I-70 Review announces the winner of the Bill Hickok Humor Award for Poetry for 2024. Alice Friman chose Al Ortolani’s poem “Feeling Blue” to receive the prize of $1,000. Submissions for 2025 start on Jan 1st through Feb 28th.
The newest issue of the online quarterly Radar Poetry is a celebration of the winner and finalists of their annual Coniston Prize, an annual award that recognizes an exceptional group of poems by any poet who identifies as a woman writing in English. This year’s judge was Dorianne Laux, and she selected the following:
Winner: Amy Miller
Finalists: Kenzie Allen, Jessamyn Duckwall, Jenny Grassl, Abi Pollokoff
Radar Poetry 34 features several works from each poet, rounding out the entire issue. Submissions for the next Coniston Prize are open from June 1 – August 1, 2023. The 2022 winner received $1000 and each finalist received $175. In 2022, during the first seven days of contest submissions, Radar Poetry waived fees for BIPOC poets. For more information about the upcoming contest as well as general submissions, visit the Radar Poetry website.
Artwork by Angus McEwan.
Cleaver online literary magazine has announced the winners of their 2022 Flash Contest. Winners, honorable mentions, and finalists will be published in Cleaver Issue No. 40, their 10th-anniversary issue.
Judge: Meg Pokrass
First Place: Sabrina Hicks
“When We Knew How to Get Lost”
Second Place: Janet Burroway
“The Tale of Molly Grimm”
Third Place: Dawn Miller
“The Egg”
HONORABLE MENTION
Laura Tanenbaum
Fannie H. Gray
Andrea Marcusa
Lisa Lanser-Rose
Andrew Stancek
Luke Tennis
Emily Hoover
James LaRowe
Paul Enea
Kris Willcox
Christina Simon
FINALISTS
Theo Greenblatt
Meredith McCarroll
Amanda Hadlock
Madeleine Barowsky
K Moore
Ron Tobey
Sarah Freligh
Nicholas Claro
Joe Artz
Lyn Chamberlin
Able Muse: A Review of Poetry Prose and Art has announced the winners of the Write Prize for Poetry and Fiction, judged anonymously throughout by the Able Muse Contest Committee and the final judges, Dennis Must for fiction, and Aaron Poochigian or poetry. The winning writer and the winning poet each receive a $500 prize.
FICTION WINNER: Lorna Brown – “Looking for Anna”
Here is what Dennis Must has to say about Lorna Brown’s winning story: “‘Fiction is the art form of human yearning . . . absolutely essential to any work of fictional narrative art—a character who yearns. And that is not the same as a character who simply has problems . . .’—Robert Olen Butler. Lorna Brown’s ‘Looking For Anna’ embodies the lifeblood of those stories that endure in our memory stream long after they have been read.”
POETRY WINNER: Brian Brodeur [pictured] – “On Mistaking a Stranger for a Dead Friend”
Here is what Aaron Poochigian has to say about Brian Brodeur’s winning poem: “‘On Mistaking a Stranger for a Dead Friend’ has it all—the sounds, the psychology (a whole theory of memory) and, most important of all, playfulness even when the subject is tragic. Bird, riverbank, and a random encounter all blend into a perfect representation of a human mind at work. Bravo!”
Visit the Able Muse blog for a full list of finalists and honorable mentions. Winners and finalists will be published in the Winter 2022/23 issue.
Green Burial
Poetry by Derek Graf
Elixir Press, January 2023
Winner of the Elixir Press 2021 Antivenom Poetry Award, Judge Kirun Kapur had this to say: “Lush and frantic, Green Burial submerges us in a dazzling, apocalyptic pastoral. Here we find a brother’s funeral and a lover’s last drink on the way to rehab as we travel a dreamscape of birds, trash, down-on-their-luck towns, motels and oil derricks. ‘A body falls / through the galaxies / inside an opal,’ the poet writes. And so, we do. In Graf’s hands the end of the world is both grief-stricken and saturated with an exhilarating, hallucinatory zeal.” Derek Graf was born in Tampa, FL. He completed his MFA at Oklahoma State University and his PhD at the University of Kansas. He currently lives in New York City. Green Burial is his first collection.
Bright Shade
Poetry by Chelsea Harlan
Copper Canyon Press, October 2022
Winner of the 2022 American Poetry Review Honickman First Book Prize selected by Jericho Brown, Bright Shade is an appreciation of the wild woods, the rolling hills, the Appalachian air, and the little rivers that were the setting of Chelsea Harlan’s upbringing. The poems speak through the liminal space between the body and its relationships to other bodies, and the human relationship with nature—and so climate change is, inevitably, part of this book’s undercurrent of grief. As the author navigates the high highs and the low lows of manic depression, Bright Shade articulates the wonder that accompanies sadness and the sadness that accompanies joy. Chelsea Harlan’s work is humorous, indeed bittersweet (bright / shade), and a little strange in exactly the right way.
