Writing Awards 59
Jerelle Kraus, of New York City & San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for “2 & 1/2 Hours Alone with Nixon, the Anti-Trump”
Kraus is the award-winning, whistle-blowing, jaywalking author of All the Art That’s Fit to Print (And Some That Wasn’t): Inside The New York Times (Columbia University Press). Her feature stories appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and literary journals. A visual artist, professor, & Fulbright scholar, Jerelle, who speaks French, German, & Spanish, lives in New York City & San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Her website is JerelleKraus.com.
JR Fenn of Rochester, New York for “Memory Box”
JR Fenn is from the Central Appalachians. Her work has appeared in many places, including Boston Review, Gulf Coast, DIAGRAM, and The Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology. She holds an MFA from Syracuse University, where she was awarded the Joyce Carol Oates Prize in Fiction. She’s the author of Tiny Vessels, which won The Masters Review Chapbook Open and will be published in February 2026. She lives in Western New York with her family. Find more of her work at www.jrfenn.com.
Baird Harper of Oak Park, Illinois for “Indian Ocean”
Baird Harper is the author of the linked collection Red Light Run (Scribner). His short stories have also appeared in Playboy Magazine, Glimmer Train, Tin House, two editions of Best New American Voices, New Stories from the Midwest, and have won the Ninth Letter Literary Prize, the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, and the Nelson Algren Award. He lives in Oak Park, Illinois and teaches fiction at the University of Chicago.
— FINALISTS —
POETRY
Coming Soon!
FLASH FICTION
Tim Baehr
Portland, Maine
“Waiting”
Chris Bauer
Doylestown, Pennsylvania
“A Coupla Minutes”
Michelle Brady
Gaithersburg, Maryland
“Waiting for Bones the Tigers Left”
Myna Chang
Potomac, Maryland
“The Potential of Radio and Rain”
Ayla Dedeoglu
Lemont, Pennsylvania
“The Syringe”
Sierra Falconer
Santa Monica, California
“Rubberneck”
Jaime Gill
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
“Waves Fall on All Shores”
Vienna Harvey
Norfolk, Virginia
“Vinny Chris Has No Teeth”
James Hohenbary
Manhattan, Kansas
“Relevant Facts”
Emmy Holman
Suttons Bay, Michigan
“Cry of the Cat”
Ashish Kaul
Navi Mumbai, India
“The Death of a Jokebook”
Timothy Lord
Bloomington, Illinois
“I Wanted to Be an SOB”
Ronald Marullo
Rome, New York
“A Sunday Satellite Sermonette”
Jay McKenzie
Chilcotts Grass, Australia
“What to buy your husband of thirty-seven years for his birthday”
Julie McNeely-Kirwan
Harrison, Arkansas
“The Many Wives of Johnny Nix”
Michele Nevard
London, England
“Liberation”
Zoe Ratches
Tigard, Oregon
“Wreckage”
Brenda Shoshanna
White Plains, New York
“Let’s Dance”
Nina Singh
Fairfax Station, Virginia
“Empty Space”
Adriana Stimola
West Tisbury, Massachusetts
“Casey on the Commute”
FICTION
Kent Dixon
Springfield, Ohio
“Disappearing Islands”
Julie Esther Fisher
Hawley, Massachusetts
“A Pearl is Just an Accident”
Elizabeth Johanna Gilbert
Lesvos, Greece
“The thing with feathers”
Jaime Gill
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
“Black Sky, Blue Earth”
Harper Greendale
Wageningen, Netherlands
“The Wind Does Not Name You”
James Hohenbary
Manhattan, Kansas
“The Panic Woods”
Brenda Hood
Bellbrook, Ohio
“Skating”
Kay Jimerson
St. George, Utah
“Pando”
Krista Jane May
Ladysmith, Canada
“A Scattering of Tomorrows”
Carolyn Mikulencak
New Orleans, Louisiana
“Agony Acres”
Roger Moreland
Hot Springs, Arkansas
“Harrow”
Hugh Notman
Alberta, Canada
“Island Full of Grace”
Mark Polanzak
Providence, Rhode Island
“My Billionaire”
Christine Roy
Union, Connecticutt
“Playing for Sam”
Laura O’Gorman Schwartz
Singapore
“The Lemon Tree”
Frank Smith
Cary, Illinois
“Skin”
Eugene Stein
Los Angeles, California
“Triage”
John H. Timmerman
Grand Rapids, Michigan
“Walking the Elephant”
Gina Troisi
Eliot, Maine
“A Blip in the Night”
Evan Morgan Williams
Portland, Oregon
“Unicorn”
NONFICTION
Judy Light Ayyildiz
Roanoke, Virginia
“The January Flood”
Denise Bozic
San Francisco, California
“Slouching towards San Francisco”
Cindy Bradley
Fresno, California
“Jungleland”
Kathy Eads
Santa Fe, New Mexico
“Day One”
Matthew Félix
San Francisco, California
“Lightning Strikes Twice”
Richard Hague
Cincinnati, Ohio
“Acting Up”
Marina Hatsopoulos
Boston, Massachusetts
“When Is the Riffraff Leaving?”
