Maria Tess Liem’s “Rice Cracker” was selected from among 179 submissions as the winning entry of the The Malahat Review‘s Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize. Contest judge Jane Silcott called the work “A beautifully considered piece: driven by quiet emotion, delivered through art and craft.” Jack Crouch interviews Liem, discussing her attraction to nonfiction, the difficulties she experiences when writing about ‘the personal’ as well as the benefits, and what her future writing plans include. The Malahat Review awards $1000 for this prize as well as publication. Liem’s piece can be read in the winter 2015 issue (#193).
2015 BrainStorm Poetry Contest Honorable Mentions
Open Minds Quarterly is a publication of “poetry and literature of mental health recovery.” The winners of their annual BrainStorm Poetry Contest for mental health consumers is divided over two publications. The first, second, and third-place poems are published in the spring issue, with honorable mentions following in the fall issue. The Honorable Mentions are “The Rain King” by Thomas Leduc, “Ophelia” by Ruthie-Marie Beckwith, “Observational” by Katy Richey, and “The 4th Floor” by Katy Richey.
2015 Willam Van Dyke Prize Winners
The Winter 2015 issue of Ruminate features the first and second place winners and honorable mention of the 2015 William Van Dyke Short Story Prize as selected by Judge Amy Lowe:
FIRST PLACE: Doug Cornett, “Maybelline in the Tower”
SECOND PLACE: Will Jones, “The Shed”
HONORABLE MENTION: Elizabeth Kaye Cook, “The Body in Silence”
See a full list of finalists here.
2015 Guy Owen Poetry Award Winner
Southern Poetry Review 53:2 features the winner of the 2015 Guy Own Poetry Award. Philip Dacey was the final judge, selecting Ron Watson’s “View from Where the Grass Is Always Greener.” In addition to publication, the Guy Owen Award winner receives $1000. Other poets featured in the issue include Charles Atkinson, Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Jody Bolz, Beverly Burch, John Crutchfield, Caroline DuBois, Heather Hamilton, Gordon Johnston, Lynne Knight, Nick McRae, James Najarian, Daniel Joseph Polikoff, J. Stephen Rhodes, Maura Stanton, Ed Taylor, Will Walker, and Charles Harper Web.
Books :: Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry
The winner of Milkweed Editions’s 2015 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, Beautiful Zero by Jennifer Willoughby, is now available. Chosen by Dana Levin, this debut collection is filled with wit and humor and promises relief from the seriousness of real life. Levin likens the collection to “a buoy in the sea at bottom, a life preserver, a raft.”
Those needing a pick-me-up in the middle of these dark winter months can find copies of Beautiful Zero at the Milkweed Editions website.
Books :: Whiting Award for Poetry
In April 2016, Aracelis Girmay’s The Black Maria will start hitting bookshelves. Winner of a 2015 Whiting Award for Poetry, The Black Maria “investigates African diasporic histories, the consequences of racism within American culture, and the question of human identity.”
The Whiting Award Selection Committee says the collection is “always in service of a moral vision, a deep concern for who we are, who we have been.”
Copies of The Black Maria can be pre-ordered from BOA Editions LTD website.
[quotes from BOA Editions LTD website]
Glimmer Train Short Story for New Writers Winners
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their November Short Story Award for New Writers. This competition is held three times a year and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. The next Short Story Award competition is open now: Short Story Award for New Writers. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
1st place goes to Gabe Herron [pictured] of Scappoose, OR, who wins $1500 for “Suzette.” His story will be published in Issue 99 of Glimmer Train Stories.
2nd place goes to Sam Miller Khaikin of Brooklyn, NY. She wins $500 for “A Working Theory of Stellar Collapse.”
3rd place goes to Cady Vishniac of Columbus, OH. She wins $300 for “Move.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Books :: Elixir Press Award in Fiction
Due out at the beginning of February is the winner of the Elixir Press Award in Fiction, The Loss of All Lost Things by Amina Gautier.
The collection explores moments of loss and yearning in its fifteen short stories that, according to contest judge Phong Nguyen, “have you by the throat [ . . . ].”
Readers can have a small peek inside The Loss of All Lost Things and order a copy at the SPD website.
Kenyon Review Short Fiction Winners
The newest issue of Kenyon Review features the winners of their eighth annual Short Fiction Contest:
First Prize: Shasta Grant [pictured], “Most Likely To”
Runner-up: Rob Howell, “Mars or Elsewhere”
Runner-up: Courtney Sender, “Black Harness”
Judge Ann Patchett writes:
In “Most Likely To,” Shasta Grant delivers a full narrative arc in four pages. Her characters experienced loss and were changed by it, a pretty remarkable feat to pull off in such a small space. Perfectly chosen details made both the characters and the setting memorable. This was the story that stayed with me.
