Press 53 Contest Winners Announced

Press 53 has announced the winners for their 2009 Open Awards – honorable mentions and finalists can be found on the Press 53 website.

Young Writers (13-17)
Judge Tavia Stewart
First Prize: Beckett Bathanti of Vilas, NC for Short Story: “The Return”
Second Prize: Clara Fannjiang of Davis, CA for Poetry: “Letter to My Sentry,” “Foible,” and “Shakespeare’s Curse”

Poetry
Judge Kathryn Stripling Byer
First Prize: Janice Townley Moore of Young Harris, GA for “Windows Filled With Gifts,” “I’d Like to Think the Truth About the World,” and “Beginning Homer’s Illiad Once Again.”
Second Prize: Malaika King of Pinehurst, NC for “On Your Birth Day,” “Sweat Test for Cystic Fibrosis,” and “Swift Water.”

Flash Fiction
Judge Mark Budman
First Prize: Shannon Barton-Wren of San Francisco, CA for “San Diego, 1978”
Second Prize: Jason Stout of Atlanta, GA for “Paper Boats”

Short-Short Story
Judge Scott Yarbrough
First Prize: Kirk Barrett of Wilmington, NC for “Sarajevo Roses”
Second Prize: Jesse Tangen-Mills of Bogata, Columbia for “Twenty Ways to Love Before Dying”

Short Story
Judge Rusty Barnes
First Prize: Ryan Stone of Rossville, IL for “Run Nowhere”
Second Prize: Taylor Brown of San Francisco, CA for “Kingdom Come”

Genre Fiction
Judge Laura Benedict
First Prize: Alexander Lumans of Carbondale, IL for “Haruspices”
Second Prize: Jeff Bond of Midland, MI for “Motown Mojo”

Creative Nonfiction
Judge Dinty W. Moore
First Prize: Laura S. Distelheim of Highland Park, IL for “On Ruth, Whom I Couldn’t Let Slip By”
Second Prize: Kate Carroll de Gutes of Portland, OR for “Cure”

Novella
Judge Ashley Warlick
First Prize: Jan Parker of Fuquay-Varina, NC for Hard Times and Happenstance
Second Prize: J.W. Robison of Effingham, IL for The True Adventures of Mustard Tater