The Fear Awards
Partridge Boswell of Woodstock, Vermont for “Lazarus at Seven AM”
Author of the 2023 Fool for Poetry Prize-winning chapbook Levis Corner House and Grolier Poetry Prize-winning collection Some Far Country, Partridge Boswell is co-founder of Bookstock Literary Festival and teaches at Vallum Society for Education in Arts & Letters in Montreal. He troubadours widely with the poetry/music group Los Lorcas, whose debut release Last Night in America is available on Thunder Ridge Records. His Saguaro Prize-winning chapbook Not Yet a Jedi is also now a thing.
Melissa Bowers of Gilroy, California for “What Lies in Sapient Lake”
Melissa Bowers is a writer from the Midwest who is currently based in California. Her stories have won awards at SmokeLong Quarterly, F(r)iction, and The Writer, and have twice been selected for the Wigleaf Top 50 as well as The Best Small Fictions anthology. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, The Cincinnati Review, The Greensboro Review, New Ohio Review, River Teeth, and The Forge, among others. Read more at www.melissabowers.com.
Susan Hettinger of Olympia, Washington for “My Last Story”
Susan Hettinger, a Wyoming native, lives in Olympia, Washington. Her stories have been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award, Pushcart, and the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction. Love Festival and Other Stories was a semi-finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award. Her work has appeared in Cagibi, The Madison Review, New World Writings, Fiction Factory, Scribble, Washington Law & Politics, The Ocotillo Review and The Northwest Review.
— FINALISTS —
Marlene Archie
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“Truckload”
Jessica Barksdale
Louisville, Kentucky
“11:32 PM”
Penny-Anne Beaudoin
Amherstburg, Ontario
“When Encountering a Bear”
Alix Campbell
Carrapateira, Portugal
“Are you scared of your own voice?”
Jaclyn Eccesso
Littleton, Colorado
“The Weeping Mother”
Christina Grant
Waterloo, Canada
“The Nesting House”
Tiffany Harris
Modesto, California
“Beautiful Ways to Disappear”
Jerry Johnson
New York, New York
“Habeas Corpus”
A Kaiser
Manhattan, New York
“stump”
Jesse Kelly
Cincinnati, Ohio
“The Devil You Know”
Lorrie McDole
Renton, Washington
“Dressed to Kill”
D.T. Moorhouse
Kildare, Ireland
“The Thirteenth Chime”
Glenn Moss
New York, New York
“Hello”
Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris
Southport, North Carolina
“A Shadow”
Deborah Osterberg
Santa Cruz, California
“According to Their Kind”
Heidi Seaborn
Seattle, Washington
“F is for Fear”
Jessie Seigel
Washington, DC
“My Demon Lover”
Caleb Smith
Portland, Oregon
“The accuser before”
Doug Stoiber
Jefferson City, Tennessee
“The Only Trace”
Kathryn Wilder
Dolores, Colorado
“Just Between Us”