Two Kelowna writers make the longlist for the 2019 CBC Nonfiction Prize

Today, the longlist for the 2019 CBC Nonfiction Prize was announced, and two Kelowna-based writers made the list for British Columbia.

Izabella Zalewski, for I Lived With A Dead Man In My House, and Melanie Murray, for Nineteen Sixty-Eight, both made the list of nine BC entries.

Their stories were selected from more than 2200 entries received from across the country.

Zalewski is a writer as well as a registered clinical counsellor. Her entry described in five words is “Emotional complexities of sexual abuse.”

"The inspiration behind the story was a desire to birth a greater sense of awareness and understanding of the very polarizing and labyrinthine emotions that constituted my experience of sexual abuse,” she told CBC in her spotlight article.

“In the artistic expression of my very personal story was a want to express not just the fear, agony, aloneness and loss, but also the love for and connection to my father. A complicated connection to be sure, but one I deeply wanted to acknowledge."

Murray’s entry, Nineteen Eighty-Six, was her “watershed.”

Murray recently retired from teaching English and creative writing at Okanagan College. She is the author of two creative nonfiction books: Should Auld Acquaintance: Discovering the Woman Behind Robert Burns, and For Your Tomorrow: The Way of an Unlikely Soldier.

"On New Year's morning of 2018, I heard a couple of commentators on CBC Radio talking about the ground-shaking events of 50 years ago,” she said.

“They referred to 1968 as 'the year of change.' I was struck by how apt that description was for me on a personal level as well. I began thinking about the intensity of that year, how the political and cultural upheaval of 1968 paralleled the turmoil in my own life. It was the year that changed everything."

The jurors for this year’s CBC Nonfiction Prize are Harold R. Johnson, Elizabeth Renzetti and Mark Sakamoto. The Finalists for this year’s prize will be announced on September 18, 2019.

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.

The four Runners-up will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and will be published on CBC Books.