Crystal Semaganis has made the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for In Case I Die.
The winner of the 2025 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. 18 and the winner will be revealed on Sept. 25.
If you’re interested in other writing competitions, check out the CBC Literary Prizes. The 2026 CBC Short Story Prize is currently accepting submissions. The 2026 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January and the 2026 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April.
About Crystal Semaganis
Crystal Semaganis lives on a reserve in Northern Ontario and is an activist. Growing up in Saskatchewan as a child of the Sixties Scoop, reclaiming her stolen Nehiyaw (Plains Cree) life has been her focus for over four decades. Overcoming Colonial Violence is the goal, and she uses the creative arts to educate and inspire through poetry, short stories, a blog and other works. A mother of four and grandmother to two, her writing illuminates the reality of indigenous life in Canada with clarity, truth and grace. Crystal’s social media reaches over 175K Indigenous people daily.
Semaganis was longlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize for kisâkihitin.
Entry in five-ish words
“Things that cannot be ignored.”
The source of inspiration
“The weight of being targeted daily and thinking of my family.”
What the readers had to say
“Blistering and blunt, a record of endurance in a country still committed to erasure. Leaves you to wonder: How to stay alive in a world built for your disappearance?”
First lines
“POS”
“Get a job”
“Freeloader”
This be some of what they say to me. Somehow my being in this skin means I am not permitted to breathe the same air, not permitted to make eye contact. Often, even the sound of my Voice is an assault on the existence of others more privileged than I
Aiy, I be a Plains Cree woman, displaced, poor, sleeping on a donated mattress on a cement floor in a basement on a rez. Can’t get more humble than that, and still, these messages of hatred and disgust make their way to me. I be no threat. Right?
Check out the rest of the longlist
The longlist was selected from more than 1,300 submissions. A team of 10 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 Zoe Whittall, Danny Ramadan and Helen Knott.
The complete longlist is:
I married a spy. The secrecy broke my heart. by Diana Bayko (Calgary) The Sensibilities of Dogs by Antoinette Bekker (Medicine Hat, Alta.) The Space Between Views by Laurel Borisenko (Chemainus, B.C.) Day Shift, Night Shift by Jo-Anne Dusel (Moose Jaw, Sask.) The Pauper by Izzy Ferguson (Dundas, Ont.) Summer Ash by Rachel Foster (Vancouver) Reflections of a Teen Vessel by Cori Francis (Barnwell, Alta.) The Boy Who Loved Alice by Charles Hayter (Toronto) A Mother’s Guide to Urban Gardening by Michelle Hébert (Halifax) I Wash the Purple Water Bottle by Kelley La (Calgary) I got used to You by Yasmin Ladha (Muscat, Oman) Death on the Seventh by Jim Libiran (Scarborough, Ont.) Fishing with My Father: Reflections on Newfoundland’s Cod Culture by Boyd Lundrigan (Spaniard’s Bay, N.L.) Songs for Linda by Carrie Mac (Vancouver) The Invisible Woman by Laura MacGregor (Waterloo, Ont.) We are baptized for the dead in Taber before going to A&W for burgers and root beer by Cheryl Markosky (London, U.K.) Small Miracles by Anastasia McEwen (Fergus, Ont.) The First Apartment by Jennifer McGuire (Owen Sound, Ont.) The Home That Crossed Ocean by Raffi Minas (Calgary) Little America by Nancy Newman (Edmonton) The Townie Time Machine by Ian Orti (Berlin, Germany) Cancer Stage Exit 4: A Memoir by Lena Palacios (Montreal) The Art of Falling Overboard by Loghan Paylor (Chilliwack, B.C.) The Dances We Do With Our Children by Trenton Pomeroy (Rothesay, N.B.) 36 Views of Mount Royal by Lorne Roberts (Montreal) Out of Love by Barclay Rose (North Cowichan, B.C.) In Case I Die by Crystal Semaganis (Bear Island, Ont.) The Morel Moral: A Public Service Announcement by Shelley Wood (Kelowna, B.C.)