Writing Awards 50

Doris Ferleger of Wyncote, Pennsylvania for “Pass Over”

Doris Ferleger, prize-winning poet and essayist, is author of three full-length poetry volumes: Big Silences in a Year of Rain, Leavened, and As the Moon Has Breath, and a chapbook entitled When You Become Snow.

Aliki Barnstone writes: “Ferleger’s memorable poems keep singing with their insistent beauty.”

Peter Newall of Odessa, Ukraine for “The Chinese General”

Peter Newall was born in Sydney, Australia, where he worked as a roadmender, in a dockyard, and as a lawyer. He has also lived in Kyoto, Japan, where he fronted a popular blues band, and in Odessa, Ukraine. He has been published in England, Hong Kong, the USA, and Australia. 

Yannick Thoraval of Victoria, Australia for “Learning to Die and Live: 24 Hours in Evacuation”

Yannick Thoraval is a writer, teacher and communications consultant. He holds a masters degree in history, a PhD in creative writing and teaches professional writing and editing at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Yannick has written two novels and has published nonfiction work in national publications. www.yannickthoraval.com

Robyn Carter of San Francisco, California for “Excelsior”

Robyn Carter’s writing has appeared in Prime Number, Conjunctions, Ninth Letter, West Branch, Colorado Review, NanoFiction, and other journals. She serves as a San Francisco WritersCorps Teaching Artist in Residence at a public school in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood.

— FINALISTS —

POETRY

Jaime Balboa
Los Angeles, California
“Five Ways to Explain Depression in a Global Pandemic”

Jessica Barksdale
Vancouver, Washington
“Photograph Late 1980’s”

Nichole Brazelton
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
“Chimera”

Monique Ferrell
Brooklyn, New York
“schadenfreude: for every woman on the journey—wherever you are”

Charles Fishman
Patchogue, New York
“The African-American Burial Ground at Sweet Briar College”

Bill Garten
Hudson, Ohio
“This spring was different”

AE Hines
Portland, Oregon
“How Many Minutes?”

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky
Pleasant Hill, California
“I Asked the Labyrinth How to Walk the Pandemonium Path”

Kurt Luchs
Kalamazoo, Michigan
“You’ve Been Warned”

Bobby Meile
Los Altos Hills, California
“One poem a day”

Glenn Moss
New York, New York
“Shawl”

Damen O’Brien
Queensland, Australia
“The Grasshopper’s Legacy”

Emily Perkovich
Munster, Indiana
“This is Performance-Art”

Liza Porter
Tucson, Arizona
“Let Me Return”

Tori Sharpe
Little Rock, Arkansas
“Diviner”

Julie Cadwallader Staub
South Burlington, Vermont
“Cornwall Swamp”

Pamela Sumners 
St. Louis, Missouri
“Last Rites”

Diane Thiel
Albuquerque, New Mexico
“Under the Rug”

Jeanne Wagner
Kensington, California
“Tinnitus”

Mariano Zaro
Victoria, Australia
“Vocative”

 

FICTION

Shannon Bowring 
Bath, Maine
“A Private Practice”

Meli Broderick Eaton
Bend, Oregon
“The Whole Story of the Girl Who Talked to Fish”

Max Carp 
Los Angeles, California
“Bobblehead Buddha”

Jane Copland 
Berkshire, United Kingdom
“Letters From Jetty Street, Thursday Island”

Elaine Crauder 
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
“The Legs Don’t Agree”

Joshua Davis 
London, United Kingdom
“Chazak V’Amatz”

David Depner 
Portland, Oregon
“The Perfume Hills of Cat Bey”

Amina Gautier 
Chicago, Illinois
“Feliz Navidad”

Joan Gurfield
Santa Monica, California
“The Monkey Cave”

David Iscoe 
East Haddam, Connecticut
“This Machine”

Amanda Kabak 
Lakeland, Florida
“Nothing out of the Ordinary”

Matthew Kerber
Durham, North Carolina
“Up Here Where the Rain Starts”

Suzanne McConnell
New York
“If You Think Your Heart Can Take It”

Hoshi Nath
Buffalo, New York
“The Water Tower”

Taylor Peters
Aurora, Illinois
“Lamplit Shadows”

