Claire Cameron, Niigaan Sinclair and Teresa Wong to judge 2026 CBC Nonfiction Prize
The winner will receive $6,000, a writing residency and have their work published on CBC Books
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Claire Cameron, Niigaan Sinclair and Teresa Wong will judge the 2026 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
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.
Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and also have their stories published on CBC Books.
The 2026 CBC Nonfiction Prize is open for submissions until March 1 at 4:59 p.m. ET.
Claire Cameron is a Toronto-based writer and journalist. She's known for her novels The Line Painter, which won the Northern Lit Award, The Bear, which was longlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, and The Last Neanderthal, which was a finalist for the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Globe and Mail, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon and The Millions, where she is a staff writer.
Her memoir How to Survive a Bear Attack won the 2025 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction.
In How to Survive a Bear Attack, Claire Cameron investigates a 1991 bear attack that killed a couple camping in Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park, an unusual event that's haunted her since her time working at a nearby summer camp. The idea to explore the attack came while she was recovering from cancer surgery. The book blends her personal journey, vivid descriptions of Algonquin Park, and the true crime elements of the mysterious case.
Niigaan Sinclair is a writer, editor, activist and professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba. He is the co-editor of Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water and Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories. He won the Peace Educator of the Year award in 2019.
Sinclair won the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction for Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre.
- Niigaanwewidam Sinclair sheds light on what school didn't teach him, and how it altered his worldview
- Niigaanwewidam Sinclair on why you should read Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories from Turtle Island
Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre is the story of Winnipeg, told in a series of essays through the lens of Indigenous resilience and reconciliation.
From the Indian Act and atrocities of colonialism to the creativity and ferocity of the Indigenous peoples preserving their heritage, Sinclair illustrates the way a place — how we love, lose and fight for it — can help pave the way for the future of an entire country.
Teresa Wong is the Calgary-based author of the graphic memoir Dear Scarlet, which was on the Canada Reads longlist in 2020 and a finalist for the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. Her memoir All Our Ordinary Stories was a finalist for the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award in Nonfiction and also longlisted for Canada Reads in 2025. Her work has appeared in The Believer, The New Yorker, McSweeney's and The Walrus. CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2019.
In the graphic memoir All Our Ordinary Stories, Wong uses spare black-and-white illustrations and thought-provoking prose to unpack how intergenerational trauma and resilience can shape our identities. Starting with her mother's stroke a decade ago, Wong takes a journey through time and place to find the origin of her feelings of disconnection from her parents.
The series of stories carefully examine the cultural, language, historical and personality issues that have been barriers to intimacy in her family.
The CBC Nonfiction Prize 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.
The longlist, shortlist and winner will be announced in fall 2026.
Last year's winner was Laura MacGregor for her story The Invisible Woman.
The CBC Literary Prizes have been recognizing Canadian writers since 1979. Other past CBC Literary Prize winners include Susan Musgrave, Lorna Crozier, Alison Pick, Michael Ondaatje and Carol Shields.
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If you're looking to submit to the Prix du récit Radio-Canada, you can enter here.
The 2026 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April and the CBC Short Story Prize will open in September.