Robert Howell gives us a completely delightful flight of imagination in “Mars or Elsewhere”. In dealing with a lover’s fantasy of what could happen were the couple to run off together, he creates a wild and atmospheric riff on possibility that read like jazz.
Courtney Sender matches the light topic of youthful lost love with the extreme heft of the Holocaust in “Black Harness” and comes up with a miraculous balance between the personal and the universal. I never could have imagined where this story was going and I was pleased by the surprise.
The winner and runners-up can also be read online here.
Baltimore Review Winter 2016 Contest Winners
Baltimore Review announces the winners of the Baltimore Review Winter 2016 Contest. The theme for this contest was “Health,” and the final judge was Joanna Pearson, MD.
First Place
Heidi Czerwiec, “Nervous Systems”
Second Place
Christine Stewart-Nuñez, “Art of the Body”
Third Place
Raquel Fontanilla, “Souvenir from Where You’ve Been”
Work by the winners is included in the Winter 2016 issue, available at the Baltimore Review website, and submissions for the journal re-open February 1.
Indiana Review 2015 Prize Winners
Winners and select finalists and runner-up of the Indiana Review Poetry and (inaugural) Nonfiction Prizes are published in the most recent issue (Vol 37 No 2):
Poetry Judge Eduardo Corral
Winner
Caitlin Scarano, “Between the Bloodhounds and My Shrinking Mouth”
Runner Up
Jennifer Givhan, “Town of Foolish Things”
Finalists
LA Johnson, “Split-Level”
Caitlin Scarano, “To the City With Her Skull Wind”
A complete list of finalists can be found here.
Nonfiction Judge Kiese Laymon
Winner
John Murillo III, “Black (in) Time”
A complete list of finalists can be found here.
[Cover art: “Desire Is the Root of All Suffering” by Deedee Cheriel]
Books :: Katherine Anne Porter Prize & Noemi Press Book Award for Fiction
In November 2015, the winners of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction and the 2014 Noemi Press Book Award for Fiction were published.
Last Words of the Holy Ghost by Matt Cashion placed first in the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction through the University of North Texas Press. Chosen by Lee K. Abbott, the collection of 12 Southern Gothic short stories was released November 15. This is Cashion’s first short story collection.
Nate Liederbach’s short story collection Beasts You’ll Never See, winner of the 2014 Noemi Press Book Award for Fiction, “seeks to unearth the inevitable paradoxes of comedy and tragedy lurking under the skin of every human relationship, and it does so while also challenging its reader to question the emotional mechanisms that underpin conventional narratives.”
[Quote from SPD website.]
Able Muse 2015 Write Prize Winners
The winter 2015 issue of Able Muse A Review of Poetry, Prose & Art features the winners of their annual Write Prize for Fiction and Poetry. The Fiction Winner as selected by Final Judge Eugenia Kim is Andrea Witzke Slot’s “After Reading the News Story of a Woman Who Attempted to Carry Her Dead Baby onto an Airplane.” The Poetry Winner as selected by H.L. Hix is Elise Hempel’s “Cathedral Peppersauce.” Two Poetry Honorable Mentions were also included in the publication, “Jockey” by Elise Hempel and “On Watching a Cascade Commercial” by Jeanne Wagner.
A full list of honorable mentions and finalists as well as information about this annual prize can be found here.
[And that gorgeous cover image is “Audience” by Patrick McDonald.]
Ninth Letter 2015 Literary Award Winners
The Ninth Letter 2015 Literary Award Winners are available for reading in the newest issue (Vol 12 No 2).
Poetry Winner
Judge: Kathy Fagan
Corey Van Landingham, “In the Year of No Sleep”
Fiction Winner
Judge: Jac Jemc
Kristen N. Arnett, “See also: A history of glassmaking”
Creative Nonfiction Winner
Judge: Matthew Gavin Frank
Michael Gracey, “My Own Good Daemon”
A full list of runners up and information about this annual contest can be found here.
Salamander 2015 Fiction Prize Winner
Salamander #41 features the winner of their 2015 Fiction Prize, “Floating Garden” by Mary LaChapelle, as well as the 2015 Honorable Mention, “The Hooligan Present” by John Mauk. Judge Andre Dubus III offered these comments on his selections:
With spare yet deeply evocative prose, “Floating Garden” sweeps us up into the span of a singular life, one that is as sacred as any other, one for whom “the words for things take us from what matters.” This story is a profound meditation on the nature of brutality – of man against man, of man against nature – yet it is also an unsentimental song of how we can be redeemed, “like dust into soil, so dark, so primordial.” This is a lovely gem of a tale.