Kurt Luchs
Kalamazoo, Michigan
“The Incredibly Sexy World of Collector’s Plates”
Gwynne Middleton
Englewood, Colorado
“The Lonesome Crowded West”
Sean W. Murphy
Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico
“Church of Jeff”
Andi Myles
Rockville, Maryland
“The Final Exam”
Itto Outini
Fayetteville, Arkansas
“Hell Is Other People”
Martha Payne
Atlanta, Georgia
“Red Was the Midnight”
kerry rawlinson
Peach Land, British Columbia
“Sinkholes”
Jill Sisson
Corvallis, Oregon
“Fox Prayer”
Andrea Sloan
Providence, Rhode Island
“I Stand Here Every Day”
Robert Stewart
Prairie Village, Kansas
“The Hole”
Brett Taylor
Wartburg, Tennessee
“Brownie McGhee and Knoxville”
Ben Winderman
Doylestown, Pennsylvania
“Regular Jews”
Wylene Wood
Putney, Vermont
“Trainride with Grandma”
— Honorable Mentions —
POETRY
Coming Soon!
FLASH FICTION
Christina Bryan
Durham, North Carolina
“From the Grandmother’s Club”
Joe Cappello
Galisteo, New Mexico
“I Pray”
Kent Dixon
Springfield, Ohio
“Good Sport”
Marjory Faion
Caledon, Canada
“The Sentence”
Linda Hoagland
North Tazewell, New Mexico
“The Storm”
Camille Javal
Melbourne, Australia
“Highlands”
Mary Moreno
New York, New York
“Prince Charming”
Theresa Moritz
Toronto, Canada
“Hot Dog Wagon”
David Newkirk
Kansas City, Missouri
“Six Things the Shooter Took”
Valerie Oliver
Atlantic City, New Jersey
“Maria Magda”
Sara Raymond
Houston, Texas
“The Helicopter”
Reagan Ross
Los Angeles, California
“Disco Elysium”
Patricia Schultheis
Baltimore, Maryland
“The Script Reader”
Sara Shea
Weaverville, North Carolina
“Metamorphosis”
Cecilia Xue
Scottsdale, Arizona
“12 hours left of you”
FICTION
Hal Ackerman
Los Angeles, California
“The Boy Who Had a Peach Tree Growing out of His Head”
Shannon Bowring
Bath, Maine
“Nativity”
Sandra Brown-Lindstedt
Portland, Oregon
“The Ghost of Johnson’s Creek”
Paula Friedman
Gresham, Oregon
“The City of Rust”
Kyle Garet
Danville, California
“7 Nines and Tens”
Melanie Hammer
Bronx, New York
“A Blue Truck, a Rainy Highway”
Enid Harlow
Brooklyn, New York
“Nocturne”
Marc Hequet
St. Paul, Minnesota
“Cause and Effect”
Ash Kaul
Navi Mumbai, India
“Godless by the Ganges”
Bridgett Kendall
Montmelard, France
“Life without Boundaries”
Melissa Kriz
Laguna Beach, California
“The Day Shift”
Paul Marsden
Oakenholt, Great Britain
“Foggy Invitation”
Richard Paik
Marblehead, Massachusetts
“Best Day”
Timothy B. Rien
Graeagle, California
“The Grand Inquest”
Anne Trooper
Tunbridge, Vermont
“Taffy Town”
NONFICTION
Tiphanie Anderson
Lynnwood, Washington
“More Powerful than the Sun”
Sheryl Boris-Schacter
Copake falls, New York
“Dead Bodies”
Hassan Ghanny
New York, New York
“Notes from the Dish pit”
J.C. Graham
Beavercreek, Ohio
“Just Sitting on the Couch”
Susan Eve Haar
New York, New York
“Brother’s Keeper”
Amy Lipton
Huntington Station, New York
“Border Crossing”
Jackie Davis Martin
San Francisco, California
“The Toolbox”
Scott R. McMillen
Orlando, Florida
“Backyard Camping Is Not for Sissies”
Miranda Morgan
Tacoma, Washington
“Sundays at CVS”
Thuy Phan
Somerville, Massachusetts
“Accepting My Dad’s Adidas Shirts”
Nancy Phillip
Marana, Arizona
“For What Remains”
N.R. Robinson
Columbia, South Carolina
“My Peculiar Institutions”
Doug Sherr
Kingman, Arizona
“Under Weigh”
Cathy Stuart Wright
Ruffin, North Carolina
“Lessons Learned”
Rhonda Zimlich
Bethesda, Maryland
“Stronger Than Your Disease”