Clocks by Adrienne Gruber

Adrienne Gruber has made the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Clocks. The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 14 and the winner will be announced on Sept. 21.

If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize is open for submissions.

• CBC Short Story Prize open for 2024 submit your new fiction now!

About Adrienne Gruber

Adrienne Gruber is a poet and essayist originally from Saskatoon. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Q & A, and five chapbooks. She placed third in Event's creative non-fiction contest in 2020 and was the runner up in SubTerrain's creative non-fiction contest in 2023.

She previously made the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Our Feedback Loop, Our Fractal, Our Never-Ending Pattern and also the longlist for the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize for Better Birthing Through Chemistry. Her collection of essays, Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes, is forthcoming in spring 2024.

• Adrienne Gruber on how Elizabeth Ross's collection After Birth offers 'everything I ever want in poetry'

Entry in five-ish words

Stuck in the sandwich generation.

The story's source of inspiration

"My father began showing signs of early stage dementia shortly before my family moved from Vancouver to Bowen Island in the summer of 2021. He and my mother moved with us, and that first year he was exhibiting all kinds of strange symptoms that turned out to be the result of low glucose seizures brought on by mismanaged diabetes, in part due to his cognitive decline. My toddler started daycare that year and was ending up with serious illnesses like RSV and norovirus, and I spent multiple hours in various emergency rooms, either with my dad or my baby. It was a terrifying time that solidified my role as a caretaker for both my children and my parents."

First lines

My baby is sick, every other week a new illness.
~
My dad is sick, every other week a new symptom.
~
She's twice hospitalized for Respiratory Syncytial Virus, with multiple common colds in between. She coughs so hard she vomits. The skin under her nose blisters and cracks from a constant stream of snot.

Gastrointroitis, which she passes to the whole family. I'm the only one who doesn't unleash the contents of my stomach everywhere. I empty buckets, wash sheets and towels, scrub spots of bile on the carpet with baby wipes.

About the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize

The winner of the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and win a two-week writing residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.

The 2024 CBC Short Story Prize is currently open until Nov. 1, 2023 at 4:59 p.m. ET. The 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January 2024 and the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April 2024.