Told in a rollicking, expressionistic voice, “The Hooligan Present” delivers that rarest of reading experiences; it actually makes you laugh, and then it makes you cry, and then it leaves you grateful for such artistry, for such a generous and humane vision of this dirty old world.
For a full list of finalists and more information about this annual contest, click here.
Books :: Minerva Rising Poetry Chapbook Contest
Winner of Minerva Rising’s second annual Poetry Chapbook Contest with the theme “Dare to be the Woman I Am,” Maria Garcia Teutsch’s The Revolution Will Have Its Sky is now available for purchase.
Judge Heather McHugh says of her selection:
This poetry isn’t out to convert, but to advert. It doesn’t pledge allegiance or invest in transcendent causes, but rather observes signs of war, wars of sex, hexes of communication. [ . . . ] The Revolution Will Have Its Sky reminds us enlistees (whether in grays or blues, whether in wishes or words, whether in war or love) how down-and-dirty signing up can be.
Both Teutsch’s The Revolution Will Have Its Sky and runner-up Who Was I to Say I Was Alive by Kelly Nelson are both available from the Minerva Rising website.
Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Winners :: December 2015
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their Very Short Fiction Award. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories with a word count under 3000. The next Very Short Fiction competition will take place in March. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: Anthony DeCasper [pictured], of Chico, CA, wins $1500 for “Redshift.” His story will be published in Issue 99 of Glimmer Train Stories. This is his first story accepted for publication!
Second place: Stefanie Freele, of Geyserville, FL, wins $500 for “Everything But What We Need.” Her story will also appear in an upcoming issue, increasing her prize to $700.
Third place: Parker Young, of Chicago, IL, wins $300 for “Lighter Fluid.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Deadline coming up! Fiction Open: January 2
Glimmer Train hosts this competition twice a year, and first place is $2500 plus publication in the journal. This category has been won by both beginning and veteran writers – all are welcome! There are no theme restrictions. Word count generally ranges from 2000 – 6000, though up to 20,000 is fine. Click here for complete guidelines.
The Florida Review Editors’ Awards Issue
The Florida Review 2014 Editors’ Awards winners and finalists appear in the newest double issue of TFR (39.1 & 2) Winners receive $1,000 in addition to publication.
Fiction
Winner: Scott Winokur, “Bristol, Boy”
Finalist: Mary Hutchings, “When Walls Weep”
Finalist: Lones Seiber for “Death in the Aegean”
Essay
Winner: Allie Rowbottom, “Resonance,” “Burnt,” and “Albino Dolphins”
Finalist: Thomas Gibbs, “Beseme Mucho”
Finalist: Stacey Parker Le Melle, “Tonight We Are the Americans”
Poetry
Winner: Mary Obropta, “Resonance,” “Burnt,” and “Albino Dolphins”
Finalist: Benjamin Busch, “Sound Wave”
Finalist: Emma Hine, “Big Game”
Finalist: Michael Collins, “Nightmare of Intercourse with Lightning”
Finalist: Angela Belcaster, “Calving in the Ice Storm” and “Lying Low so the Gods Won’t Notice”
Books :: Noemi Press Book Award for Poetry
The 2014 Noemi Press Book Award for Poetry winner is Objects of Attention by Aichlee Bushnell and was published in Fall 2015.
“In 1787, Sally Hemings joined her brother James as a paid servant to Thomas Jefferson in Paris, France. In 1789, she returned to Monticello pregnant, a slave again, at her own will. Objects of Attention explores the intimate boundaries between slave and slaveowner, celebrating the rich interior life and intellect of the enslaved woman while examining the contradictory laws and classic philosophies that supported her captivity.”
Bushnell’s first book, Objects of Attention is out now and available on the Noemi Press website with more information
[Quote from SPD website.]
2015 Rattle Poetry Prize Winners
2015 Rattle Poetry Prize Winner and Finalists appear in the newest issue or Rattle (#50). Rattle received a record 4,022 entries and roughly 15,000 poems from which the following were chosen.
1st Prize – $10,000 and publication
“Equilibrium” by Tiana Clark [photo by Andrea Yelk]
Finalists – $200 and publication
“Our Beautiful Life When It’s Filled With Shrieks” by Christopher Citro
“Work in Progress” by Rhina P. Espaillat
“The Glance” by Jennifer Givhan
“Morning at the Welfare Office” by Valentina Gnup
“Old Age Requires the Greatest Courage” by Red Hawk
“More Than This” by David Kirby
“Yesterday” by Travis Mossotti
“Sugar Babe” by Cherise A. Pollard
“Deus ex Machina” by Melissa King Rogers
“Elegy” by Patricia Smith
Each of these finalists are also eligible for the $2,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by entrant and subscriber vote (the voting period is December 1, 2015 – February 15, 2016).
