CBC Books' writers to watch: 30 Canadian writers making their mark in 2024

CBC Bookshas announced this year's writers to watch list! Here are 30 Canadian writers on the rise in 2024.

Vincent Anioke

Vincent Anioke is a Nigerian-Canadian software engineer. His short stories have appeared in The Ex-Puritan, The Rumpus, The Masters Review, Carve Magazineand Passages North. He won the 2021 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellenceand has been shortlisted for multiple contests, including the 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

His storyUtopiawas longlisted for theCBC Short Story Prizetwice, in2021and2023. His story Leave A Funny Message At The Beepwas longlisted for theCBC Short Story Prizein 2024. His debut short story collection,Perfect Little Angels, was also released in April 2024.

Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio

Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio is a Filipina-Canadian author, speaker and school board consultant who builds bridges between educators and Filipino families. She was the runner-up in the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award recognizing Asian authors in the Canadian Diaspora. Austria-Bonifacio was on the2022 CBC Short Story Prize longlist.

• How Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio translated decades of work with Filipino newcomers into powerful fiction

Austria-Bonifacio's debut linked story collection, Reuniting with Strangers, exploresfeelings of displacement and estrangement caused as a result of migrating to Canada seeking opportunity.

LISTEN | Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio discussesReuniting with Strangers:

The Next Chapter10:44Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio explores the Filipino immigrant experience in her debut novel, Reuniting With Strangers

In her first novel, the Toronto community worker and author tells a story about the Filipino diaspora and how a family separated by immigration comes to heal across one Canadian winter.

Frankie Barnet

Frankie Barnet is aMontreal-based author touted for herstory collectionAn Indoor Kind of Girland graphic literary workKim: A Novel Idea.She has an MFA from Syracuse University and herfiction has been published in places such asJoyland, Event Magazine, PRISM International, Washington Square Review,and theBest Canadian Stories anthologyof both 2016 and 2019.

• Frankie Barnet's latest novel brings reality and absurdity together in a world where nature fights back

In Frankie Barnet's2024 novelMood Swings,the concept of "normal" is examined asanimals besiege cities all around the world, fed up with the mistreatment of the environment.

LISTEN | Frankie Barnet onThe Next Chapterwith Ali Hassan:

The Next Chapter17:24Pets against ecological exploitation in Mood Swings

In the novel debut from Montreal-based writer Frankie Barnet, animals stage a revolt against humankind. But when a California billionaire wipes out pets entirely, protagonist Jenlena is left to deal with the pitfalls of what comes next.

Kate Black

Kate Black is a Vancouver-based writer whose essays have been published in Maisonneuve, The Walrus and The Globe and Mail. She was named one of Canada's top emerging voices in nonfiction by the 2020 National Magazine Awards and RBC Taylor Prize.

• 26 works of Canadian nonfiction coming out in spring 2024

In her 2024 nonfiction workBig Mall, Kate Black examines the history of shopping and its place in capitalist structure. As places of pleasure, memory and pain, she pays particular attention to West Edmonton Mall North America's largest mall where she spent a lot of time growing up.

LISTEN | Kate Black on growing up near West Edmonton Mall:

The Next Chapter13:06Growing up at the West Edmonton Mall with Kate Black

There are few places that represent teenage angst quite like the mall. Vancouver-based author Kate Black explores the impact of mall culture on society in her nonfiction book Big Mall: Shopping for Meaning.

Asha Ashanti Bromfield

Asha Ashanti Bromfield is a Black Canadian writer, actress, singer and producer from Toronto. She is best known for her role as Melody Valentine, drummer of Josie and the Pussycats in the television showRiverdaleand as the Netflix showLocke & Key's Zadie Wells.The actress is also the author of the YA novelHurricane Summer.

• 'I write for my inner child': Asha Ashanti Bromfield tells stories to explore family, culture & coming-of-age

After learning of stories her parents lived through during a tumultuous time in Jamaica's history, Asha Ashanti Bromfield was inspired to write her newest novel,Songs of Irie.The historical coming-of-age YA novel is set amidst the Jamaican civil unrest of the 1970s.

LISTEN | Asha Ashanti Bromfield on her novelSongs of Irie:

The Next Chapter13:55Riverdale's Asha Ashanti Bromfield talks about her new career in writing

The Canadian actress and author talks with Ryan B. Patrick about her new novel Songs of Irie, which takes place in 1970s Jamaica.

Cassandra Calin

Cassandra Calin is an artist and popular webtoon cartoonist who has amassed over 2.5 million followers on social media. She was born in Romania and now lives in Montreal.The New Girlis her debut graphic novel.

