Thinking of submitting to the CBC Nonfiction Prize? Here are some tips from the 2025 jurors
The CBC Nonfiction Prize is accepting submissions from Jan. 1 to March 1
The 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize is open for submissions! 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 have their work published on CBC Books.
You can submit memoir, biography, humour writing, essay, personal essay travel writing and feature articles up to 2,000 words. The deadline to submit is Saturday, March 1, 2025 at 4:59 p.m. ET.
We know that submitting to a literary prize can be a daunting task. That's why we asked the 2025 jurors, Zoe Whittall, Danny Ramadan and Helen Knott, what advice they have for those who might be thinking about submitting or are still undecided about it.
The jury will select the shortlist and winner. A panel of established writers and editors from across Canada review the submissions and will determine the longlist from all the submissions.
Zoe Whittall says: "A first draft just has to exist, it doesn't have to be good. The magic happens in the revisions process."
A first draft just has to exist, it doesn't have to be good.- Zoe Whittall
Whittall is an author, poet and screenwriter. Her past works include short story collection Wild Failure, the novels The Fake, The Best Kind of People and Bottle Rocket Hearts. Her most recent memoir is No Credit River. She has also written poetry collections including The Emily Valentine Poems and The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life.
Whittall has received the Writers' Trust Dayne Ogilvie Award, a Lambda Literary Award and been shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She currently lives in Ontario.
Danny Ramadan says: "The best advice I've ever received was one of kindness: we always judge our writing with the eyes of a reader. As if we are able to create endlessly beautiful work on the drop of a dim.
"In reality, it makes perfect sense that our first drafts are, for a lack of a better word, terrible. It makes sense they are in need of work, editing, uplifting and digging until you find the gem amongst the dust. Be kind to your writing, as it is still a seed, waiting to grow."
It makes perfect sense that our first drafts are, for a lack of a better word, terrible.- Danny Ramadan
Ramadan is a Vancouver-based Syrian-Canadian author and advocate for 2SLGBTQ+ refugees. He graduated with an MFA in creative writing from UBC and received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Adler University.
Ramadan's debut novel The Clothesline Swing was longlisted for Canada Reads in 2018 and his second novel The Foghorn Echoes won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.
Helen Knott says: "Let a moment say everything it needs to say before you let your eyes discern what it needs to become."
Let a moment say everything it needs to say.- Helen Knott
Knott is a Dane Zaa, Cree, Métis and mixed settler-descent writer from Prophet River First Nations.
She is the author of the memoir In My Own Moccasins, which won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Indigenous Peoples' Publishing and was longlisted for the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize.
Her most recent memoir Becoming a Matriarch was a finalist in the nonfiction category of the 2024 Governor General's Literary Awards.
A few weeks ago, Ramadan had some extra advice to impart on CBC Books' Instagram account:
Last year's CBC Nonfiction Prize winner was Aldona Dziedziejko for her essay Ice Safety Chart: Fragments.
The CBC Literary Prizes have been recognizing Canadian writers since 1979. Past winners include David Bergen, Michael Ondaatje, Carol Shields and Michael Winter.
If you're looking to submit to the Prix du récit Radio-Canada, you can enter here.
The 2025 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April and the CBC Short Story Prize will open in September.
