Fort Nelson woman makes longlist for 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize

FORT NELSON, B.C. — Fort Nelson’s Kerissa Dickie has made the 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for her story Seh Woo, My Teeth.

Dickie is Dene from Fort Nelson First Nation, and according to CBC, her passion for writing was sparked while she helped create a book of stories by residential school survivors in her community.

After this, she enrolled and attended the University of Victoria and won a national writing award just before graduating with her Bachelor of Fine Arts, which brought her to Ottawa.

Her writing was published in the anthologies Initiations: A Selection of Young Native Writings and Impact: Colonialism in Canada, as well as in magazines and newspapers.

She is working on her memoir, and her short story, Seh Woo, My Teeth, is an excerpt.

Dickie calls her story “A love letter to my grandmother,” according to CBC.

“As melodramatic as it sounds, I felt like I needed to create a place where my grandmother was still sitting beside me,” she told CBC.

Dickie’s story was selected from over 1,700 submissions for the long list.

The jury, comprised of Marcello Di Cintio, Sharon Butala and Jenna Butler, will choose the shortlist and eventually the final winner.

In addition to a cash prize of $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Grand Prize winner will receive a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and will be published on the CBC Books website.

Four other finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books website.

According to CBC, they have recognized Canadian writers through their Literacy Prizes since 1979.

Photo Credit: Kerissa Dickie, Facebook.