Inspired by artist Cassandra Calin's own immigration story,The New Girlis a middle-grade graphic novel about Lia and her family's move to Canada from Romania. Alongside all the complicated feelings Lia has about moving to somewhere completely different from home, when she arrives, she experiences her first period.

LISTEN | Cassandra Calin on how she writes for young readers onThe Next Chapter:

The Next Chapter14:44Cassandra Calin on The New Girl and webcomic stardom

When the creator of the hit webcomic series Cassandra Comics was a pre-teen, she emigrated from Romania to Montreal with her family. These events inspired her to write her first long-form comic for kids, The New Girl.

Christina Cooke

Christina Cooke is a Jamaican Canadian writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Caribbean Writer, Prairie Schooner and Epiphany: A Literary Journal. She has won the Writers' Trust M&S Journey Prize and Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award.Broughtupsyis her debut novel.

• Christina Cooke on balancing queerness and her Jamaican upbringing in her debut novel

In the novelBroughtupsy, the death of her brother brings Aka home to Jamaica after a decade. There, she struggles to reconnect with her estranged sister while they spread his ashes and revisit landmarks of their shared childhood.

LISTEN | Christina Cooke onThe Next Chapter:

The Next Chapter13:09Broughtupsy and queerness in Jamaica

Jamaican-born Vancouver writer Christina Cookes debut novel reflects on reconnecting with your roots and searching for a sense of belonging.

Therese Estacion

Therese Estacion is a writer and teacher from the Philippines who now lives in Toronto.In her debut poetry collection,Phantompains, Therese Estacion shows what it means to bear witness to one's own pain and sexuality, to find catharsis and self-love, after a rare infection stole her limbs but not her life.

• Phantompains poetry collection takes on disability, grief and life

In the work, Estacion takes her audience through the monotony of recovery and explores themes of disability, grief and life in a surrealist fashion.

Sarah Everett

Currently based in Alberta, Everett is the author of several books for teens.The Probability of Everythingwon the2023 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature text. Her YA and middle grade books includeSome Other Now, How to Live Without YouandNo One Here is Lonely.

• Sarah Everett peers into the 'push and pull' between assimilating and retaining one's cultural identity

Her books explore identity, race and belonging. The award-winningThe Probability of Everythingfollows Kemi Carter, an 11-year-old girl who dreams of being a scientist. With her love for probability, she calculates that an asteroid has a high probability of hitting the Earth in four days.

LISTEN |5 former Governor General Literary Awards winners reflect on identity:

Ideas53:595 Canadian Writers on Subverting Identity

Identity is a hot topic in our era, but also a complex reality. Five literary writers all of them winners of 2023 Governor Generals Literary Awards read from new poems, essays, and stories that consider the ways that seemingly solid identities can be altered, questioned, or entirely subverted.

Erum Shazia Hasan

Erum Shazia Hasan Hasan is a Toronto-based writer and a sustainable development consultant for various UN agencies.We Meant Well, her debut novel, poses a difficult moral dilemma for its protagonist, Maya, an aid worker who must decide who to believe when her coworker at the orphanage, Marc, is accused of assaulting her former protg, Lele.

• Erum Shazia Hasan discusses the intimate power dynamics of charity in her debut novel

Inspired by her many travels, Hasan's writing transcends borders, bringing diverse cultures to life on the page.We Meant Wellwas on the 2023 longlist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Scott Alexander Howard

Scott Alexander Howard is a Vancouver author. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard where his work focused on the relationship between memory, emotion, and literature.The Other Valleyis his first novel.

• Vancouver author Scott Alexander Howard puts a inventive twist on time travel in his novelThe Other Valley

The Other Valleyfollows the story of Odile Ozanne, who lives in a town with a magical valley. To the east, the town exists twenty years forward in time.

LISTEN|Scott Alexander Howard discusses his novelThe Other Valley:

The Next Chapter15:22A town neighboured by its own past and future in Scott Alexanders The Other Valley

The B.C. author grew up in the Southern Okanagan, which helped inspire his debut novel, alongside his background in academia and philosophy.

CherylIsaacs

Cheryl Isaacs is an Indigenous writer of the Kanyen'khatribe in Ontario. Herliterary work has appeared in numerous Indigenous publications.

Her forthcomingYA novelThe Unfinished is an exploration of Kanien'kha culture by way of a speculative fiction tale of monsters, mystery, and secrets that refuse to stay submerged.

Ai Jiang

Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian author and poet. She was a finalist for the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. In 2023, she won theIgnyte Awardfor her poem, We Smoke Pollution. She is the author ofLinghun, a ghostly tale of those who are still holding onto the land of the living and burdened in death by their grief, andI AM AI.