Visiting Her in Queens Is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet
Poetry by Michael Mark
Rattle Poetry, August 2022
Subscribers to Rattle poetry magazine not only get four issues of the journal each year but are also treated to four chapbooks, one being the Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner. This fall, subscribers are receiving Michael Mark’s winning entry, Visiting Her in Queens Is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet, “a kind of family photo album for the final years of a life.” As dementia progresses in Michael’s mother, each poem is at once a snapshot, a foreshadowing and a memory. And like memories, each is revealing, accurate, and blurry. Sample poems can be read on the Rattle website. Michael Mark has walked the Himalayas, Wales, Portugal, and Spain with his two children. He’s the author of two collections of stories, Toba and Toba at the Hands of a Thief (Atheneum).
Carve Magazine recently announced the winners of the 2022 Raymond Carver Contest judged by Dariel Suarez:
FIRST PLACE: Brandon J. Choi for “To Love a Stranger is Certain Death”
SECOND PLACE: Candice May for “A Rugged Border”
THIRD PLACE: Megan Callahan for “Don’t Speak”
EDITORS CHOICE: Abby Provenzano for “Birdsong” and Ned Carter Miles for “–K”
Winners will be published in the Fall 2022 Issue, which is currently in production. The contest runs annually from April 1 — mid-May.
Online literary magazine Brilliant Flash Fiction announced the winners of their Welcome 2022 Writing Contest judged by Pamela Painter on June 1. This year’s contest saw over 1,000 international entries that kept the editors busy for months.
First place was awarded to L. Michelle Souleret’s “Marsh Omen Augury” in which the narrator is called upon to figure out what thirty-three egrets appearing in an area means.
Helen Chamber’s “Granny Holds Me to Account” won second place as the judge enjoyed the humor and the surprises while A.K. Cotham’s “Driving by Moonlight” won third place for its opening dramatic ride “running full tilt into the future with another wild, and oddly life-affirming, ride.”
Read the stories and view the complete Shortlist at Brilliant Flash Fiction‘s website.
The Man with Wolves for Hands
Novella by Juan Eugenio Ramirez
Southeast Missouri State University Press, September 2022
With panting, slobbering wolves where his hands should be, The Man with Wolves for Hands builds shelves, attends an HR meeting, gets drunk in a kiddie pool with his friend The Cowboy, and stumbles into a bacchanalian wake, held in a forest clearing, for a deceased soldier. In The Man with Wolves for Hands, Metaphor folds into allegory, folds into psychological exploration, folds into a meditation on trauma and struggle. These vignettes about a man and his lupine hands explore what it means to be compassionate in a world where perception is tenuous and morality fluid. Elements of myth and folklore anachronistically color the narrative creating a story that winds itself through both the present and some distant, primordial past. Winner of the Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel.
Lost, Hurt, or in Transit Beautiful
Poetry by Rohan Chhetri
Platypus Press, June 2022
Selected as the winner of The Kundiman Poetry Prize, Rohan Chhetri’s collection of poetry Lost, Hurt, or in Transit Beautiful is a travelogue of belonging. In parts a separation, a crossing of borders and landscapes, in others the sorrow and depths of home. But ultimately, this is the journey of weary travelers making ghosts of the night. Rohan Chhetri, a writer and translator, is the recipient of a 2021 PEN/Heim Grant for translation, and his poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Revue Europe, AGNI, and New England Review and have been translated into Kurdish, Greek and French.
Coining a Wishing Tower
Poetry by Ayesha Raees
Platypus Press, March 2022
Selected by Kaveh Akbar as winner of the 2020 Broken River Prize, Coining a Wishing Tower by Ayesha Raees is both story and song, a lyrical narrative that gathers and releases. There are moments of childlike wonder and of adult meditation — oftentimes one and the same. In fragments both real and unreal, this is a book of rituals, of history, of surrender. Ayesha Raees identifies herself as a hybrid creating hybrid poetry through hybrid forms. Raees currently serves as an Assistant Poetry Editor at Asian American Writers’ Workshop The Margins and has received fellowships from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Brooklyn Poets, and Kundiman. From Pakistan, she currently lives between Lahore and New York City.
“Stuck” by Laura Venita Green of New York, New York, is this year’s winner of the third annual Story Foundation Prize. Her story will be featured in the Story summer 2022 issue, which will be released in June.
Story Editor-in-Chief Michale Nye says this about the winning entry: “Green’s story is about a young woman named Tess, who is struggling with alcohol (to put it mildly) and babysitting two children for the weekend while their father is out of town. Then, a mysterious and peculiar Evangelical girl comes in from the woods. It gets stranger from there. It’s a rich, peculiar story that stood out for its evocative characters and wonderful tension throughout the narrative. A truly unforgettable story that I know you’re going to love reading.”
