I am very happy to announce that my story, “Where There’s Smoke,” was longlisted for the 2019 CBC Literary Prize in Nonfiction.

Every year, CBC Books holds short story, poetry, and nonfiction contests open to professionals and amateurs and offered in English and French (for Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada). The longlist for each prize includes about thirty writers. From those thirty, four finalists and a winner will be selected by the jury. This year, the finalists will each receive $1000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and their stories will be published on CBC Books. The winner will get $6000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, publication of their story on CBC Books, and a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Harold R. Johnson, Elizabeth Renzetti, and Mark Sakamoto comprise the jury for 2019. I am deeply honored to know that they will be reading my story. Thank you very much CBC Books and the CBC Literary Prize in Nonfiction readers and jury!

“Where There’s Smoke” is part of a memoir I worked on while completing a graduate certificate in creative writing through Humber College. My supervisor was Canadian author Alissa York, whose critical insights and support are the reason I have created something good enough to be considered for this prize. Fortunately, Alissa’s writing advice remains with me, tacked onto my note board and firmly in my mind as I work. I will never forget her diligence, her intelligence, or her kindness.

Memoir isn’t the summary of a life; it’s a window into a life, very much like a photograph in its selective composition. It may look like a casual and even random calling up of bygone events. It’s not; it’s a deliberate construction.

–William Zinsser

The creation of my particular “selective composition” of events has been an exhausting, exhilarating, and edifying journey. I hope to send the completed work out into the world one day.