• 10 Canadian books to read during Asian Heritage Month

Her work has appeared in a wide variety of speculative venues includingInterzone,Uncanny Magazine,The Dark Magazine,Pseudopod,Radon Journal, The Deadlands,Dark Matter, andThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Zilla Jones

Zilla Jones is an African-Canadian woman writing on Treaty 1 territory (Winnipeg). Her stories appear in Prairie Fire, The Malahat Review, Prism International, The Fiddlehead, FreeFall Magazine, the Ex-Puritan, Room Magazine, Bayou Magazineand The Journey Prize Stories. In 2023, she was a Journey Prize winner and a finalist in the Writers' Trust RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.

She has also won the Malahat Review Open Season Award, the Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction, the FreeFall short fiction award and placed second in the Prairie Fire and Austin Clarke contests. Her debut novel,The World So Wide, and a short fiction collection,So Much To Tell, are forthcoming with Cormorant Books in 2025 and 2026.

Jones previously made the2020 CBC Short Story Prize longlistforOur Fatherand has longlisted twice for her storyHow to Make a Friend, in 2022 and 2023, before shortlistingin 2024.

Amy Lea

Amy Lea is an Ottawa-based contemporary romance writer and Canadian bureaucrat. Her work centres on romantic comedies for adults and teens. Her previous novels includeWoke Up Like This, which was on theCanada Reads2024 longlist,Exes and O'sandSet on You.

• 9 books to fall head over heels for this summer

The final novel in Lea's Influencer trilogy,The Catchstars fashion influencer Melanie Karlsen whose influence is in need of a power boost.

LISTEN | Alicia Cox Thomson recommends 10 Canadian romance novels to read this summer:

The Next Chapter12:32Is Canada becoming a romance novel hotbed?

Carley Fortune and Elle Kennedy are just a couple of Canadian romance writers shooting up the bestseller charts. With their gaining popularity, Alicia Cox Thomson joins the show to recommend some romance titles that are heating up the summer.

lose Marseille

lose Marseille is an artist and illustrator from Montreal.Naked: Confessions of a Normal Womanis her first book.She holds a BA in Studio Art from Concordia University

Naked: Confessions of a Normal Womanis a candid and funny memoir that followsauthor lose Marseille as she explores her sexuality and learns to live free of shame. Her work explores sexuality, gender and identity.

Matthew R. Morris

Matthew R. Morris is a writer, advocate and educator based in Toronto. As a public speaker, he has travelled across North America to educate on anti-racism in the education system.Black Boys Like Meis his first book. Morris was recently announced as one ofthe readers for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

• Matthew R. Morris writes about growing up Black and navigating race and identity in bookBlack Boys Like Me

Black Boys Like Meis a collection of eight essays that examine theexperiences of Matthew R. Morris with race and identity throughout his childhood into his current work as an educator.

WATCH | Matthew R. Morris on writing a nonfiction work about race and identity:

Teacher pens bestseller on how schools treat Black boys like him

10 months ago

Duration 5:10

Matthew R. Morris turned his experiences as a Black student and a teacher into a bestselling memoir called Black Boys Like Me. He talks to CBCs Deana Sumanac-Johnson about navigating the education system from both sides of the classroom.

Premee Mohamed

Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction writer based in Edmonton. Her series Beneath the Rising received nominations for the Crawford Award, British Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards and Aurora Awards.

Her bookThe Annual Migration of Cloudswon the 2022 Aurora Award for best novella. Her other books includeThe Butcher of the Forest,No One Will Come Back for UsandTheSiege of Burning Grass,whichwasshortlistedforthe 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for fiction.

• 'Hope always has a place in literature': Premee Mohamed on writing post-apocalyptic fiction

Her latest,We Speak Through the Mountainis a sequel novella to the post-apocalyptic Albertan bookThe Annual Migration of Clouds.

LISTEN | Premee Mohamed on the inspiration behind her new novella:

The Next Chapter11:25This compelling narrative is set in the future in the climate-crisis-stricken wilderness of Alberta's Rocky Mountains

Ryan B. Patrick interviews Premee Mohamed about her latest speculative fiction work, We Speak Through the Mountain. Its the follow-up to the Aurora Award-winning novella The Annual Migration of Clouds.

Sadi Muktadir

Sadi Muktadir is a Toronto based writer and editor at Joyland Magazine. Hewas a finalist for the Thomas Morton Memorial Prize in Literary Excellence, a finalist for theMalahat Review's Open Season Awards, a third-place winner of theHumber Literary Review's Emerging Writer Story Contest and a winner of Toronto's What's Your Story competition.