Continue reading “Story Foundation Prize Winner 2022”
The High Price of Freeways
Stories by Judy Juanita
Livingston Press, July 2022
Co-Winner of the Tartt First Fiction Award, this collection looks at the Black experience in Oakland, California, from the founding of the Black Panthers to present day. Judy Juanita is a teacher, poet, novelist, and playwright who served as editor-in-chief of the newspaper of the Black Panther Party in 1968 while attending San Francisco State and joined the nation’s first Black Student Union.
Driftwood Press has announced last year’s Adrift Chapbook Contest Winners are available for pre-order on their website.
Jennifer Silverman’s Bath is set to be released in May of this year. 2021 contest judge Traci Brimhall had to say this about Silverman’s collection
Jen Silverman’s poems are baptisms of desire. They’ve traveled the world and come back to tell you the pleasure to be found there, the holes of each leaving, the way it is all “drenched in light and wine.” Economical in syntax and generous in image, Bath astonishes at every turn with its heart, its wisdom, its waters.
Melody S. Gee’s The Convert’s Heart is Good to Eat is set to be released in June. Brimhall said of Gee’s collection
Melody Gee’s gorgeous poems offer both divine wounds and delicious consolations. At the intersections of the familial and the sacred, The Convert’s Heart is Good to Eat reminds us that what is created is also consumed. Beautiful, sensory, and aching, this collection reminds us that not all hungers are mortal ones.
Pre-order your copies today!
Online literary magazine has officially released the results of its 13th annual Flash Fiction Contest. First place is “Thirteen Tips for Photographing Your Nephew’s Bar Mitzvah When You Still Can’t Forgive Your Brother-in-Law” by Nancy Ludmerer.
You will be able to read Nancy’s story and five additional finalists in Gemini‘s next issue due out later this month, including second place “The Tea Taster” by William Torphy.
Honorable Mentions:
The Winter 2022 issue of Baltimore Review features creative nonfiction by Lucinda Cummings, Patricia Dwyer, Dan Hodgson, and contest winner Daniel Rousseau; fiction by Ross McCleary, Evan Brooke, Nicholas Otte, Mariah Rigg, and contest winner Robin Tung; and poetry by Francine Witte, Sara Henning, Rose Auslander, Stephanie McCarley Dugger, Lisa Suhair Majaj, and contest winner Aekta Khubchandani.
Head on over to Baltimore Review‘s website to read the Winter 2022 issue.
Congratulations to the winner of Frontier Poetry‘s 2021 Award for New Poets. This year’s judges were Rosebud Ben-One, Andrés Cerpa, and Mai Der Vang.
Winner
“a sonnet: a slaughter field” by Chibuihe Obi Achimba
Second Place
“Herma” by Samuel Piccone
Third Place
“Ashes Arts and Crafts” by Emily Hyland
You can read the poems at Frontier Poetry‘s website.
Congratulations to Ben Lof, winner of The Malahat Review‘s 2021 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction. Lof won with his piece “Naked States.”
The story begins:
In January, Frank said to April, No more alcohol. This was not a New Year’s resolution. The vermouth pancakes tasted only of vermouth.
April said, Who the heck is named “Frank” anymore? I mean, what is this, the 1960s?
Frank said, That’s the booze talking, that kind of meanness. You used to be witty.
Oh? said April. I’m still witty, pal. Got buckets and buckets of wit.
So they dropped alcohol.
Lof was also interviewed for this issue, and you can check out the interview on The Malahat Review‘s website.
Congratulations to the winners of the 2021 William Van Dyke Short Story Prize in Issue 60 of Ruminate.
First Place
“The Florist” by Alex Cothren
Second Place
“A Guide to Removal” by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala
Honorable Mention
“Katingo Carried 15,980 Tons and a Gentleman” by George Choundas
Finalists include Nina Gaby, Elizabeth Paley, Lauren Loftis, Skye Anicca, Catherine Miller, Alberto Daniels, and Suphil Lee Park.
Read comments on the winners from Judge Kelli Jo Ford inside the issue as an introduction to the pieces.
Glass Mountain hosts their annual Boldface Writers’ Conference. Attendees are invited to enter the Robertson Prize after revising their work. Winners of this free contest (one per genre) receive $100 and publication in Glass Mountain. This year’s winners are included in Volume 27.
Winners
“Four Yelp Reviews (After J. Bradley)” by Robin Burns
“The Masseuse” by John Cai
“An Obituary for the Ginko Berry Tree in Drexel” by Coutney DuChen
Learn more about the Boldface Conference here.
