So to Speak’s Fall 2013 Fiction Contest

So to Speak‘s latest issue features the winners of the Fall 2013 Fiction Contest, judged by Asali Solomon. Taking first place is Rebecca McKanna’s “Watch Out for Lions,” and Tamar Altebarmakian takes the honorable mention with “Sit Still and I’ll Weave.”

About McKanna’s piece, Solomon writes, “There’s not a false moment in this story of Delia, a middle schooler who must wrestle with changes in her body win the absence of the mother who abandoned her and her father. . . . I was also thrilled by the surprising but emotionally authentic climax of the story. I think, however, what I loved best about this story was McKanna’s incorporation of sinister background detail, which gives the story unusual texture.”

And Solomon writes that Altebarmakian’s piece “is fresh in its exploration of heritage, history, generation gaps, and genocide. Altebarmakian’s matte-of-fact and lucid prose style and the deadpan humor of the story work extremely well with the tragic and dramatic subject matter.”

The issue also features nonfiction by Jane Eaton Hamilton and Stephanie Dickinson and poetry by Alice Notley, Jenifer Browne Lawrence, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Danielle Pafunda, Laura Davis, and more.