“So I thought, why don’t we do a competition? And so we did. And that was the beginning of its history.”
— Bob Weaver, creator of the CBC Literary Awards

“I’m personally convinced that I would never have become a writer had it not been for the encouragement of the CBC. How important it is to get that first boost.”
— Carol Shields (in 1985)

“Writers love this competition because entries are read without the authors’ names and judged blind, on the merits of the writing alone. This unique literary competition . . . is about writing, the beauty of the language, the interest of the subject matter.”
— Kim Echlin, from her introduction

Celebrated in this anthology are the first-prize English-language winners of the CBC Literary Awards from 2001 to 2006 in poetry, creative non-fiction and travel, and short fiction plus three new translations of French-language winners.

With writing by Asa Boxer, Méira Cook, Kim Doré, Kim Echlin, Camilla Gibb, Roger Greenwald, Jane Eaton Hamilton, Amy Jones, Montana Jones, Paul Labrèche, Zoë Landale, Erin Noteboom, Stephen Osborne, Alison Pick, Dyane Raymond, Leon Rooke, Erin Soros, Leona Theis, David Tycho, Rob Winger, and Michael Winter.