Featuring the Amon Liner Poetry Prize winner, “Pygmalion” by Megan Gower, an Editor’s Note from Terry L. Kennedy, and new work from Dan Albergotti, Talal Alyan, Ricky Aucoin, Joseph Bathanti, Ronda Piszk Broatch, Grant Clauser, Whitney Collins, Beth Dufford, Susan Grimm, Paul Guest, Julie Innis, Mary Elder Jacobsen, Justin Jannise, Julia Kenny, Mary Ann Larkin, Trapper Markelz, Joy Moore, Tomás Q. Morín, Elle Napolitano, and more. Find more contributors at The Greensboro Review website.
The Fall 2021 issue of Carve is out now and features the winners of the Raymond Carver Contest, guest judged by Leesa Cross-Smith.
First Place
“Habits” by Morgan Nicole Green
Second Place
“The Pit” by Chris Blexrud
Third Place
“Field Dressing” by Mariah Rigg
Editors’ Choice
“What Happened With the Librarian?” by Haley Hach
“Kingdom of the Shades” by Nina Ellis
You can learn more about each story by checking out the author interviews following each piece. Print and digital issues are available at Carve‘s website.
Grab a copy of the November/December 2021 issue of Kenyon Review to check out the winners of the Short Nonfiction Contest.
Winner
“And We Inherit Everything” by Brigitte Leschhorn Arrocha
Runners-up
“Blue Whale Challenge” by Christian Butterfield
“Translating” by dm armstrong
The contest was judged by Roxane Gay, who writes of the winning essay, “[ . . . ] we are taken on a lyrical journey about grief, yes, but also the wounds of family and the myths of the people to whom we belong.” Grab a copy of the issue to read the winning essays, and see what Gay says about the runners-up.
The Winter 2021 issue of Rattle features the Rattle Poetry Prize winner and finalists.
Winner
“Encephalon” by Ann Giard-Chase
Finalists
“After My Teenager Tries to Kill Herself . . .” by Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose
“This Is How I Make My Money” by Heather Bell
“Do You Have Children?” by Susan Browne
“Follow Me” by Rayon Lennon
“Black Boys as Fireflies” by Dayna Hodge Lynch
“White Privilege Skydives with Black Guy in Appalachia” by Mary Meadows
“The Internet of Things” by Erin Murphy
“Exodus: Gilliam Coal Camp, West Virginia, 1949” by L. Renée
“Purgatorio” by Zella Rivas
“My Father Transformed by Dying” by Richard Westheimer
Subscribers to Rattle can vote for their favorite out of the finalists to determine the winner of the $5,000 Readers’ Choice Award. The voting deadline is February 1.
CRAFT has announced the winners of its 2021 First Chapters Contest selected by guest judge Masie Cochran of Tin House. The winning entries will be published in December, so keep an eye out!
Congratulations to the winners, finalists, and honorable mentions. You can view the full longlist and honorable mentions here.
Winners
First Place: Sam Simas, We the Liars
Second Place: Sena Moon, Familiar Strangers
Third Place: Leigh Comacho Rourks, When We Drowned
Finalists
Vanessa Banigo, The Nigerwife
Catherine Carberry, Untitled
Catherine Con Morse, The Notes
C. Quintana, The Twisted Fate of La Media Luna
Steve Sanders, The Agreed Upon Facts
Kirsten Scott, Liberty Park
Amy Stuber, In a Dark Corner Shining
JJ Tan, Angels Unaware
Allison Torgan, Red State
John Vurro, Video Planet
Taylor Werner, What Empties As It Fills
Marie Williams (Nia Forrester), Those Less Fortunate
Issue 43 of Nimrod International Journal is all about award winners! Check out the winners and finalists of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction and the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry.
The Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction
First Prize
“White Black People” by Celine Aenlle-Rocha
Second Prize
“The Inventories” by Paula Closson Buck
Honorable Mentions
“A Dolphin in Pain” by Rachel Furey
“God Is In Your Body” by Rachel Reeher
Finalists
“Wife Of; or, What Does It Mean to Be Haunted?” by Jennifer Blackman
“The Southern Part of the State” by Teresa Milbrodt
“Thug” by Edvin Subašić
The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry
First Prize
“Spell for Patience” and other poems by Emily Rose Cole
Second Prize
“Now” by Julie Marie Wade
Honorable Mentions
“Vanishing Point” and other poems by Laura Apol
“Like a Friend” and other poems by Francesca Bell
“Everything I Love I Want to Consume” and other poems by Angela Sucich
Adroit Journal‘s Adroit Prizes are awarded to two undergraduate or secondary students annually. The 2021 judges were Carl Phillips and Samantha Hunt.
Winners receive $200 and publication. Runners-up and finalists also receive publication. You can read the pieces now in Issue 39 released in October.
