{"id":14841,"date":"2025-09-14T00:55:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T00:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/14841\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T00:55:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T00:55:20","slug":"a-mothers-guide-to-urban-gardening-by-michelle-hebert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/14841\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mother’s Guide to Urban Gardening by Michelle H\u00e9bert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michelle H\u00e9bert\u00a0has made the\u00a02025\u00a0CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0A Mother’s Guide to Urban Gardening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The winner of the 2025\u00a0CBC Nonfiction Prize<\/a>\u00a0will receive $6,000 from the\u00a0Canada Council for the Arts<\/a>, a two-week writing residency at\u00a0Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity<\/a>\u00a0and have their work published on\u00a0CBC Books<\/a>. The four remaining finalists will each receive $1,000 from the\u00a0Canada Council for the Arts<\/a>\u00a0and have their work published on\u00a0CBC Books<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The shortlist will be announced on Sept.18\u00a0and the winner will be revealed on Sept. 25.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you’re interested in other writing competitions, check out the\u00a0CBC Literary Prizes<\/a>. The 2026\u00a0CBC Short Story Prize<\/a>\u00a0is currently accepting submissions.\u00a0The 2026\u00a0CBC Nonfiction Prize<\/a>\u00a0will open in January and the 2026\u00a0CBC Poetry Prize<\/a>\u00a0will open in April.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

About Michelle H\u00e9bert<\/p>\n

Michelle H\u00e9bert has an MFA in creative\u00a0nonfiction and degrees in journalism and social work. Her writing often focuses on mental health, social justice, and finding joy where it seems there’s none to be had.\u00a0 Her debut novel, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic was a Toronto Star Top 20 “Must Read”\u00a0of summer 2024. Her memoir, A Good Girl’s Guide to Lying: Losing my Memory, Searching for Truth, & Living with Dissociative Amnesia will be published in Fall 2026. She lives in Halifax.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Entry in five-ish words<\/p>\n

“Dying plants and hidden growth.”<\/p>\n

The source of inspiration<\/p>\n

“My writing space looks out on my little, often neglected garden. One day, as I sat at my computer worrying about a family member who was struggling, I watched my poor, stunted lilac tree bending in the wind. I reflected on the transplants, hurricanes, and poor gardening skills it had already survived. My family and I had experienced seasons of losses and hardship, too. I began thinking about hidden growth, resilience and the things we prune out of our lives.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

What the readers had to say<\/p>\n

“Lovely and awful, a gentle reckoning with what we try to grow and what slips through our fingers. Leaves you wondering: What does it take to keep going when tending is not enough?”<\/p>\n

First lines\u00a0<\/p>\n

I painted the bedroom in my new house purple, like the blossoms on the scraggly lilac tree I dug up and brought with us from the old place. The tree rarely had blossoms, but I always hoped. Every spring. My purple bedroom felt like sleeping inside hope.<\/p>\n

Now there was a man standing in my pretty purple bedroom, his hand resting on the gun on his hip. I’d never been close to a gun before. I thought I could smell it \u2014 iron and fear, I imagined, but maybe it was just the August sun that made the room feel close and much too warm. I tasted bile. I had a fatalistic desire to touch the gun, like Sleeping Beauty reaching out for the spindle even though she sensed no good would come of it. Instead, I forced my eyes to the purple wall and thought of blossoms. The lilac tree. Hope.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Check out the rest of the longlist<\/p>\n

The longlist was selected from more than 1,300 submissions.\u00a0A\u00a0team of 10\u00a0writers and editors from across Canada<\/a>\u00a0compiled the list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The jury selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the readers’ longlisted selections. This year’s jury is composed\u00a0of\u00a0Zoe Whittall, Danny Ramadan and Helen Knott<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The complete\u00a0longlist is:\u00a0<\/p>\n

I married a spy. The secrecy broke my heart.<\/a> by\u00a0Diana\u00a0Bayko (Calgary)\u00a0 The Sensibilities of Dogs<\/a> by\u00a0Antoinette\u00a0Bekker (Medicine Hat, Alta.)\u00a0 The Space Between Views<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Laurel\u00a0Borisenko (Chemainus, B.C.)\u00a0 Day Shift, Night Shift<\/a>\u00a0by Jo-Anne Dusel (Moose Jaw, Sask.)\u00a0 The Pauper<\/a> by\u00a0Izzy\u00a0Ferguson (Dundas, Ont.)\u00a0 Summer Ash<\/a> by\u00a0Rachel\u00a0Foster (Vancouver)\u00a0 Reflections of a Teen Vessel<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Cori\u00a0Francis\u00a0(Barnwell, Alta.)\u00a0 The Boy Who Loved Alice<\/a> by\u00a0Charles\u00a0Hayter (Toronto)\u00a0 A Mother’s Guide to Urban Gardening<\/a> by\u00a0Michelle\u00a0H\u00e9bert (Halifax)\u00a0 I Wash the Purple Water Bottle<\/a> by\u00a0Kelley\u00a0La (Calgary)\u00a0 I got used to You<\/a> by\u00a0Yasmin\u00a0Ladha (Muscat,\u00a0Oman)\u00a0 Death on the Seventh<\/a> by\u00a0Jim Libiran\u00a0(Scarborough, Ont.)\u00a0 Fishing with My Father:\u00a0Reflections on Newfoundland’s Cod Culture<\/a> by\u00a0Boyd\u00a0Lundrigan\u00a0(Spaniard’s Bay, N.L.)\u00a0 Songs for Linda<\/a> by\u00a0Carrie\u00a0Mac (Vancouver)\u00a0 The Invisible Woman<\/a> by\u00a0Laura\u00a0MacGregor\u00a0(Waterloo, Ont.)\u00a0 We are baptized for the dead in Taber\u00a0before going to A&W for burgers and root beer<\/a> by\u00a0Cheryl\u00a0Markosky\u00a0(London, U.K.)\u00a0 Small Miracles<\/a> by\u00a0Anastasia\u00a0McEwen\u00a0(Fergus, Ont.)\u00a0 The First Apartment<\/a> by\u00a0Jennifer\u00a0McGuire (Owen Sound, Ont.)\u00a0 The Home That Crossed Ocean<\/a> by\u00a0Raffi\u00a0Minas (Calgary)\u00a0 Little America<\/a> by\u00a0Nancy\u00a0Newman (Edmonton)\u00a0 The Townie Time Machine<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Ian\u00a0Orti (Berlin, Germany)\u00a0 Cancer Stage Exit 4: A Memoir<\/a> by\u00a0Lena\u00a0Palacios (Montreal)\u00a0 The Art of Falling Overboard<\/a> by\u00a0Loghan\u00a0Paylor (Chilliwack, B.C.)\u00a0 The Dances We Do With Our Children<\/a> by\u00a0Trenton\u00a0Pomeroy (Rothesay, N.B.)\u00a0 36 Views of Mount Royal<\/a> by\u00a0Lorne\u00a0Roberts (Montreal) Out of Love<\/a> by\u00a0Barclay\u00a0Rose (North Cowichan, B.C.)\u00a0 In Case\u00a0I Die<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Crystal Semaganis\u00a0(Bear Island, Ont.)\u00a0 The Morel Moral: A Public Service Announcement<\/a> by\u00a0Shelley Wood (Kelowna, B.C.)\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michelle H\u00e9bert\u00a0has made the\u00a02025\u00a0CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist\u00a0for\u00a0A Mother’s Guide to Urban Gardening.\u00a0 The winner of the 2025\u00a0CBC Nonfiction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[412,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-14841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}