Another nine poems were selected for standard publication, and offered a space in the open section of a future issue: George Bilgere, Christopher Citro, Taylor Collier, Jennifer Givhan, Chris Green, M, S.H. Lohmann, Christine Poreba, and Laura Read.
Books :: Snyder Memorial Prize
Anna George Meek’s The Genome Rhapsodies was chosen by Angie Estes last year as the winner of The Ashland Poetry Series’ 2014 Snyder Memorial Prize. The award is given annually, with a prize of $1000, publication, and a featured reading at Ashland University (and submissions are currently open until April).
Angie Estes says of her selection: “These poems re-member us in language and reveal how the past becomes us, in every sense of the word; they are gorgeous, unforgettable works of art.”
To read these works of art, check out The Ashland Poetry Series’ website for three ways to pick up a copy.
2015 Gulf Coast Prize Winners
The 2015 Gulf Coast Prize Winners have been selected, with the winning works published in the Fall 2015 issue of Gulf Coast.
Poetry winner selected by Carl Phillips
Emily Skaja, “My History As”
Nonfiction winner selected by Maggie Nelson
Aurvi Sharma, “Apricots”
Fiction winner selected by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
Sultana Banulescu, “The Last Dragoman”
Winners in each genre receive $1,500 and publication and honorable mentions receive $250. All entrants receive a free one-year subscription to Gulf Coast, beginning with the issue in which the winners are published. See the full list of winners and honorable mentions here.
2015 Raymond Carver Contest Winners
Now in its 15th year, the Carve Magazine Raymond Carver Contest is one of the most well-known short story contests of our time. From over 1200 entries this year, 2015 Guest Judge: Andre Dubus III made the following selections:
First
“Arrangements” by Charlie Watts in Providence, RI
Second
“Kudzu” by Andrea Bobotis in Denver, CO
Third
“Jack Nicely” by Amanda Pauley in Elliston, VA
Editor’s Choice selected by Editor in Chief Matthew Limpede
“The Giant” by Joe Shlichta in Olympia, WA
Editor’s Choice selected by Associte Editor Suzanne Barnecut
“All That We Burned, All That We Loved” by Laura Haugen in U.S.A.
The winning works are available to read in the Fall 2015 issue of Carve Magazine as well as in full on the Carve website.
2015 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction Winner
From Editor Stephanie G’Schwind’s Editors’ Page for the Fall/Winter 2015 issue of Colorado Review:
Twelve years ago, with the support of Emily Hammond and Steven Schwartz, now Colorado Review’s fiction editor, we founded the Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction as a way to honor the memory of Liza Nelligan, a dear friend and Colorado State University English Department alumna. Nelligan passed away in 2003, and the Prize seeks to celebrate her life, work, and love of creative writing by awarding an honorarium and publication each year to the author of an outstanding short story. This year’s winner, featured in this issue, is Luke Dani Blue’s “Bad Things That Happen to Girls,” selected by Lauren Groff, who says of this story,
The magic in this story is subtle and slow-building and so unprepossessing that, while reading it, I understood I was holding my breath only when the story started to swim before me. Poor Birdie, poor Tricia! This story’s wisdom resides in the complicated web of emotion between mother and daughter, the gnarl of tenderness and fury and frustration and embarrassment, of primal loss and of overwhelming love. It’s a story that aches with truth and desperation, and I marvel at the way Blue ratchets up the motion, breath by breath, to the story’s logical but stunning end.
[Blue’s winning story can be found in the Fall/Winter 2015 issue as well as on the Colorado Review website.]
GT 2015 Sept Family Matters Winners
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their September Family Matters competition. This competition is held once a year and is open to all writers for stories about family of all configurations. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: S. P. MacIntyre [pictured], of South Florida, wins $1500 for “Pinch.” His story will be published in Issue 98 of Glimmer Train Stories.
Second place: Christopher Bundy, of Atlanta, GA, wins $500 for “80,000,000.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train, increasing his prize to $700.
Third place: D. C. Lambert, of Haddenfield, NJ, wins $300 for “That Your Reality Is the Only Reality.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Deadline soon approaching! Short Story Award for New Writers: November 30
This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5000. No theme restrictions. Most submissions to this category run 1500-5000 words, but can go up to 12,000. First place prize is $1500. Second/third: $500/$300. Click here for complete guidelines.
Books :: Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel
Southeast Missouri State University Press’s annual Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel awards a $2,000 prize to winners, publication, and an invitation to read at the University.
