Writing Awards 60
Victor McConnell of Golden, Colorado for “Love Junkies”
Victor McConnell grew up in a small town in Texas and graduated from Dartmouth’s creative writing program. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and multiple Pushcart Prizes. His first poetry chapbook, If You Can Hear This, is available from Bottlecap Press. His first full-length book, a collection of short stories titled When Even the Bones Have Thinned, is forthcoming with Hidden River Press. His work can be found at www.victormcconnellauthor.com and on Instagram @victormcconnell.
Jenn Dean of Carnation, Washington for “The Entanglement of Spring”
Jenn Dean writes about the intersection of people, place, and nature. Her work appears in Salamander, Massachusetts Review, Blueline, and others, and has been Pushcart-nominated and a finalist/semifinalist for several national prizes. Her essay “The Keepers of the Ghost Bird,” on the Bermuda petrel’s rediscovery, won the John Burroughs Award, appearing in When Birds Are Near. Her New Millennium Writings Award-winning essay is part of her book, Here the Land Is Good, currently seeking publication. www.jenndean.com
Asher Black of Brooklyn, New York for “Supper with Witnesses”
Asher Black is a novelist of literary and cross-form fiction exploring moral conflict, loyalty, and identity under pressure. His short fiction has appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Isele Magazine, and Eclectica. He has served as Chief Editor of MYTHOLOG and Managing Editor of The Green Man Review. He writes almost entirely outdoors between the Catskill Mountains watershed and Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood, where Walt Whitman edited the Brooklyn Daily Eagle while composing Leaves of Grass.
J.P. Bellipanni of Cape Neddick, Maine for “The Curator of Forgotten Things”
J.P. Bellipanni has an M.A. in English from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an M.F.A in Writing from the University of Southern Maine, Stonecoast. He has taught writing for twenty years, written a book of short stories, Slippery Devils: Collected Stories, and written three books about teaching writing: Word: Creative & Critical Composition, The Naked Story: A Concise Guide to Metafiction, and Fifty Stories: How to Read and Write Experimental Fiction.
— FINALISTS —
POETRY
Champ Atlee
Lawrenceville, NJ
“Chang and Eng”
John Beck
Okemos, Michigan
“The Path and Pattern”
Adriana Beltrano
Jupiter, Florida
“Fireflies in Appalachia”
Julie Butler
Walcha, Australia
“Salt”
Taliesin Don
Leura, Australia
“The Brush”
Don Farrell
Cambridge, Minnesota
“21 weeks”
Jonathan Greenhause
Jersey City, New Jersey
“I, Too, Could Be an Almighty God”
Kim Jensen
Baltimore, Maryland
“The Spokesperson”
G. H. Karshner
Orlando, Florida
“Reformation”
Mark Lindensmith
Fort Defiance, Virginia
“I Can’t Remember Anything”
Jonathan Liu
Edmonton, Canada
“A Necessary Cat”
Clif Mason
Bellevue, Nebraska
“Blank Pages”
Peter Newall
Odessa, Ukraine
“Memory”
Nneoma Ohale
Columbia, South Carolina
“ritual”
Redd Ryder
Brooklyn, New York
“Falling Into Grace”
Ralph Savarese
Iowa City, Iowa
“Valet”
Ruth Thompson
Freeville, New York
“Believing in Light”
Lee Varon
Cambridge, Massachusetts
“Dating with Disabilities”
Joyce Victor
Santa Fe, New Mexico
“Even if You Call Her Peaches”
Carolyn West
Berkeley, California
“The Way Water Rose”
FLASH FICTION
Lisa Arrastia
Canaan, New York
“Hombre”
Zoe Daou
New York, New York
“Wash”
Adele Gallogly
Hamilton, Ontario
“To Make Blue Dough Right Before Dawn”
Jeannette Garrett
Houston, Texas
“Chemistry”
W.H. Hilf
Great Falls, Montana
“The Rider of Judith Gap”
Evan Hale
Toronto, Ontario
“The Moment”
James Hartman
York, Pennsylvania
“Watching the News”
Natasha Johnstone
Des Moines, Iowa
“Thrall”
James Hohenbary
Manhattan, Kansas
“Relevant Facts”
Elisa Celina Maiz
San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico
“Just for Show”
Tessa Murphy
Encino, California
“Refeeding Syndrome”
Baochi Nguyen
Berkeley, California
“Unbottled”
Dániel Levente Pál
Budapest, Hungary
“The Trimming”
Allie Pearce
Alexandria, Virginia
“Thumbs”
Kira Trainor
Pomfret Center, Connecticut
“The Drowning”
Ellen Tuckett
Stamford, Connecticut
“Above It All”
Korey Wallace
Des Moines, Iowa
“Somehow”