Mark Rhodes 
Greenville, South Carolina
“On the Cover of the National Geographic”

Alan Sincic 
Gotha, Florida
“The Deluge”

Adam Slavny 
West Midlands, United Kingdom
“The Punch”

Michelle Wright 
Victoria, Australia
“Blurred Edges”

Ellaree Yeagley
Austin, TX
“A Human Brightness”

FLASH FICTION

Melissa Bowers
Gilroy, California
“Our Voices Echo”

Myna Chang 
Potomac, Maryland
“Air So Thick”

Jaimee Wriston Colbert
Endicott, New York
“Turtles”

Jane Copland 
Berkshire, United Kingdom
“A Trading Post on the 117th Meridian West”

Colleen Corbett
Saint Louis, Missouri
“Getting Out of Jail Free”

Hannah Faver 
Hampshire, United Kingdom
“Mud”

Catherine Fehre
New York, New York
“She”

Hannah Fowler
Chicago, Illinois
“I want a haircut that will fix my life, please”

Libertad Garcia-Villada
Holly Springs, North Carolina
“The First Heroine”

Jim Gish 
Arcanum, Ohio
“The Long Dark”

Tamar Jacobs
Ardmore, Pennsylvania
“If A Thing Is Trying To Eat You”

Bud Jennings 
Salem, Massachusetts
“The Brain of the Black-Capped Chickadee”

Lindsey Pharr
Alexander, North Carolina
“Crazy Josh and the Perfume of Immortality”

Gary Powell 
Cornelius, North Carolina
“The Geometry of Desire”

Vikram Ramakrishnan
Roslyn, New York
“Nothing Set in Stone”

Lee Reilly 
Chicago, Illinois
“Sold”

Dutch Simmons 
Wilton, Connecticut
“Solitary”

Steven Simoncic
Chicago, Illinois
“You Will Do This”

Will Woldenberg
Charlottesville, Virginia
“Pacifism is Not Something to Hide Behind”

Hannah Yang 
Boulder, Colorado
“Vocabulary Lesson”

NONFICTION

Mary Petty Anderson 
Seattle, Washington
“Newt Terrell”

Anthony D’Aries
Brookfield, Connecticut
“Memorial Day”

Ilona Duncan
Heathsville, VA
“The Little Crapaud”

William Fleeson
McLean, Virginia
“No Golden Man”

Ellen Graf 
Cropseyville, New York
“A Line of Immeasurable Width”

Roger Martin 
Lawrence, Kansas
“Birds of a Feather”

Dheepa Maturi
Carmel, Indiana
“A River Dance: Cauvery in Crisis”

Stephani E. D. McDow
Beltsville, Maryland
“A Letter to My Son”

Margarita Meyendorff
Rosendale, New York
“The Elephant Fall”

Faith Model 
Cody, Wyoming
“When There is Hope”

Kirsten Oerke
Hastings on Hudson, New York
“Distancing”

Allen Price
Cranston, Rhode Island
“Running from Blackness”

N. R. Robinson 
Charleston, South Carolina
“Our Dad”

Sarita Sarvate
Albany, California
“In the Cuckoo’s Nest”

Emily Seibert
Yonkers, New York
“Human Error”

Sarah Stuteville
Seattle, Washington
“No One Is Watching”

Lori Tobias
Newport, Oregon
“What About Yvonne?”

Jemma van Loenen
VIC, Australia
“Summer of Discontent”

Gerry Walker
Los Angeles, California
“10 Days Under The Anthill: Confessions of a Criminal Trial Juror”

R. S. Wynn 
Dresden, Maine
“Release at Fox Point Lighthouse”

— Honorable Mentions —

POETRY

Jeffrey Bartone
Erie, Pennsylvania
“The City-park Women”

Jacqueline Berger
San Francisco, California
“Rosy Fingered Dawn”

Doritt Carroll
Bethesda, Maryland
“odette”

Shay Chang
Rancho Palos Verdes, California
“Creation Myths”

Olivia Fore
Denver, Colorado
“The Jump”

Brian Heston
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“Welcome to the Future”

Haley Karin
Roseville, California
“Loss of Face”