James Tate Hill’s winning Academy Gothic was published this past October. The novel follows Tate Cowlishaw after finding the dead body of Scoot Simkins, dean of Parshall College.
From the publisher’s website:
Suspects aren’t hard to come by at the college annually ranked ‘Worst Value’ by U.S. News & World Report. While the faculty brace for a visit from the accreditation board, Cowlishaw’s investigation leads him to another colleague on eternal sabbatical. Before long, his efforts to save his job become efforts to stay alive. A farcical tale of incompetence and corruption, Academy Gothic scathingly redefines higher education as it chronicles the last days of a dying college.
Head over to the Southeast Missouri State University Press website to watch the Academy Gothic book trailer, read more about Hill’s first novel, and order a copy.
Far Horizons Short Fiction Winner
Issue #192 of The Malahat Review features the winner of the 2015 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction, Mark Rogers, “Heaven and Back Again, or The Goddit.” Of Rogers’ winning story, contest judge Elyse Friedman called it “a strange, modern-day fairy tale about children who escape the control of their parents—and the earthly realm—only to return as shells, their essence gone.” In addition to publication, Rogers receives $1,000 and is featured in an interview with Jack Crouch on The Malahat Review website.
Books :: Garrett Fiction Prize
Kathy Flann’s second collection of stories Get a Grip was released last month from Texas Review Press. Winner of the 20145 George Garrett Fiction Prize, Get a Grip, according to the publisher’s website: “depict[s] a range of imagined lives . . . . All of the characters work out their struggles in the Baltimore region, channeling, in turns, the area’s charm, its despair, its humor, its self-doubt, its compassion. Get a Grip is a book about who we are when the cameras are off and the phone has died.”
Digital and print copies are available on the Texas Review Press website.
First Lines for 2016
The First Line literary magazine is built on the premise of jump-starting writers’ imaginations. The publication provides the first line for writers and accepts fiction and non-fiction submissions for each issue based on that unique first line. Since 1999, readers have been able to enjoy a wealth of creativity that stems from these common start points. Recently, the first line held a contest for – First Lines! They received over 1,000 entries and selected four to use as the first lines for 2016:
Spring: “Unfortunately, there is no mistake,” she said, closing the file. (Submitted by Julia Offen)
Summer: By the fifteenth month of the drought, the lake no longer held her secrets. (Submitted by Julie Thi Underhill)
Fall: Mrs. Morrison was too busy to die. (Submitted by Victoria Phelps)
Winter: In the six years I spent tracking David Addley, it never occurred to me that he didn’t exist. (Submitted by Aysha Akhtar)
“But wait,” says Editor David LaBounty, “there’s more. We felt several sentences that were submitted as first lines would have made great last lines, and since we needed a last line for the third issue of The Last Line, we decided to pick one more sentence. We chose the following to be the last line for the 2016 issue.”
Issue 3 of The Last Line: It was hard to accept that from now on everyone would look at her differently. (Submitted by Adele Gammon)
In case you weren’t sure, The Last Line annual lit mag is the same concept, only flipped: writers are provided with the last line as their prompt.
No excuses writers: you’ve been prompted!
Nimrod 37th Awards Issue
The Fall/Winter 2015 issue of Nimrod International includes the following winners, honorable mentions, finalists and semi-finalists of the 37th Nimrod Literary Awards.
Nimrod Literary Awards: The Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry
FIRST PRIZE:
Heather Altfeld, CA, “Two Pockets” and other poems
SECOND PRIZE:
Leila Chatti, NC, “Momon Eats an Apple in Summer” and other poems
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Grant Gerald Miller, OR, “Skin” and other poems
Berwyn Moore, PA, “Interferon” and other poems
Emily Van Kley, WA, “Varsity Athletics” and other poems
Nimrod Literary Awards: The Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction
FIRST PRIZE:
J. Duncan Wiley, NE, “Inclusions”
SECOND PRIZE:
Emily Wortman-Wunder, CO, “Burning”
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Stephanie Carpenter, MI, “The Sweeper”
Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, VA, “The Heart of Things”
Books :: Gold Line Press Poetry Chapbook Competition
Drea Brown’s dear girl: a reckoning was released last month. The 2014 poetry winner of the Gold Line Press Chapbook Competition revisits the biography of poet Phillis Wheatley, reimagining her journey through the Middle Passage to Boston.
2014 Judge Douglas Kearney says of his selection, “Feverishly urgent, vivid, and unironic, dear girl: a reckoning refuses passivity, amnesia, and despair, bringing the bones to our present to begin the work of healing.”
