Alix Hawley wins the 2017 CBC Short Story Prize

• The 2018 CBC Short Story Prize is now open!

Alix Hawley is the winner of the 2017 CBC Short Story Prize for "Witching", a story about a woman struggling to connect with her boyfriend after his return from combat.

Hawley has been a CBC Literary Prize finalist twice before. She was also the winner of the 2015 Amazon.ca First Novel Award and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for her debut novel, All True Not a Lie in It.

There were more than 1800 submissions to the 2017 CBC Short Story Prize. "Witching" was selected by the jury, which was comprised of Jen Sookfong Lee, Shyam Selvadurai and Marina Endicott.

• How Alix Hawley wrote the story that won the CBC Short Story Prize

"'Witching' is charged with tender dread — the calamity of a damaged soldier's return from Afghanistan," the jury said of Hawley's story in a statement. "Vivid images of war and the formless desert draw us in and, along with his girlfriend, we incrementally learn the geography of his altered nature. This story springs from his parched silence, but rings and resonates with his girlfriend's silenced and impossible rage. The language is elegant and understated and draws the reader deeply into this world."

As the winner, Hawley receives $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and her story will be published in Air Canada enRoute magazine. She will also have the opportunity to attend a 10-day writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

The other finalists — Kasia Juno, Jasmina Odor, Kristof Pelc and Meg Todd — each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and had their stories published on CBC Books.

The French grand prize winner is Philippe Arseneault. He won the Prix de la nouvelle for his story "Chercher toujours."