Stephanie Chang | Poetry | Kenyon College, ‘25
Enshia Li | Nonfiction | Stanford University, ‘22
Amal Haddad | Fiction | Swarthmore College, ‘22
Delilah Silberman | Poetry | Bennington College, ‘21
Aluna Brogdon | Fiction | Williams College, ‘26
Eliza Browning | Poetry | Wheaton College, ‘22
David Emeka | Fiction | The Federal University of Technology – Owerri, ‘21
Aidan Forster | Fiction | Brown University, ‘22
Jack Goodman | Poetry | Walter Payton College Preparatory School, ‘22
Sharon Lin | Poetry | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ‘21
Sofia Montrone | Fiction | Columbia University, ‘21
Jackson Neal | Poetry | University of Wisconsin – Madison, ‘23
Ngoc Pham | Poetry | Macalester College, ‘21
Kit Pyne-Jaeger | Fiction | Cornell University, ‘21
Clara Rosarius | Fiction | Oberlin College, ‘23
Kyle Wang | Poetry | Stanford University, ‘22
The Masters Review has announced the winners of its 2021 Flash Fiction Contest judged by Stuart Dybek.
In first place, we have Tanya Perkins with “Agora é Sempre” in which “a mere thousand words encompasses oceans complete with their currents, riptides, rogue waves. and rolling plastic.”
In second place, is “Play That Again” by John Glowney. “As the title suggests, an odd set of piano lessons becomes a story that is also about music and emotion, and youth, and the recognition of beauty.”
Candice May’s “How to Develop (Film)” took home third place with its use of modernistic techniques that never overwhelm the underlying story.
You can read all three pieces on The Masters Review‘s Blog.
Don’t forget, The Masters Review has two contests currently open to submissions: Novel Excerpt Contest (deadline 11/30) and the Chapbook Open for Emerging Writers (deadline 12/31).
Congratulations to the winner and finalists of the Press 53 Award for Poetry.
Winner
The Italian Professor’s Wife by Ann Pedone
Finalists
We Are Children by Bill Ayres
Watts UpRise by Ron Dowell
The Bones Beneath by Sheila Smith McKoy
Splendor of Ignition by Robert Miltner
Passaic by Paula Neves
The Past Tense of Green by Alison Prine
The Ice Beneath the Earth by Brian Ascalon Roley
Tom Lombardo served as the only reader and judge for this contest, and Pedone’s manuscript was chosen from more than 380 entries. The Italian Professor’s Wife will be published by Press 53 in April 2022.
The Fall 2021 issue of Southern Humanities Review features the winner of the 2021 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, judged by Jericho Brown.
Winner
“Slouching like a velvet rope” by Elizabeth Aoki
Runners-Up
“Dorothy Dandridge on White Men in Hollywood” by Maurya Kerr
“I Left the Church in Search of God” by Darius Simpson
Aoki will receive $1000 and travel to Auburn, Alabama to celebrate the seventh annual poetry prize where she will read her work at an event headlined by Jericho Brown. The Fall 2021 issue is sold out in print, but you can still check out the winning poem online.
CRAFT has announced the winners of the 2021 Short Fiction Prize judged by Kristin Valdez Quade. The winners were published this month.
First Place—Willa Zhang: “Night Air”
Second Place—Leesa Fenderson: “Ugly: A Stream of Consciousness”
Third Place—Cyn Nooney: “Just the Thing for a Day Like This”
Finalists
María Isabel Álvarez: “Happiness and Other Found Objects”
Caro Claire Burke: “Gold Rush”
Emily Cataneo: “From the Mouths of Girls, a Leviathan”
Celeste Chen: “your body is a memory in motion”
Gina L. Grandi: “Layabout”
Kathryn Holmstrom: “From Gardens where We Feel Secure”
Robert Maynor: “Always with You”
Anna Mazhirov: “An Absolute”
Amanda McLaughlin: “Cheap Trick”
Neeru Nagarajan: “Suckling”
A.J. Rodriguez: “Lenguaje”
Leigh Claire Schmidli: “Sometimes the Going”
Congratulations to the winners and finalists. Don’t forget their Flash Fiction Contest is open to entries of stories up to a 1,000 words through October 31. The guest judge is Robert Lopez.
Congratulations to the winner of the 2021 Frontier OPEN. This award celebrates a single piece of poetry, and the winner receives $5,000 and publication.
Winner
“Fireworks” by Chaun Ballard
Editors describe this piece as “A wrenching performance of the political lyric, read from right to left.” Read Ballard’s poem here and check out this link for work by the OPEN finalists.
The winners of the 2021 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers are in the September/October 2021 issue of Kenyon Review.
Winner
“Golden” by Daniel Zhang
Runners-up
“Dr. Freud’s Magic 8-Ball” by Blair Enright
“Ghost Town, Ohio” by Gaia Rajan
Judge Emily Nason introduces the three pieces, saying, “What I am most impressed by in Zhang, Enright, and Rajan’s poetry is their deep generosity toward their subjects. These are poets with a deep grasp on humanity and empathy.”
Get your own copy of this issue at Kenyon Review’s website.
