story Saad Steps Out. More recently, he made the CBC Short Story Prize longlist in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Entry in five-ish words
"The places so many go."
The short story's source of inspiration
"There is a theory that we don't encounter life from other planets because the beings there have created false realities in which they find a better existence than their real ones. Virtual worlds that are expansive and joyous and that draw them in, so that they don't have to deal with reality and thus never push outwards. I often wonder if we are heading on that track too, caught up in digital worlds rather than real ones, always looking for alternate realities to the one in which we live. I find that a bit disheartening but also a source of hope if we can harness that power in a positive way. I feel like we cling to those virtual worlds over Ontario winters, when we seldom see our own neighbours!"
First lines
I am sure, this time, that you will eat the inside of the samosa, too. The fried shell is gone, and you are looking at the ketchup bottle as though you will only eat the peas, the potatoes, the cumin seeds, if they are in a whirlpool of red sauce.
"Anything else?" asks the waitress, in English. She doesn't even try to use Punjabi on me. White shirt, hair in a bun, dark like me. Dark and Indian. She looks at my child. "He's so fair."
You don't look at her, as you eat some of the samosa and make a face.
Check out the rest of the longlist
The longlist was selected from more than 2,300 entries. 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 Conor Kerr, Kudakwashe Rutendo and Michael Christie.
The complete list is:
- Love is the Enemy by Vincent Anioke (Waterloo, Ont.)
- Stubborn Knots by Ari Asho (Montreal)
- The Troll Artist by Pam Barnsley (Comox, B.C.)
- Zodiac Attack by Andrea Bishop (Salt Spring Island, B.C.)
- Point of Origin by Alison Braid-Fernandez (Summerland, B.C.)
- Sour Milk by Sarah Christina Brown (New Westminster, B.C.)
- Slug Lord by Petra Chambers (Hornby Island, B.C.)
- Cultus Spring by Jan Crerar (Salmon Arm, B.C.)
- 108th & Central by Barbara Darby (Lethbridge, Alta.)
- Savages by Lewis DeSoto (Toronto)
- Mothers Day, 2017 by Gráinne Downey (Vancouver)
- Driving in a Snowstorm by Izza Farhan (Toronto)
- Sudbury Saturday Night by Emily Groot (Sudbury, Ont.)
- Juicy Fruit, 1947 by Henry Heavyshield (Standoff, Alta.)
- Glow by Linda Kingston (Ottawa)
- Westward by Josée Lafrenière (Montreal)
- Ghostworlds by Trent Lewin (Waterloo, Ont.)
- Hope this Story has a Happy Ending by Heather Simeney MacLeod (Kamloops, B.C.)
- You (Streetcar at Night) by Dorian McNamara (Halifax)
- Apple Cake by Aleksandra Merk (Fonthill, Ont.)
- What About Sam by Rachael Riley (Montreal)
- Lessons from a peach by Emi Sasagawa (Vancouver)
- Grocery List for the Common Witch by Claire Scherzinger (Bremerton, Wash.)
- On a Tuesday in November by Aaron Schneider (London, Ont.)
- Real is Love by Michelle Sinclair (Ottawa)
- My Father's Soil by Zeina Sleiman (Edmonton)
- Personnel Unknown by John Sudlow (Oakville, Ont.)
- Dirty Gert by Pamela van der Woude (Picton, Ont.)
- Mount Zoo by Paul Warren (Duncan, B.C.)
- How To Watch Your Daughter Die by Jessica Wegmann-Sanchez (Edmonton)
- Self Care by Erin Wilk (Kitchener, Ont.)
- Gold by Julia Williams (Calgary)
