2013 Barthelme Prizes

Robert Coover was the final judge for the 2013 Barthelme Prizes, hosted by Gulf Coast. “All three of these stories echo Donald Barthelme’s brevity, concision, and wry intelligence, his gift for memorable one-liners,” he writes in the latest issue which features the winners. “Notoriously withering as his critiques could be, he would have loved all the first and last sentences here, and would have said so. . . Though all these stories are deserving of prizes and publication, ‘Bats’ in particular, with its commonsensical women of Northwest Ohio dreaming the winged dreams of the bats hiding upside down in their purses, perhaps best exemplifies Barthelme’s poignant whimsy, his playful collaging of artful irrealism with the commonplaces of the quotidian.”

Winner
Lawrence Coates: “Bats”

Honorable Mentions
Colin Winnette: “Cement Man”
Ana Reyes: “At the Edge of the Kitchen’s Light”