CBC Books' writers to watch: 22 Canadian writers making their mark in 2025

hither ar 22  canadian river writers on the rear in 2025.

rosebush Sutherland is a writer from Nova Scotia. She has a background as a pâtissier apprentice in France and is also an occasional bartender. She graduated from theatre school in New York City. 

Her debut novel, A Sweet Sting of Salt, is a historical novel set in the fictional town of Barquer's Bay, N.S., in the nineteenth century. Jean, the local midwife, lives an isolated simple life in her cottage but all is set awry when she finds a woman in labour by the sea. After Jean helps Muirin deliver her child, the two grow affectionate towards one another.  

Arley Nopra is a Filipino comic creator based in Toronto. She has adapted and illustrated the Baby-Sitters Club books Claudia and the Bad Joke and Mallory and the Trouble with Twins. She previously worked as the colorist for the second and third Dragon Prince graphic novels. Nopra says she's drawn to stories that explore themes of love, resilience and self-discovery. 

Amid Baby-Sitters Club revival, fans hail influence of Asian-American character Claudia

Her latest, Mallory and the Trouble with Twins, follows babysitter Mallory who is confident in her skills after years of caring for her seven younger siblings. But when she starts watching the Arnold twins, Marilyn and Carolyn, she quickly realizes they're more trouble than she expected. 

Ruth Chan is a writer and illustrator of comics and children's books from Toronto. Her previous children's books include Thank You, Neighbor!, Caboose by Travis Jonker and Rick the Rock of Room 214 by Julie Falatko. Chan currently lives in New York City. 

In her debut graphic memoir Uprooted, Ruth Chan leaves Toronto for Hong Kong with her family after her father gets a new job. Ruth is devastated to leave the city that she loves, and although the rest of her family fit right in once they arrive, Ruth doesn't. Ruth slowly adapts and sets down roots in Hong Kong with the knowledge that home will be where her heart is. 

Teri Vlassopoulos is the author of the short story collection Bats or Swallows, which was nominated for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and the novel Escape Plans. Her work has been published in Room Magazine, Catapult, The Millions and her regular Substack newsletter, Bibliographic. She lives in Toronto.

Her latest, Living Expenses, tells the story of sisters Laura and Claire, the daughters of a single mother who immigrated from the Philippines. Their close bond is put to the test when Claire moves to Silicon Valley for a new job while Laura stays in Toronto and decides to start a family with her husband. While Laura undergoes fertility treatments, Claire has her own run-in with the industry — and the sisters experience a rollercoaster of feelings, both together and apart.

Su Chang is a Chinese Canadian writer born and raised in Shanghai. She uses a pen name. The Immortal Woman is her debut novel. Her writing has been recognized in numerous contests, including Prairie Fire's Short Fiction Contest, the Master Review's Novel Excerpt Contest and the Canadian Authors Association Toronto National Writing Contest, among the others. 

In The Immortal Woman, Lemei's daughter, Lin, struggles with distancing herself from her Chinese heritage while studying in America. At the same time, she is taken aback by her mother's increasing nationalism toward China — this shift is especially surprising considering her mother had once been a student Red Guard leader who had witnessed the atrocities of the Tiananmen Square protests.  

Three decades after her family's restaurant opened, Rachel Phan's parents are considering retirement. In Restaurant Kid, Phan reflects on this milestone and shares her experience growing up as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, from living with parents who were building a new life to navigating the challenges of being the only Chinese girl at school. 

Emma Knight is an author, journalist and entrepreneur based in Toronto. Her work has appeared in Literary Hub, Vogue, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus and The New York Times. She co-hosted and created the podcast Fanfare and co-founded the organic beverage company Greenhouse. She is the author of cookbooks How to Eat with One Hand and The Greenhouse Cookbook.

In her latest, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, Pen arrives at the University of Edinburgh, set on uncovering what her divorced parents in Canada have hid from her. Not only does she start to uncover the truth about them during a weekend visit with a famous writer, an old friend of her father's, Pen also experiences the many pangs of adulthood for the first time — including falling in love. 

Chyana Marie Sage is a Cree, Métis and Salish writer from Edmonton. Her journalism has appeared in the Toronto Star, Huff Post and the New Quarterly. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Columbia University where she taught as an adjunct professor. Sage won first place in the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest and silver in the National Magazine Awards for her essay Soar. She teaches Indigenous youth about cultivating self-love and healing through the Connected North program. 

Sage's memoir, Soft As Bones, is her quest to better understand the childhood trauma and abuse that scarred her family. It's also a tapestry of poetry, history, Cree language, traditional ceremony and folklore — and delves into her experiences and those of her family with compassion and strength.

When Kate Gies was born without her right ear, plastic surgeons vowed to make her "whole" and craft the appearance of an outer ear. The Toronto author underwent 14 surgeries before the age of 13, many of which failed, leaving permanent scars — both physically and mentally. Gies shares her harrowing experiences and path to accepting her body through poignant vignettes that form her debut memoir, It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished.

Liann Zhang is a second-generation Chinese Canadian writer who was a former skincare content creator. She holds a psychology and criminology degree from the University of Toronto and splits her time between Vancouver and Toronto. Julie Chan is Dead is Zhang's debut novel.

In Julie Chan is Dead, Julie Chan and her identical twin sister Chloe VanHuusen are polar opposites and barely communicate after being separated at a young age. But when Chloe, a popular influencer, mysteriously dies, Julie steps in to take her place and is thrust into a glamorous world with millions of followers. However, she quickly learns that Chloe's seemingly flawless life was far from it, and as she uncovers the sinister cause behind her death, it casts Julie as the next target.