The results are in! CRAFT has just announced the winner selected by judge Kirstin Valdez Quade for their 2021 Short Fiction Prize. The winners will be published online in October. The next Short Fiction Prize will kick off in Spring 2022.
Winners
First Place—Willa Zhang: “Night Air”
Second Place—Leesa Fenderson: “Ugly”
Third Place—Cyn Nooney: “Just the Thing for a Day Like This”
Finalists
María Isabel Álvarez: “Happiness and Other Found Objects”
Caro Claire Burke: “Gold Rush”
Emily Cataneo: “From the Mouths of Girls, a Leviathan”
Celeste Chen: “your body is a memory in motion”
Gina L. Grandi: “Layabout”
Kathryn Holmstrom: “From Gardens where We Feel Secure”
Robert Maynor: “Always with You”
Anna Mazhirov: “An Absolute”
Amanda McLaughlin: “Cheap Trick”
Neeru Nagarajan: “Suckling”
A.J. Rodriguez: “Lenguaje”
Leigh Claire Schmidli: “Sometimes the Going”
Longlist
Sam Asher: “Worldsick”
Stephanie Early Green: “The Meat They Feed On”
Zilla Jones: “Checkmate”
Michael Knoedler: “All You Have Is Hope”
Annie Liontas: “Revelations”
Melissa Madore: “Home Bird”
Kita Mehaffy: “The Mothers”
Ray Morrison: “Reason to Believe”
Hugh Notman: “Erosion”
Rudy Ruiz: “Mexico Beach”
Kate Ryan: “The Mighty Have Fallen”
Leah Silverman: “The Memory Of”
Bill Smoot: “Black Feathers”
Lisa Thorne: “Fling”
Clancy Tripp: “Gifted & Talented”
Victoria Windrem: “Bookmarks”
Robert Winterode: “aparicio”
Honorable Mentions
Jordi Torres Barroso: “A Little Color in It”
Lucia Bettencourt, with translation by Kim Hastings: “Chocolate Bites”
Leslie Campbell: “Motherlode”
Celeste Chen: “Tuesday, Postmortem”
Edite Cunhã: “The Truth that Is Hidden”
Sarah Gilligan: “Joanie on the Spot”
Sarah Gilmartin: “The Other Woman”
Leena Gundapaneni: “Pheromone Party”
Aleksandra Hill: “Words of Advice at the End of the World”
Will Hodginson: “Pillowtalk”
Aram Kim: “The Professor”
Diana López: “After Star Wars”
Anastasia Lugo Mendez: “Then Time”
Stephanie Mullings: “Eating Mango Whole”
Areej Quraishi: “Like the Chiffon of a Sari”
Flor Salcedo: “See, right here.”
Jasmine Sawers: “Tea with the Queen”
Roberta Silman: “Bed and Breakfast”
Pascha Sotolongo: “The Mustache”
Catherine Uroff: “You Can’t Make Me Go”
Adriana Mora Vargas: “A Pinch of Cinnamon”
Sharon Wahl: “Everything Flirts”
If you didn’t know already, print literary magazine Ruminate has an online component known as The Waking. They recently held their first Flash Prose Contest with the winners being published online.
Nathan Long’s “Summer of Joy” won in the fiction category and Kianna Green’s essay “Sitting Quiet” won the nonfiction prize. Both pieces are available for your reading please on The Waking right now.
Congratulations to the winners! And don’t forget that Ruminate‘s VanderMey Nonfiction Prize is officially open to submissions through October 15 (with a 3-day grace period).
The 2021 Ambit Competition winners have been announced! The theme of this contest was METAMORPHOSIS.
Michael Salu selected “To The Cow, The Trees” by Georgina Parfitt as the winner of the Stories Competition. “Welcome Kanye!” by Luke Jackson took home second and “Oak Peg” by Edward Hofman won third place.
Honorable mentions include Joanne Hayden’s “Wingbeat”; “Metamorphosis” by Xan Nichols; “It’s Complicated” by William Macbeth; “Metamorphosis” by Amelia Sparling; “Snow” by Amanda Hodes; “I want, I want” by Sharmini Wijeyesekera; “Another Life” by Laura Plummer; “Secrets of a Stitchbird” by Jess Richards; “Made to Love Magic” by Sophie Goldsworthy; and “Re-branded: My Careworker’s Uniform” by Deborah Nash.
Michael Salu was also the judge of the Art and Illustration Competition. This marks the first time this category was featured. The inaugural winner was Lucy Gray’s “Being Blue.” Second prize went to “Metamorphosis” by Yeshé Thapa Magar and third prize went to “A Pair of Glasses, A Blue Handbag and an Elegantly Coiled Tail” by Nina Carter.