Brown’s recent work can also be found in Southern Indiana Review and Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander.
dear girl: a reckoning, a perfect-bound chapbook, is available for sale on the Gold Line Press website, along with the 2014 fiction winner, The White Swallow by Anna Kovatcheva.
Books :: Gold Line Press Fiction Chapbook Competition
Gold Line Press’s annual chapbook contest ended in September, and they released their 2014 fiction winner this past October. Along with publication of her perfect-bound chapbook The White Swallow, winner Anna Kovatcheva has received a $500 prize and contributor copies.
Selected by Aimee Bender, she says of her selection:
The White Swallow has so many things going for it—starkly memorable imagery, strangeness that feels natural to the story, the feeling that the story itself grew up from the earth like a tree, and an ending that defies moralization. It seems instead to reflect the same unpredictable and mysterious quality of the world that also lets birds go into girls and healing to occur and, for inside all that, love to blossom.
Diana Arterian has designed the book, creating a beautiful little package for Kovatcheva’s work. For more information about The White Swallow, check out the Gold Line Press website.
Books :: Colorado Prize for Poetry
The Colorado Prize for Poetry annually awards a $2000 honorarium and book publication to an author of a complete collection of poetry. This month, the 2015 winner will be published: The Business by Stephanie Lenox, chosen by Laura Kasischke.
From the publisher:
What does it meant to work in the age of the cubicle? The Business takes on the modern workplace with sharp-witted poems that sting like a paper cut. A former secretary, Stephanie Lenox positions herself as poetic note-taker of the mundane. . . . The collection transforms office politics and paper clips into a funny and critical emanation of the mortal rat race.
This is Lenox’s third collection of poetry, and her second prize winner (The Heart That Lies Outside the Body won the Slapering Hol Chapbook Competition in 2007). Copies of The Business are available for purchase at the website for The Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University.
Glimmer Train August Short Story for New Writers Award Winners
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their August Short Story Award for New Writers. This competition is held three times a year and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. The next Short Story Award competition will take place in January/February. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
1st place goes to A. Campbell of New Haven, CT [pictured], who wins $1500 for “On Fleek/Fleek On.” This story will be published in Issue 98 of Glimmer Train Stories. This will be the author’s first fiction publication.
2nd place goes to Mary Kate Varnau of Carbondale, IL for “Supernova.” This story will also appear in a future issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing her prize from $500 to $700.
3rd place goes to René Houtrides of Jackson Heights, NY. She wins $300 for “Senior Spring.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Books :: G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction
BkMk Press annually holds their G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction (currently open with a deadline in January), and this year’s winning title was just released at the end of September. King of the Gypsies by Lenore Myka was chosen by Lorraine M. López who writes of her selection, “Myka’s characters release uncountable fibers, connecting them to one another in the linked narratives, binding them to the harshly beguiling Romania they inhabit and that inhabits them.”
This is Myka’s first collection, though her work can be found in Massachusetts Review, Iowa Review, and New England Review, amongst others. To find out more information about King of the Gypsies, head over to the BkMk Press website.
Books :: Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize
Matthew Minicucci’s Translation was published in August 2015, winner of the 2014 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize from Kent State University Press. The Poetry Prize is awarded to a poet who has not previously published a full-length collection of poems.
Translation is the 21st book to be released through the Wick Poetry First Book Series and was chosen by Jane Hirschfield who calls Minicucci’s poems “accurate and deftly navigable vessels of inner life.”
More information about Translation can be found on the Kent State University website.
Books :: Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry
The Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry is sponsored by the Creative Writing Program at University of Notre Dame in conjunction with The University of Notre Dame Press. Awarded to authors who have published at least one volume of poetry, winners receive publication and a prize of $1000 dollars.
The 2015 winner was published last month: Underdays by Martin Ott.
From the publisher’s website: “Underdays is a dialogue of opposing forces: life/death, love/war, the personal/the political. Ott combines global concerns with personal ones, in conversation between poems or within them, to find meaning in his search for what drives us to love and hate each other.”
Ott’s work can be found in The Antioch Review, The Café Review, and Epoch, just to name a few.
To learn more about Underdays, check out the University of Notre Dame Press’s website.
Glimmer Train 2015 Very Short Fiction Award Winners
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their Very Short Fiction Award. This competition is held annually and is open to all writers for stories with a word count under 3000. The next Very Short Fiction competition will take place in July. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: David James Poissant [pictured], of Oviedo, FL, wins $1500 for “Tornado.” His story will be published in Issue 98 of Glimmer Train Stories.
Second place: Adam O’Fallon Price, of Iowa City, IA, wins $500 for “Our Celebrity.”
