Writing Awards 52
Melanie Hoffert of Battle Lake, Minnesota for “Bird Rearing During a Pandemic“
Melanie Hoffert is the author of Prairie Silence, which won the Minnesota Book Award in Memoir and Creative Non-Fiction. Melanie splits her time between her home in Minneapolis and her cabin near Battle Lake, Minnesota where she is finishing a memoir called Water Land. She can be found at: melaniehoffert.com.
John Cullen of Big Rapids, Michigan for “Almost There”
John Cullen attended school at SUNY Geneseo and BGSU. His work has appeared recently in American Journal of Poetry, Raven’s Perch, Grist, Harpur Palate, North Dakota Review, and Stone Hamilton Review. His chapbook, Town Crazy, is available from Slipstream Press.
Teresa Burns Gunther of Oakland, California for “War Paint”
Teresa’s writing has been recognized in numerous contests and published widely in literary journals and anthologies, including Mid-American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Next Tribe, Madison Review, Everyday Fiction, The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, 2014—A Year in Stories, Best New Writing 2012, and many others. “War Paint” is included in her story collection, “Hold Off The Night”, a Finalist for the Orison Book Prize 2019 and forthcoming from Truth Serum Press, an imprint of Bequem Publishing. Teresa is the founder of Lakeshore Writers’ Workshop, where she offers workshops, classes, and developmental editing services.
Myna Chang of Potomac, Maryland for “An Alternate Theory Regarding Natural Disasters, as Posited by the Teenage Girls of Clove County, Kansas”
Myna Chang’s work has been selected for Best Small Fictions, Fractured Lit, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, and The Citron Review, among others. She is the winner of the 2020 Lascaux Prize in Creative Nonfiction. She lives in Maryland with her family. Read more at MynaChang.com or @MynaChang.
— FINALISTS —
POETRY
Jacie Andrews
Bloomington, Indiana
“Yous Hush”
Elizabeth Cain
Lincoln, Montana
“For All the Saints”
Susan Michele Coronel
New York, New York
“How Should I Salute the Flag in this Ghost Town Called America?”
Rafaella Del Bourgo
Berkeley, California
“Grief’s Weird Sister”
Stacey R. Forbes
Tucson, Arizona
“Strata”
Peggy Hammond
Arden, North Carolina
“It’s Possible My Number Once Belonged to Your Deceased Loved One”
Matt Hohner
Baltimore, Maryland
“The Devil is Beating His Wife”
Anya Kirshbaum
Seattle, Washington
“When a Father Becomes a Bird”
George Kramer
Alexandria, Virginia
“Honeysuckle and Flaming Creeper”
Molly Lanzarotta
Hyde Park, Massachusetts
“The Cathedral Is Burning”
Craig McLaughlin
Santa Cruz, California
“The Gates at Tuscany”
Sandeep Kumar Mishra
Blacktown, Australia
“Immigration: A Tree without Roots”
Damen O’Brien
Queensland, Australia
“The Commons”
David Ray
Tucson, Arizona
“Half a Life”
Ed Ruzicka
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
“My Orbit”
Tessa Swackhammer
Ontario, Canada
“Farmer’s Market”
Stephen Toskar
Hokkaido, Japan
“The Onion Harvest”
Pamela Wax
North Adams, Massachusetts
“Crossing the Breakwater”
John Sibley Williams
Milwaukie, Oregon
“Skyscrape”
David R. Yale
Bayside, New York
“The Time of My Life”
FICTION
Jade Baird
Victoria British Columbia
“Skin”
Lee Berg
Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania
“Place Settings for the Dead”
Alexandra Blogier
West Newton, Massachusetts
“Fall”
Shannon Bowring
Bath, Maine
“New Mercies”
Katie Cruickshank
Salt Lake City, Utah
“The Bluest Blue”
Broderick Eaton
Bend, Oregon
“An Unkindness”
Shanteé Felix
Catonsville, Maryland
“Mothers of the Night”
Lisa Gornick
New York, New York
“Refugees”
Clemintine Guirado
Portland, Oregon
“Walking to Comano”
B.P. Harrington
Conroe, Texas
“Gladly Bear It”
Roger Hart
Havre, Montana
“Area 52”
Michael K, Vancouver
British Columbia
“Chester; or The Snail”
Knox Kipling
Mahomet, Illinois
“Sealing Up the Barn”
Susan Lowell
Tucson, Arizona
“Ironwork”
Susan Maeder
Mendocino, California
“Bright Requiem”
Marc Phillips
Spicewood, Texas
“Pyjama Squid”
Ian M. Plenderleith
Hessen, Germany
“The Cut-Off”
Kathleen Tyler
Wilmington, North Carolina
“The Fish Pond”
Max Wheeler
Carbondale, Colorado
“Holes”
Will Woldenberg
Charlottesville, Virginia
“In the Meantime, the Morning”
FLASH FICTION
Aman
Karachi, Pakistan
“The Giant and the Sea”
Sheri Anderson
San Antonio, Texas
“Little Girl”
Iván Brave
Houston, Texas
“Vaccinated”
Mark Cohen
Oakland, California
“Then Who Am I?”