Honorable mentions include “Metamorphosis, 2020” by Neelam Bhullar; “Snake Seed” by Matthew Richardson; “Metamorphosis” by Lisa Kalloo; Hannah Millar’s “An Altered Network”; “Rebirth” by Aisling McGee; “Shapeshifter” by Susanna Burton; “Eyes of Sierra Padre” by Chris Vaughan; “Posture ay punctuate collection” by Ben Thompson; and “A Transformation, from the ‘Seventh Swan’ a forgotten folk tale by Sasha Alfille, Wormhearts” by Essy Syed.
Kim Addonizio was the judge of the Poetry Competition. She selected Laurie Ogden’s “What we are given” as the winner. Sarah Gibbons’ “Things hang well on me now I’m so beautifully sad” took home second and E. Walker’s “Deux ex Cochlea” won third.
Honorable mentions include “Girlhood” by Stephanie Powell; “Kerkyra, Corfu” by Johan Huybrechts; “Chrysalis” by Mark McGuinness; “Corot’s Berthe” by Elisabeth Murawski; “too small” by Elisabeth Murawski; “Growing a Face” by Mary Mulholland; “Hanging with Rexie” by Elisabeth Sennitt Clough; “That Kiss in Padua” by Kit Ingram; “What the River did Next” by Anne Bailey; and “Poema” by Alix Willard.
Yesterday CRAFT announced the winners of their inaugural CRAFT Creative Nonfiction Award. This year’s contest was judged by Joy Castro.
Winners
“The Ties That Bind” by Tammy Delatorre
“What You Don’t Know” by Claire Fielder
“Catalogue for a Coming of Age” by Liz Harmer
Editors’ Choice Selections
“The Untimely Collaborators” by Sara Davis
“Face, Velvet, Church, Daisy, Red” by Marilyn Hope
These placing pieces can be read on CRAFT‘s website. There, you’ll also find a list of finalists, the rest of the longlist, and honorable mentions, as well as information about this year’s judge.
Able Muse’s guest judge Mark Jarman has chosen Kelly Rowe’s poetry manuscript Rise Above the River as the winner of the 2021 Able Muse Book Award. Rowe wins $1,000 and publication by Able Muse Press in spring/summer 2022. View Rowe’s bio and samples from the work.
Stay tuned for announcements of the 2022 awards and don’t forget to get your copy of the 2020 winner, Say What You Will by Len Krisak which will officially be released in November.
Walter M. Robinson was selected by guest judge Megan Stielstra as the winner of River Teeth‘s 2020 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. His book, What Cannot Be Undone, will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in Spring 2022. Stielstra writes that Dr. Robinson’s book gave her was “the deep humanity of the people called to save our lives.” Dr. Robinson also received a cash prize of $1,000.
The 2021 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize officially opened on August 1 with a deadline of October 31. The guest judge is award-winning author Rigoberto González. The winner receives $1,000 and book publication by The University of New Mexico Press.
Runner Up
Souvenirs from Paradise by Erin Langner
Three Finalists
Afterlight by Joshua Bernstein
How to Live by Kelle Groom
Swampitude by Quitman Marshall
Five Semi-Finalists
The Mothers by Rebe Huntman
Homemaker by Jessica Johnson
From Your Friend Carey Dean by Lisa Knopp
Poisons of War by Sabrina Veroczi
The Mary Years by Julie Marie Wade
Able Muse has just released the announcement of their 2021 Write Prize for Poetry and Fiction winners. The submissions were judged anonymously by the Able Muse Contest Committee and the final judges, William Baer (fiction) and Jehanne Dubrow (poetry).
Amina Gautier’s “We Ask Why” wins the Write Prize for fiction. Baer said the piece is “a deeply moving story that raises serious questions about personal identity and parentage.” The winning story will be published in the Winter 2021/22 edition of Able Muse.
FICTION HONORABLE MENTION:
FICTION SHORTLIST:
E. D. Watson’s “Twelfth of May” wins the Write Prize for Poetry. Dubrow states “What I so appreciate abut this poem is the wryness, its gift for evoking landscape…and the speaker’s sudden hunger in the early aftermath of trauma.” The winning poem and the finalists will be also be published in the Winter 2021/22 issue.
POETRY FINALISTS:
POETRY HONORABLE MENTION:
Stay tuned for the 2021 Able Muse Book Award announcement.
Phew, August has found The Masters Review making a lot of announcements.
First, they announced that Dean Jamieson is the winner of their Winter 2020-21 Short Story Award for New Writers. His winning story, “Straight to My Heart” can be read online. Plus, they also have an interview with Dean.
Corey Flintoff’s “Collection Of The Artist” took home second place. The story and an interview with Corey is also available.
Then they announced the ten finalists selected by guest judge Diane Cook for publication in The Masters Review Anthology X.