Third place: Mary Kuryla, of Topanga, CA, wins $300 for “Not in Nottingham.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Deadline coming up! Family Matters: September 30
Glimmer Train hosts this competition twice a year. It’s open to all writers for stories about families of any configuration. Most submissions to this category run 1200-5000 words, but can go up to 12,000. Click here for complete guidelines.
Books :: Philip Levine Prize in Poetry
Look forward to Christine Poreba’s Rough Knowledge, winner of the 2014 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry, currently scheduled to be published by Anhinga Press at the beginning of 2016. Rough Knowledge is Poreba’s first book and was chosen from nearly 700 manuscripts by Peter Everwine.
Everwine says of his selection:
[Poreba] has an eye for exact particulars and doesn’t stray from them, but her poems are so transparent, so quiet and intimate with the daily ambiguities and revelations of experience, that if you listen carefully you can almost believe the movement within her poems is like breathing: inward-containment, outward-space. I want such poetry close at hand.
To learn more about Rough Knowledge, check out Fresno State University’s website.
The MacGuffin Poetry Prize Winners
The MacGuffin has announced the winners of their Poetry Prize, which was sponsored at the Detroit Working Writer’s Conference this spring.
1st place goes to Kim Geralds for “Each In Her Own Time”
2nd place goes to Melissa “Liza” Young for “’Dreamt’ is the only English word that ends in ‘mt”
3rd place goes to Linda Nemec Foster for “Blue”
Foster’s poetry can be found in the Summer 2015 issue of The MacGuffin. To read the winning pieces, stay tuned for the Winter 2016 edition.
The Kenyon Review :: Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers
In the September/October issue of The Kenyon Review, find the winners of the 2015 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers.
The Poetry Prize is in its 12th year and “recognizes an outstanding single poem by a high school sophomore or junior.”
1st place goes to Caitlin Chan for her poem “Tlingit Farewell: Glacier Bay, 1966.”
The two runners-up are Gavin Murtha for his poem “I Spent a Lot of Time in There” and Emily Zhang for her poem “Story for the Salt.”
These three pieces, as well as past winners, can be read in full on The Kenyon Review website. The contest opens again at the beginning of November 2015.
Books :: Orison Poetry Prize
Halfway through November, Orison Books will release J. Scott Brownlee’s debut full-length poetry collection Requiem for Used Ignition Cap, winner of the 2015 Orison Poetry Prize.
From the editors: The poems in this collection explore the rural landscape and residents of Brownlee’s native Llano, Texas. Brownlee might be considered a natural mystic, refusing to settle for the simplistic ideological framewo0rk offered by his religious heritage, but rather finding in the particulars of place the vehicles of transcendence.”
Brownlee has been awarded $1,500, along with publication. His poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, West Branch, and more.
Find out more at Orison Books’s website.
Glimmer Train June Fiction Open Winners :: 2015
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their June Fiction Open competition. This competition is held twice a year. Stories generally range from 2000-6000 words, though up to 20,000 is fine. The next Fiction Open will take place in December. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: Caleb Leisure [pictured], of Martinez, CA, wins $2500 for “Atlantic on Sunday.” His story will be published in Issue 97 of Glimmer Train Stories.
Second place: Steven Polansky, of Appleton, WI, wins $1000 for “Obsequies” and publication in a future issue of Glimmer Train Stories.
Third place: Andrew Robinson, of Singapore, wins $600 for “Greater Love.” His story will also be published in a future issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing his prize to $700.
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Books :: Able Muse Book Award
Winner of the 2014 Able Muse Book Award, Cause for Concern by Carrie Shipers is now available. From the publisher’s website: “Full of incisive meditations on frailties and fortitude often delivered with visceral honesty, Cause for Concern is spellbinding from start to finish.”
Order a print or digital copy of Cause for Concern from Able Muse’s website.
Able Muse 2015 Winners
Able Muse is pleased to announce the winners of the Write Prize for poetry & fiction. The winning writer and the winning poet will each receive a $500 prize.
Write Prize for Fiction
Final Judge: Eugenia Kim
Winner: Andrea Witzke Slot – “After Reading the News Story of a Woman Who Attempted to Carry Her Dead Baby onto an Airplane”
Here is what Eugenia Kim has to say about Andrea Witzke Slot’s winning story: The first line of this story presents a character, setting and situation with a rare and satisfying command of storytelling. Using perfect details balanced against rapid pacing, the voice of this writing has an air of stern and simple elegance, and reveals how the narrator’s experience of a newspaper story becomes a parallel challenge to her own ambivalence about motherhood and love. In the way that great stories open larger questions, within its brief timeframe this story questions culture and society, and how we are so quick and sure to judge the tragedies of others, yet with less capacity to examine the perils in our own judgments.