• 30 Canadian books to celebrate Asian Heritage Month

His 2024 debut novelLand of No Regretsfollows Nabil's fast friendship with three other misfits and the chaos that ensues when they start pulling pranks and rebelling against the difficult and often violent teachers.

LISTEN | Sadi Muktadir onThe Next Chapterwith Ali Hassan:

The Next Chapter13:54Pulling pranks at a Madrasa in Land of No Regrets

Toronto author Sadi Muktadirs debut novel stars Nabil, a reluctant student with a knack for hijinks and who decides to plot his escape from boarding school.

Ktuku Titihuia Nuttall

Ktuku Titihuia Nuttallis a writer ofNew Zealand andCoast Salishheritage who haslived in both New Zealand and British Columbia during herchildhood.She won the 2020 Adam Foundation Prize and was runner-up in the 2021 Surrey Hotel-Newsroom writer's residency award.

Her breakout workTauhouwas shortlisted for the 2024 Amazon First Novel Award andexamines Indigenous families, womanhood and reimagines post-colonial histories andfutures. Seton alternate versions of Vancouver Island and Aotearoa New Zealand that, in this story, are located beside each other in the ocean, each chapter contains a poem, a short story and a form of memory.

Loghan Paylor

Loghan Paylor is an Ontario-born author currently based in Abbotsford, B.C. They have an MA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and their short fiction and essays have previously appeared in publications including Room and Prairie Fire.The Cure for Drowning, is their debut novel.

InThe Cure for Drowning,Kit McNair was born Kathleen to an Irish farming family in Ontario and, a tomboy in boy's clothes, doesn't fit in with the expectations of a farmgirl set out for them.

Ashley Qilavaq-Savard

Ashley Qilavaq-Savard is an Inuk writer and artist from Iqaluit. She is the author ofWhere the Sea Kuniks the LandandI Am A Rock. Qilavaq-Savard also makes sealskin and beaded jewellery and studies Inuktitut.

In I Am A Rock, Pauloosie's pet rock, Miki Rock describes all that it can see, feel and hear as part of the land in the Arctic from the winds to the animals, the Northern lights and more.

Amanda Peters

Amanda Peters is a writer of Mi'kmaq and settler ancestry living in Annapolis Valley, N.S. Her debut novelThe Berry Pickerswon theCarnegie Medal of Excellence, was afinalist for the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prizeandwas named one of CBC Books' best fiction books of the year. She is the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose and a participant in the 2021 Writers' Trust Rising Stars program.

• Amanda Peters' new story collection reflects on legacies of trauma and resilience read an excerpt now

Her forthcomingshort story collection,Waiting for the Long Night Moon,draws from her own background to examinelegacies of trauma and resilience.

LISTEN | Amanda Peters on Q:

Q16:16Amanda Peters: The Berry Pickers, the complexity of trauma and guilt, and writing flawed characters

Amanda Peters's debut novel The Berry Pickers has been getting rave reviews. She tells Tom how a road trip to Maine with her dad inspired the story, the complexity of writing about trauma, and how being a storyteller has helped her find a better sense of community.

Deepa Rajagopalan

Deepa Rajagopalan is an author based in Ontario. Born to Indian parents in Saudi Arabia, she has lived across India, the United States and Canada. Her previous writing has appeared in publications such as theBristol Short Story Prize Anthology, the New Quarterly, Room and Arc. She was the 2021 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award winner.

• Deepa Rajagopalan'sPeacocks of Instagramcasts its lens on South Asian women in the diaspora

The collection of stories in her debut story collectionPeacocks of Instagrampaint a tapestry of the Indian diaspora. Tales of revenge, love, desire and family explore the intense ramifications of privilege, or lack thereof.

LISTEN | Deepa Rajagopalan onThe Next Chapter:

The Next Chapter0:00Truth telling and power dynamics in Peacocks of Instagram

Ontario-based author Deepa Rajagopalans debut short story collection features rule-breaking characters, savvy social media sellers and peafowl.

Brandon Reid

Brandon Reid is a writer whose work has been published in the Barely South Review, the Richmond Review and The Province. He is a member of Heiltsuk First Nation, with a mix of Indigenous and English ancestry. He lives in Richmond, B.C.Beautiful Beautifulis his first book and is also afinalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

• Canadian authors Kim Fu and Brandon Reid shortlisted for 2024 William Saroyan International Prize

Beautiful Beautifulis a debut coming-of-age novel that explores the beauty of rural and urban landscapes, his relationship with masculinity and the task of reconciling an Indigenous and Western way of life.