Hamza Qaiser
Seattle, Washington
“There is so much love in the world I am sick with it”

Ed Ruzicka
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
“Ellipses of the Super-Moon”

Rina Terry
Park City, Utah
“What I Do”

Suellen Wedmore
Rockport, Massachusetts
“Covid-19 and the Black Mamba”

Courtney Huse Wika
Spearfish, South Dakota
“The Art of Disappearing”

Diana Woodcock
Midlothian, Virginia
“Recitation of the Fatiha for the Dead”

Castle Yuran
Derby, Connecticut
“Sillage”

Anthony Zick
Ann Arbor, Michigan
“All Is on Socks”

FICTION

Nancy Allen
Dallas, Texas
“The Gospel of New Eyes”

Gerard Cabrera
Brooklyn, New York 
“Chris and the Gay Betrayers”

Benjamin Carter 
Ventura, United Kingdom
“A Sure Thing”

Tricia Currans-Sheehan
Sioux City, Iowa
“The Housekeeper”

Barbara de la Cuesta
Toms River, New Jersey
“The Time Rosa Ran”

Hannah Emilius
Jenkintown, Pennsylvania
“Mama says We’re out of Paper but Still I Keep a Written Record”

Evelyn Herwitz
Worcester, Massachusetts
“Ready for Anything”

Timothy Hickey
Washington, D.C.
“Plaintiff”

Mehdi M. Kashani
Ontario, Canada
“Bazaar Bozorg”

Douglas McBride
Los Angeles, California
“The Sound of Wild Animals in the Night”

Michael Miller
Edmonds, Washington
“No Ecstasy Allowed Here”

David Nelson
Chicago, Illinois
“Christmas Dance at the Prince and Belden Piano Factory”

Christy O’Callaghan
Amsterdam, New York
“Squeaky-Clean Suds”

Logan Penna
Delran, New Jersey
“The Stone Bridge”

Srisruthi Ramesh

Cupertino, California
“Bad Blood”

FLASH FICTION

Tolu Adeyeye
Bedfordshire, United Kingdom
“The Attic”

Chad Broughman 
Harbor Springs, Michigan
“True-south”

Madison Cilluffo
Oakton, Virginia
“January in Maine”

Clemintine Guirado
Mountlake Terrace, Washington
“Deception Pass”

James Hartman
York, Pennsylvania
“The Range of Acceptability”

Louise Hawes
Pittsboro, North Carolina
“Tipperary”

Susan Hettinger
Olympia, Washington
“Thaw”

William Huskey
Seattle, Washington
“Enduring Doubt”

Jennifer Laxton
Weston, Wisconsin
“Stories the Dying Tell”

Jay Nunnery
Madison, Wisconsin
“A Visitation”

Dutch Simmons
Sarasota, Florida
“Papa’s” Typewriter”

Josh Swiller
Spencer, New York
“Mild Case”

Wallace Taylor
Caledon, Ontario
“Inconceivable”

Robert Walton
King City, California
“One Stone”

Herbert Zarov

Northbrook, Illinois
“The Ceremony”

NONFICTION

Marcus Carbo
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“Incognegro”

Bea Chang 
Redondo Beach, California
“Homesick Island”

Kira Compton
Sunnyside, New York 
“Summer in East Boston”

Elizabeth Flinn
Kapaau, Hawaii
“The Monarch”

Geoffrey Kent Graves
Laguna Beach, California
“The Philtrum”

Susannah Israel
Oakland, California
“The Storyteller’s Children”

Jeffrey Kass
Denver, Colorado
“Twenty-Four Inches”

Michael Mack 
Cambridge, Massachusetts
“The Year After High School”

Kat McNichol
Ontario, Canada
“What You Remember about Your Wedding Day”

Joan Merriam Merriam
Nevada City, California 
“Whispers of a Forgotten Plague”

Rebekah Morris
Grand Rapids, Minnesota
“Laugh Lines”

Phoebe Pan 
Irvine, California
“All the Voyage of Life”

Ellen Ronan
Bend, Oregon 
“My Mother’s Stone”

Anne Rudig
Torrington, Connecticut
“Read To Me”

Alice Silberling

Omaha, Nebraska
Pretty Strong

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