Honorable Mention
James Cooper – “Strangers on a Cliff”
Albert Liau – “With the Clarity of Hindsight”
Shortlist
Scott Sharpe – “Dance Among the Dogwoods”
* * * *
Write Prize for Poetry
Final Judge: H.L. Hix
Winner: Elise Hempel – “Cathedral Peppersauce”
Here is what H.L. Hix has to say about Elise Hempel’s winning poem: The formal qualities of “Cathedral Peppersauce” are elegant: slant rhymes throughout, until the final couplet clicks the poem closed with a perfect rhyme. Even more elegant, though, is the poem’s way of grasping the beauty of its subject, by looking simultaneously at the bottle and through it into history, from which it recuperates, through sympathy and particularity, a life lost long ago.
Finalists
Elise Hempel – “Jockey”
Jeanne Wagner – “On Watching a Cascade Commercial”
Shortlist
Jim Bartruff – “Meditation on the Wake of the Winslow Ferry”
Midge Goldberg – “On Learning the Harvest Moon Is an Optical Illusion”
Trish Lindsey Jaggers – “Jaybirds Feeding on Robins”
Miriam O’Neal – “Bottle Journal ? Meditation on Transformation”
Gabriel Spera – “Blessed”
Marty Steyer – “The King of Lightning”
M.K. Sukach – “About an Alligator”
The Meadow 2015 Novella Prize Winner
The 2015 annual issue of The Meadow features the winner of their 2015 Novella Prize: “Still Life” by Jerry D. Mathes II.
The Novella Prize is open until December 15 for previously unpublished manuscripts between 18,000 and 35,000 words. The winner receives $500 and publication in the print journal as well as online. The judge for 2015 has not yet been announced. For more information, visit The Meadow website.
Malahat Review on Long Form Poetry
The Malahat Review issue 191 includes winners of their 2015 Long Poem Prize: Gary Geddes for “The Resumption of Play” and Genevieve Lehr for “The latter half of the third quarter of the waning moon.”
The Malahat Review website features and interview with each author on their winning poems as well as a link to a symposium on the Long Form which was presented at the League of Canadian Poets’ Long Poem panel May 2015 annual general meeting in Winnipeg. Contributing authors and commentaries include: Kate Braid’s “Tending the Garden: The Fruits and Dangers of the Long Poem”; Cornelia Hoogland’s “The Long Poem and the Shape of the Working Mind”; and Sharon Thesen’s “After-Thoughts on the Long Poem.”
Willow Springs 2015 Fiction Prize Winner
Carissa Halston’s “Call It a Map” has been awarded the 2015 Willow Springs Fiction Prize of $2000 and publication in issue #76. Halston offers insight on the winning story: the Craigslist ad that inspired the concept, her signing up for a sleep study and researching disabilities. She writes of the piece, “I wanted to push sensory details as far as I could without relying on imagery, which meant I was allowed to choose similes and metaphors that wouldn’t fly in another story. All stories rely on internal logic, but I find the most cohesive narratives are those that use their plot details to inform their diction.” Read the story and more from Halston here.
Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers :: 2015
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their May Short Story Award for New Writers. This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. The next Short Story Award competition will take place in August. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
1st place goes to Lauren Green [pictured] of New York, NY. She wins $1500 for “When We Hear Yellow” and her story will be published in Issue 97 of Glimmer Train Stories. This will be her first publication.
2nd place goes to Emory Harkins of Brooklyn, NY. He wins $500 for “We’re Talking to Ourselves.”
3rd place goes to Ellen Graham of Seattle, WA. She wins $300 for “Livingston.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Deadline today for the Very Short Fiction Award: July 31. This competition is held quarterly, and 1st place wins $1500, publication in the journal, and 20 copies of that issue. It’s open to all writers, with no theme restrictions, and the word count must not exceed 3000. Click here for complete guidelines.
Books :: Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction
Since 1983, the University of Georgia Press has annualy held their Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, which, according to their website, “was established to encourage gifted emerging writers by bringing their work to a national readership.” Siamak Vossoughi’s winning collection Better Than War will be published in September 2015.
From the publisher’s description: “The stories in Better Than War encompass narratives from a diverse set of Iranian immigrants, many searching for a balance between memories of their homeland and their new American culture. [ . . . ] All Iranian immigrants, young or old, carry with them a vivid past in their contemporary life. Vossoughi’s Better Than War is about growing up, coming of age, and raising children in America while still remembering the importance of retaining Iranian pride.”
Preorder your copy of Better Than War at the University of Georgia Press website.