LISTEN | Brandon ReidonThe Next Chapter:

The Next Chapter4:40Brandon Reid combines two worlds in Beautiful Beautiful

In his debut novel, the B.C.-based author tells a traditional story of a voyage taken by a father and son, accompanied by a mysterious figure called Raven.

Michael V. Smith

Michael V. Smith is a writer, filmmaker and professor of creative writing at University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus. His other books include his memoir,My Body Is Yoursand the novelBad Ideas. He currently lives in Kelowna, B.C.

Queers Like Meis an intimate poetry collection reflecting on the poet's experiences being queer in a small town.In two sections calledYou QueerandFamily, the poet explores childhood, the connection between grandparent and grandchild and moving to the big city as a queer person.

• B.C. poet Michael V. Smith on finding family as a queer working-class person

LISTEN | Michael V. Smith discussesQueers Like Me:

The Next Chapter17:34Eccentric relatives and family feuds in Queers Like Me

Kelowna-based poet, filmmaker, performer and professor Michael V. Smith talks about growing up queer and working class and the special relationship a child can have with a grandparent in his latest poetry collection.

Kailash Srinivasan

Kailash Srinivasan is an Indian-Canadian author living and working in Vancouver. His work explores themes of societal, economic, religiousand political fractures, injustice and inequality. His prose and poetry have appeared in several literary magazines, including XRAY, Coachella Review, Selkie, Antilang, Oyster River Pages, Bad Nudes, Lunch Ticket, Midway Journal and others.

Srinivasanwon the Writer's Union of Canada Short Prose Competition for Emerging Writers in 2024.His work has been shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize and Into the Void Fiction Prize and longlisted for the Bath Short Story Award. Hewas on the shortlist for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prizefor hisstoryThe Baby. He previously made the2023 CBC Short Story Prize longlistfor an earlier version ofThe Baby. He's currently working on his debut novel.

Leanne Toshiko Simpson

Leanne Toshiko Simpson is a mixed-race Yonsei writer, educator and psychiatric survivor from Toronto. She lives with bipolar disorder while teaching at the University of Toronto. Simpson wasnamedScarborough, Ont.'s Emerging Writer in 2016 and was nominated for the Journey Prize in 2019.

Never Been Betteris her first novel, which was inspired by the community she has found through her mental health advocacy work post-institutionalization.

LISTEN |Leanne Toshiko Simpson speaks with Tom Power:

Q26:08Leanne Toshiko Simpson: Why the rom-com is the perfect format to discuss mental illness

Leanne Toshiko Simpson is looking at romantic comedy through a new lens. The fourth-generation Japanese Canadian writer has just released her debut novel, Never Been Better, which tells a love story set at a psychiatric facility. Leanne lives with bipolar disorder and has spent time in a psych ward herself. She joins Tom to tell us why she wanted to use the rom-com format to talk about mental illness.

Natalie Sue

Natalie Sue is a Calgary-based writer of Iranian and British descent.I Hope This Finds You Wellis her debut novel.

• Calgary author Natalie Sue revels in the humour of errant work emails and office rivalries in debut novel

A love of storytelling inspired the work, which follows an anxious admin for Supershops, Inc., as she navigates a workplace of unsatisfactory colleagues.

LISTEN | Natalie Sue discusses office comedy in new book,I Hope This Finds You Well:

The Next Chapter13:18Office fighting words in I Hope This Finds You Well

In Natalie Sues debut novel, the protagonist Jolene is sick of her corporate life. Shes been sending angry messages to colleagues hidden in emails. But when her secret is revealed, shes forced to deal with the consequences.

Christina Wong

Christina Wong is a Toronto writer, playwright and multidisciplinary artist who also works in sound installation, audio documentaries and photography.Her plays have been staged at various theatres including theFactory Studio,Passe Muraille Backspace andshe has created journalism and documentary work forTOK Magazine, theToronto StarandMet Radio.

Her illustrated work,Denison Avenuewas co-written with illustrator Daniel Innes andchampioned by Naheed Nenshi onCanada Reads2024. It was also a shortlisted finalist for the 2024Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

LISTEN | Christina Wong and Naheed Nenshi on The Next Chapter:

The Next Chapter20:07Canada Reads Panellist Naheed Nenshi and Denison Avenue author Christina Wong meet for the first time

Former three-term mayor of Calgary and community builder Naheed Nenshi explains why he chose to champion Christina Wong and Daniel Inness Denison Avenue. Wong talks about her deep personal connection to the Kensington Market area of Toronto, and why it was the perfect setting for her novel.