Author up for words prize

Patricia Webb named to shortlist for her unpublished short story, Second Time Around.

Patricia Webb.

Patricia Webb.

A former Cloverdale author is a finalist for the CBC Creative Nonfiction Prize.

On July 14, Patricia Webb was named to the shortlist out of more than 1,800 English-language short stories for her unpublished work, Second Time Around — a look at how a relationship suffers during a recurrent cancer.

The mother-of-four, who now lives in Port Moody, told Black Press she plucked the idea for the story from a journal entry that she had recorded about her common-law husband, who is now in remission.

Webb said she gets her inspiration “not usually from sitting down. It could be in conversation or from something that triggers the hunt.”

For the CBC contest, Webb is up against Jennifer Clark for February, Brandee Eubank for Some Distant World, Sarah Habben for Where I Am From and Patti-Kay Hamilton for The Hunter and the Swan.

The reading public can vote for their favourite story at CBCBooks.ca before the jury makes its decision on July 28.

The winner receives $6,000 plus a two-week residency in Banff; runners-up also get $1,000 each.

It is Webb’s “second time around” for a CBC writing competition. In 1998, she made the long list for its Poetry Prize.

– Janis Warren, Black Press

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