Eoin Connolly
Lisbon, Portugal
“Breathing Without Thinking”
Christine Duane
Braintree, Massachusetts
“Lover”
George Eager
Penang, Malaysia
“Alien Love”
Charles Grosel
Scottsdale, Arizona
“A Kind of Revelation”
Gregory Harris
Washington, D.C.
“Amazing Grace”
William Hemmig
Newtown, Pennsylvania
“The Arrernte”
Joseph Jackson
East Sussex, United Kingdom
“Planets Orbiting a Sun”
Maxime Kawawa-Beaudan
Berkeley, California
“English Breakfast”
James Montague
Fresno, California
“Chemistry of Stardust”
Anna Nazarova-Evans
Bristol, United Kingdom
“Treasure Hunt”
Anne-Marie Oomen
Empire, Michigan
“Eleven”
Austin Panush
Sacramento, California
“License”
Patricia Schultheis
Baltimore, Maryland
“This Thing with Sticks”
Peter Schwartz
Watertown, Massachusetts
“Fortune Cookies Crumble Too”
Morgan Smith
Santa Fe, New Mexico
“A Blizzard in August”
Eric Stromquist
Astoria, Oregon
“On Top of the World”
NONFICTION
Jami Bonyun
Rollingwood, Texas
“My Surrogacy Womance”
Jessica Danger
Mission Viejo, California
“Things That Crawl Like Fear”
Martha-Grace Duncan
Atlanta, Georgia
“Cattle Upon a Thousand Hills”
William Fleeson
Washington, D.C.
“The Road From Dajabón”
Jen Grow
Baltimore, Maryland
“A Catalog of Lies”
Kent Jacobson
Northampton, Massachusetts
“Sanctuary”
John Kaufmann
Dobbs Ferry, New York
“Unschooling”
Evelyn Krieger
Sharon, Massachusetts
“My Father’s Messiah”
Lynnette Li
Chicago, Illinois
“The Kind of Asian I Am”
Wawa
Berkeley, California
“Map to Mental Illness“
Casey McGrath
Marseilles, Illinois
“The Burden of Daughters“
Vivian Montgomery
Maynard, Massachusetts
“The Clearing”
Jenny Patton
Dublin, Ohio
“Body”
Allen Price
Cranston, Rhode Island
“The Jailed Down Negro“
William John Rostron
Long Island, New York
“Someday We’ll Laugh About This”
Lindsay Ryan
San Francisco, California
“The Vanishing Point”
Emily Seibert
Yonkers, New York
“A Place to Bed”
Leanne Stepp
Victoria, British Columbia
“Special Needs”
Melissa Swindell
Athens, Georgia
“Your Mother Kidnapped by Naked Warriors, Details to Follow”
Abe Winterscheidt
Brighton, Massachusetts
“Pulling”
— Honorable Mentions —
POETRY
Parker Bauman
West Hartford, Connecticut
“The Hajj of Canada Geese”
Michelle Bitting
Pacific Palisades, California
“Cows Escape Slaughterhouse, Stampede Through California Neighborhood”
Margaret Blackstone
Brooklyn, New York
“Migration”
Terence Culleton
Langhorne, Pennsylvania
“Blessing”
Alan Elyshevitz
East Norriton, Pennsylvania
“A Supermarket in Philadelphia”
Yael Hacohen
Tel Aviv, Israel
“Ghetto Warsaw”
Chris Hanson-Nelson
New York, New York
“Learning to Drive the Freshly Paved Roads of Historic Maps”
Georganne Harmon
Nashville, Tennessee
“Intuition”
Preston Hood III
Colrain, Massachusetts
“The Rope”
Lydia K. Valentine
Tacoma, Washington
“sčədádxʷ: həlíʔ-du-but”
Joshua Lindenbaum
Hewlett, New York
“Job Postings for Professors”