The Bird Rattle by Chelsy Diaz Amaya
Atlas, Bayonet, (War) Correspondence: An Abecedarian by Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt
Limbs by Megan Callahan
Do Not Duplicate by John Darcy
Resurrection by Hilary Dean
Comfort Animals by Travis Eisenbise
Persimmon by Elissa C. Huang
All That Is or Ever Was or Ever Will Be by Eliana Ramage
A String of Lapis Beads by Greg Schutz
Sugar by Francis Walsh
And finally, they have announced that Nick Almeida’s Masterplans has won their inaugural chapbook contest. The book is forthcoming in Fall 2021 and you can read the titular story right now as a preview of what’s to come.
Literary magazine CARVE offers the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest annually in the spring with winners appearing in their fall issue. The contest awards $3,000 across five prizes and is open to stories written in English from around the world.
The 2021 contest was judged by Leesa Cross-Smith who chose the top three prizewinners.
First – $2000: “Habits” by Morgan Green in Abington, PA
Second – $500: “The Pit” by Chris Blexrud in New Orleans, LA
Third – $250: “Field Dressing” by Mariah Rigg in Eugene, OR
Editors’ Choice – $125: “What Happened with the Librarian?” by Haley Hach in Rhinebeck, NY
Editors’ Choice – $125: “The Kingdom of the Shades” by Nina Ellis in London, UK
Finalists
“Disappear” by Patricia King
“Eyrie Hours” by Stephanie Pushaw
“Mapping the New Hell” by Shana Hartmann
“Those People” by Melissa Gardea
“St. Felix Dance & Bowl” by Joshua Wales
Ruminate has announced the winner, runner up, and honorable mention for their 2021 William Van Dyke Short Story Prize. The final judge of the prize this year was Kelli Jo Ford whose debut novel Crooked Hallelujah made waves last year.
First Place: “The Florist” by Alex Cothren
Second Place: “A Guide to Removal” by Amber Baleser-Wardzala
Honorable Mention: “Kantingo Carried 16,980 Tons and a Gentleman” by George Choundas
These stories will be published in the Fall 2021 issue of Ruminate due out in mid-September. The issue is currently available for pre-order, so don’t forget to reserve your copy today if you aren’t a subscriber already.
The Spring/Summer 2021 issue of december includes the 2021 Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize winner and finalists.
First Place
“Hold Tight” by John Okrent
Honorable Mention
“Disaster A/version/Re/vision” by Margaret Ray
Finalists
“Voyeurs” by Joshua Boettiger
“A List of People Who Did Not Kill Me” by Tianna Bratcher
“Tower Block Twelve” by Elena Croitoru
“Mother & Son as Oyakodon II” by Michael Frazier
“Abecedarian on Hunger” by Naomi Ling
“True Story” by Chloe Martinez
“Cicadas” by Saudamini Siegrist
“My Mother’s House” by Isabelle Walker
“Back to the Body” by Alyson Gold Weinberg
“Also Be Lost” by Kelleen Zubick
You can grab yourself a copy of this issue at december‘s website.
The Spring 2021 issue of Dogwood features the 2021 Dogwood Literary Award Winners in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Nonfiction
“My Hundred Years of Solitude” by Marcos Villatoro
Poetry
“Ten-Foot Drop” by Maria Zoccola
Fiction
“Little Black Dress” by Roberta Gates
This year’s contest judges were Sejal Shah (nonfiction), Lauren K. Alleyne (poetry), and James Tate Hill (fiction). Visit Dogwood’s website for a celebration of each of the winners with words from the judges and bios for the winning writers.
The winners of the 2021 Open Season Awards are in the Spring 2021 issue of The Malahat Review. This year’s judges were Rebecca Salazar for poetry, Philip Huynh for fiction, and Lishai Peel for creative nonfiction.
Fiction
“Crossing” by Zilla Jones
Creative Nonfiction
“Mondegreen Girls” by Tanis MacDonald
Poetry
“Merchant Vessels” by Matthew Hollet
Check in with The Malahat Review in August when this contest opens for submissions again.
Grab a copy of Paterson Literary Review to check out the writers who placed in the 2020 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award.
First Prize
“To My Husband, Driving into Bad Weather” by Sara Henning
“What I Wanted When I Was Twelve” by Ray Petersen
Second Prize
“Augury” by Mary Crosby
“The Truth about Cats” by Jason Craig Poole
Third Prize
“I Worry about Atatiana Jefferson’s Nephew” by Rachelle Parker
Honorable mentions and editor’s choice pieces are also included in the issue.
“While the contest is called the ‘Poet Hunt,’ I didn’t actually have to hunt very long for worthy poems; they arrived in batches, and it was quite a literary bounty,” Matthew Olzmann says introducing the winner and honorable mentions of Poet Hunt 25 in the Winter 2021 issue of The MacGuffin.
Winner
“No Rehearsal” by Vivian Shipley
Honorable Mentions
“Bright Spot” by Rita Schweiss
“Dogs and Ominous Weapons” by John Jeffire
Following the winning poems, readers can find a selection of poems by the guest judge of Poet Hunt 26, Indigo Moor.