In her debut novel Everything Is Fine Here, a younger sister navigates the challenges of family and societal pressures while offering love and support to her older sister, who is gay, in a country with strict anti-homosexuality laws.

Edwards' debut novel, Small Ceremonies, follows a hockey team of Ojibwe high schoolers from Winnipeg, who are chasing hockey dreams and coming of age in a game — and a place — that can be both beautiful and brutal.

Gabrielle Drolet is a Montreal based journalist, essayist and cartoonist. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Walrus, VICE and Teen Vogue, among others. Her essays on disability have been nominated for a Digital Publishing Award and have won gold at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards. She holds an MFA from the University of Guelph.

In her debut memoir, Look Ma, No Hands, Drolet reflects on how she discovered new ways to create and express herself after developing a condition in 2021 that left her unable to use her hands. Look Ma, No Hands explores both the challenges and the unexpected humour of navigating chronic, life-altering pain in her twenties.

Sofia Ajram is a Montreal-based writer, metalsmith and a Bram Stoker-award-nominated literary horror writer. Ajram specializes in feverish stories of anomalous architecture and gay pining. They are the editor of the forthcoming Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror. 

Ajram's latest novel, Coup De Grâce, is a psychological horror story that follows Vickers, who plans to end his life by throwing himself into the St. Lawrence River in Montreal — his final escape from a lifetime of depression and pain. But after stepping off the subway, he finds himself trapped in an endless, looping station. Soon, he realizes he wasn't brought there by accident, and he also isn't alone. 

In her debut novel Where the Jasmine Blooms, Yasmine returns to Lebanon to escape a messy divorce and reconnect with her cultural roots, having been raised in Toronto. During her visit, she reunites with an old lover and uncovers long-hidden political secrets within her family, all while grappling with the effects of grief, displacement and war.

Matteo L. Cerilli is a transmasc writer and activist based in Toronto. He is the author of the YA horror novel, Lockjaw. A founding member of the city-wide, student-led organization Students for Queer Liberation in Toronto, he also works with the No Pride in Policing Coalition. Something's Up with Arlo is his first novel for middle-grade readers.  

All the Canadian books we're excited about in the first half of 2025

In Something's Up with Arlo, 12-year-old Nero's best friend is a ghost called Arlo. Nero has relied on Arlo to look out for her — especially when the kids at school aren't being kind to her and her parents don't seem to notice. But when Nero is moved to a prestigious private school and is given the chance to "start over," something weird and unsettling happens with Arlo. Nero worries that her best friend is transforming into something scary. 

Sarah Mughal Rana is a Muslim writer, BookTok personality and co-host of the podcast On The Write Track. She holds an honours bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto and is currently studying at Oxford University, focusing on the intersection of economics and policy. Her debut young adult novel was Hope Ablaze. 

In her forthcoming novel, Dawn of the Firebird, Khamilla Zahr-zad — the daughter of an emperor's clan — has been raised on violence and vengeance, spending her childhood training to protect her father's throne. But when her clansmen are assassinated by a rival empire, she infiltrates the enemy's army to outmaneuver them. As war looms between the two kingdoms, Khamilla is confronted with a history that challenges everything her father taught her.

Amal El-Mohtar is a Ottawa-based author, editor and critic. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, NPR Books, among others. El-Mohtar's short stories Seasons of Glass and Iron won Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. Her novella This Is How You Lose the Time War co-written with Max Gladstone has been translated into over ten languages. 

In The River Has Roots, a mysterious family known as the Hawthorns lives in a magical world. The family care for enchanted willows and honour an ancient and mystical compact. But when a daughter of the family decides to seek her own path to find love and happiness, the fate of the entire world just might be at risk. 

Emerging writers Dora Prieto, Jess Goldman and Phillip Dwight Morgan win $10K RBC Bronwen Wallace Awards 

Morgan is currently working on an essay collection about Blackness, nature and memory.

Anthony Oliveira is an author, pop culture critic and podcaster who holds a PhD. He lives in Toronto and has won multiple National Magazine Awards and GLAAD Media Awards. His novel Dayspring won the 2024 Writers' Trust of Canada's Dayne Ogilvie Prize.

Dayspring is a genre-bending reimagining of biblical tales that weaves together stories of passion, grief and destruction that echo through time. The work plays with themes of sexuality and its narrative examines contemporary queer culture's relationship with faith and religion. 

Chase Joynt is a Canadian director and writer. His most recent film, Framing Agnes, won the NEXT Innovator Award and the NEXT Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. His book You Only Live Twice, co-written with Mike Hoolboom, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. 

In his latest book, Vantage Points, Joynt uncovers a previously unknown connection to Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan after the death of his family's patriarch, discovered through a box of family documents. Blending memoir and media analysis through a trans lens, Joynt uses McLuhan's Understanding Media as a framework to explore difficult personal histories and their ties to contemporary politics and ways of being. 

Valérie Bah is an artist, filmmaker, documentarian, photographer and writer. Their collection The Rage Letters was translated from French by Kama La Mackerel. Their first English language novel, Subterrane, won the Amazon First Novel Award. 

In Subterrane, a documentary filmmaker named Zeynab is working on a project about Cipher Falls, the last affordable area on the margins of New Stockholm, a major metropolis and North American city. Cipher Falls is a polluted, industrial wasteland where artists and anti-capitalists are forced to work dead-end jobs to survive. When a construction project threatens Cipher Falls' gentrification, some residents want to sabotage the plans. Zeynab focuses her documentary on Doudou Laguerre, an activist who mysteriously died — and the potential that his death had something to do with his dissent against the project. 

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