Crystal Mayo
Stamford, Connecticut
“On the Brink of a Revolution”
Ruth Osman
San Juan-Laventille, Trinidad And Tobago
“Lost & Found”
Antoine Polgar
East Middlebury, Vermont
“Who I Write For”
Jesse Bryant Wilder
Cleveland, Ohio
“Pancakes or Waffles”
FICTION
Leslee Becker
Fort Collins, Colorado
“The Visitor”
Anita Cabrera
San Francisco, California
“That Thing”
Mark Connelly
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
“The Long Goodbye”
Josh Flowers
Kent, United Kingdom
“The Last Shanks”
D.B. Gardner
Mason, Michigan
“A Climber in the Garden”
Summer Hammond
Wilmington, North Carolina
“Dove”
Kim Hooper
Capistrano Beach, California
“We Are Not in This Together”
Angela Kelly
Spartanburg, South Carolina
“Nosferatu”
Libby Marshall
Chicago, Illinois
“Cooper’s Hawk”
Sean McFadden
Bokeelia, Florida
“Brewing at Home”
James Overholt
Dandridge, Tennessee
“Anzio”
Jonathan Phillips
Sherman Oaks, California
“My Brother, the Pomegranate Tree”
Keith Skinner
Berkeley, California
“Paper Life”
Jonathan Sulinski
Colorado Springs, Colorado
“A Portrait of My Father in Eight Objects”
Caroline Tajasque
Surrey, United Kingdom
“Black and White”
FLASH FICTION
John Baldwin
Encinitas, California
“Love Proof”
Daniella Bonora
Hackensack, New Jersey
“A Lifetime in a Day”
Charlie Brooks
St. Albans, Vermont
“Second Position”
Steven Deng
Orlando, Florida
“In Sense”
Susan Emerson
Westlake Village, California
“The Root of the Matter”
Christina Frei
Montreal, Canada
“Otters”
Grace Godlin
Venice, California
“Good Neighbor Policy”
Burr Henley
Bilgola Plateau, Washington
“Message from a BOT”
Beatrice Hussain
Tyne & Wear, United Kingdom
“Mircky”
Molly Lanzarotta
Hyde Park, Massachusetts
“What I Thought about when You Fell off the Mountain”
Maureen McCoy
Ithaca, New York
“The Grizzly Fight”
Mark Perfect
Devon, United Kingdom
“The Invite”
K.T. Roth
Brooklyn, New York
“The Pit and the Teleporter”
Robert Russell
Mukwonago, Wisconsin
“Blink of Luminosity”
Ellen Sperling
Savannah, Georgia
“Loss”
NONFICTION
Elissa Altman
Newtown, Connecticut
“Disappearing Act”
Graham Anderson-Dargatz
Sorrento, British Columbia
“The Letter Q”
Kathy Borrus
Washington, D.C.
“A Fond Farewell: An Ode to Cicadas”
Roger Holzberg
Studio City, California
“The Wall”
Annie Kemper
Atlanta, Georgia
“Sedona”
Hannah Lund
Lakeville, Minnesota
“Borrowed Breaths”
Margarita Meyendorff
High Falls, New York
“Absent”
Claire O’Brien
Miami, Florida
“A Message to Tina”
Della Patterson
Jamaica, New York
“Where We Fail with Black Representation in Our Media”
William Penne
Tuscola, Illinois
“Technology Ethics Are Human Ethics”
Laura Peters
Graysville, Pennsylvania
“When Mommy Flew”
Mark Shaw
San Jose, California
“The Tiger”
Joyce Tomlinson
Newcastle, Washington
“Legacy”
Brahna Yassky
Brooklyn, New York
“Anchor”
Nicole Zimmerman
Penngrove, California
“Case Management”