Meet the 2017 CBC Nonfiction Prize readers

There would be no CBC Literary Prizes without our readers. Every year, CBC Books enlists the help of established writers and editors from across Canada to read the thousands of entries submitted to our prizes. These readers compile the longlist, which is given to the jury. The jurythen selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the readers' longlisted selections.

• 29 writers make the 2017 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist

Here are the 10 writers who served as readers for the2017 CBC Nonfiction Prize. The winner of the 2017 CBC Nonfiction Prize will be announced on Sept. 19, 2017.

The winner of the 2017CBC Nonfiction Prizewill receive $6,000 from theCanada Council for the Arts, attend a 10-day writing residency at theBanff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their story published on CBC Books and inAir CanadaenRoutemagazine. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from theCanada Council for the Artsand will have their story published onCBC Books.

If you are interested in entering theCBC Literary Prizes, the 2018CBC Short Story Prizeisopen for submissions until Oct. 31, 2017.

Christian Fink-Jensen

Christian Fink-Jensen is a writer, researcher, publishing professional and creativity coach. His fiction, nonfiction and poetry have been published in books, newspapers, magazines, journalsand anthologies in Canada, the United States, England and Singapore. His most recent book is thebiography AlohaWanderwell: The Border-Smashing, Record-Setting Life of the World's Youngest Explorer. He is currently at work on a novel and a book about creativity.

Danielle Daniel

Danielle Daniel is the author of The Dependent: A Memoir of Marriage andthe Military, shortlisted for the 2017 Northern Lit Award. Her creative nonfiction has been published in Room Magazine, the 40th Anniversary Room Anthology and shortlisted for the 2015 EventCreative Non-Fiction writing contest. She is the author and illustrator of Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox, which wonthe Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, was a finalist for the First Nation Communities Read: Aboriginal Literature Award, the Blue Spruce Award and was one of New York Public Library's 2015 notable titles. This fall, she will release two titles: author and illustrator of Once in a Blue Moon and illustrator forYou Hold Me Up.

• Sudbury author Danielle Daniel releases The Dependent,memoir of a military wife

MelyndaJarratt

Melynda Jarratt is an historian and author who is internationally recognized as the leading expert on Canadian war brides of the Second World War. She is the author of five books, three of which deal with the history of war brides. Her most recent book, Letters From Beauly: Pat Hennessy and the Canadian Forestry Corps was nominated for the 2017Writers' Federation ofNew Brunswick BookAward for Nonfiction. She iscurrently doing research for a new book on Canada's spiritualist movement.

• Letters from Beauty details New Brunswick's forestry war effort

Harold R. Johnson

Born and raised in northern Saskatchewan, Harold R. Johnson has had a variety of careers: marine engineer in the Canadian Navy, logger, miner, fisher, trapper, heavy equipment operator, mechanic, tree planter, lawyer and author.His published work includes five fiction and two nonfiction, all of which have beenshortlistedfor the Saskatchewan Book Awards.Two Families: Treaties and Government won a Saskatchewan Book Award for Aboriginal Publishing andThe Cast Stone won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction. Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing My People (and Yours) wasshortlistedfor the 2016Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction.

• Harold R. Johnson on changing the narrative around alcohol in Indigenous communities

Adnan Khan

Adnan Khan is a National Magazine Award nominated writer, who has published in VICE, the Globe and Mail, Hazlitt and others. In 2016, he won the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award.

Sonja Larsen

Sonja Larsen's memoir Red Star Tattoo: My Life As A Girl Revolutionary was featured on the National Post and Now magazine's best books of 2016 reading list and shortlisted for the 2016 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. Her work has been published in the Globe and Mail, Room, Descantand theanthology Flash 101: Surviving the Fiction Apocalypse. She lives in Vancouver, B.C., where she works with youth in the Downtown Eastside.

• Why you should read Sonja Larsen's Red Star Tattoo

Philip Moscovitch

Philip Moscovitch is a regular contributor to Saltscapes, East Coast Living, Halifax Magazine and Atlantic Books Today. His character-driven radio documentaries on subjects ranging from small-town professional wrestling to music education have been broadcast nationally on CBC, and one of his short features for the Walrus was nominated for a 2017 National Magazine Award. He is currently working on a creative nonfiction book exploring how we see mental illness, how people experience psychotic disorders, and the shifting, blurred edges of sickness, health and what defines them. He is currently writing a book about fermenting foods with traditional Nova Scotia ingredients.

• Philip Moscovitchdiscusses the pressureof being a minor baseballumpire.

Jay Pitter

Jay Pitter is an author and placemaker focused on spatial design and social justice. Most recently, she collaborated with Westbank toincrease community engagement in the Honest Ed's redevelopment process, consulted on Edmonton's new heritage plan and co-edited Subdivided, an award-nominated anthology exploring inclusive city-building. Jay currently teaches an urban planning course at Ryerson University and is working on her second book,Where We Live.

Laurie Sarkadi

Laurie Sarkadi is an award-winning writer, producer and editor of EDGE YK magazine. She moved to Yellowknife as theEdmonton Journal's northern bureau chief then spent 16years telling northerners' stories through CBC Radio and television. Her latest book is a memoir calledVoice in the Wild.

• Yellowknife author debuts memoir two decades in the making

Dorothy Williams

Dr. Dorothy W. Williams has authored three books and articles mainly focused on aspects of Black history within Canada. She works for Desta, a nonprofit organization serving marginalized youthand runs her own company, Blacbiblio.com, Inc. which disseminates African-Canadian history and heritage through The ABCs of Canadian Black History Kit. Dr. Williams has received awards for herwork, including being named a Quebec Laureate in 2002.

• Michael Enright, host of The Sunday Edition, discusses "Harlem of the North" with author Dorothy Williams