Neil Weiner
Portland, Oregon
“That Old Black Magic”
Daniel Woodruff
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
“Unnova”
Sandra Worsham
Milledgeville, Georgia
“Pleasure”
FICTION
Hal Ackerman
Los Angeles, California
“Mastodons”
Raymond Arcangel
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“The Mocker”
Hanna Bahedry
Los Angeles, California
“Dark Opening”
Meagan Baker
New York, New York
“The Garden Shed”
Margaret Benbow
Madison, Wisconsin
“Joe Szabo and the Traveller Bride”
Catherine Browder
Kansas City, Missouri
“Tomato Man”
Anil Classen
Aeugst am Albis, Switzerland
“Snow Cranes”
Juliana Delany
Wenonah, New Jersey
“Cloudy, with a Second Chance”
Jaime Gill
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
“The Drinking Game”
Jason Gipstein
Los Angeles, California
“Beatrice and Ingrid”
Kailey Haider
Chicago, Illinois
“The First Good Boy”
Marina Hatsopoulos
Boston, Massachusetts
“Feet Dangling in the Sea”
Nancy Kattenfeld
High Point, North Carolina
“Tin Plague”
Lindsay Kent
Moss Beach, California
“The Split”
Marianna Kokkinaki
New York, New York
“The Sea and the Maiden”
Deirdra McAfee
Henrico, Virginia
“Limitless”
Ellie Prusko
Somerville, Massachusetts
“The Watercolor Baby”
Patricia Sammon
Huntsville, Alabama
“Brother Wolf”
Morgan Smith
Santa Fe, New Mexico
“La Paloma”
Megan Trihey
Portland, Oregon
“His Dog Kitty”
NONFICTION
Jason Allen
Wichita, Kansas
“Boys Without Fathers”
R. L. Aseret
Federal Way, Washington
“Birth”
Marge Barrett
Minneapolis, Minnesota
“Revisiting Russia”
Stacy Bronec
Carter, Montana
“The Rattlesnake in My Basement”
Pat Cassels
Brooklyn, New York
“The Science of Fighting Our Nightmares”
Marie Cloutier
Hoboken, New Jersey
“Miacomet”
Yvonne Fein
Melbourne, Australia
“Taunting the Abyss”
Catherine Kennedy
Columbus, Ohio
“Goodbye Is a Verb”
Bridget Lyons
Santa Cruz, California
“The Weight of a Bog”
Jeff Miller
San Francisco, California
“Star Search”
Maria Olujic
San Mateo, California
“Between Gravity and Grace”
Brad Philbrick
Indianapolis, Indiana
“Astor’s Plush Horse: Growing Guilty for Wanting More”
Adrienne Pond
El Prado, New Mexico
“Beautiful Journeys, Grandaddy”
Jo Rendle
Watson, Australia
“26 Outings”
Cristina Rodriguez
Providence, Rhode Island
“Beards”
Rob Rogers
Winter Garden, Florida
“Morning Coffee”
David Scott-Thomas
Guelph, Canada
“Thrasher”
Jen Shepherd
Portsmouth, Rhode Island
“Selective Recall”
Sara Sherburne
New Haven, Connecticut
“Unfolding”
Nicole R. Zimmerman
Petaluma, California
“College Access Guarantee”
— Honorable Mentions —
POETRY
Anna Capelle
Derby, Connecticut
“why I love artichokes“
Tama Cathers
Vicksburg, Michigan
“A Woman in the Woods = A Witch”
Deborah DeNicola
Margate, Florida
“The Death of Socrates”
Sam Fogleman
Birmingham, Michigan
“Meditation on a Cactus”
Ashli Komistek
Knoxville, Tennessee
“Bone Musing in Art Appreciation Class”
Julie Landsman
Minneapolis, Minnesota
“When Sorrow Becomes a Country”
Otto Laske
Gloucester, Massachusetts
“Au Revoir Marie”
James Lenfestey
Minneapolis, Minnesota
“Renaming the Private Parts”
Glen Mazis
Marietta, Pennsylvania
“The Immigrant’s Forgotten Apple”
Jasmine Modaresi
Vancouver, Canada
“You Wear Your Mask Well”
Kelly Rowe
Flagstaff, Arizona
“Outward Journey”
Mercer Warriner
Valatie, New York
“Solopsism”
Donald Wildman
Cary, North Carolina
“Diane”
Rei Wilson
El Cerrito, California
“Transformations”
M Yu
Lacey, Washington
“Jackal in Chicago”
FLASH FICTION
Bruna Barbosa
Raleigh, North Carolina
“Inverted Flight”
Makynna Black
Blanding, Utah
“The Registrar”
Katherine Carlson
Minneapolis, Minnesota
“Rising to the Occasion”
David Daniel
Baltimore, Maryland
“Dominion”
Julia Dinmore
Denver, Colorado
“God Is a Bean”
Dean Gessie
Midland, Ontario
“Monsters”
Emily Gierlich
West Bend, Wisconsin
“A Single Mother”
Ayli H
Groveport, Ohio
“Beautifully Psychotic”
Kevin Harris
Indianapolis, Indiana
“The Girl Who Lived”
Emily Alice Katz
Durham, North Carolina
“Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Mother?”
Nasif Khan
Queens, New York
“Smoke Break”
Will Kirkland
Corte Madera, California
“The Martians Have Come”
Kathryn Russell
Decatur, Georgia
“Opening”
Elizabeth Sundstrom
Richmond, California
“Are We There Yet”
Rosalind Trotter
Eugene, Oregon
“It’s Got To Be Here Somewhere”
FICTION
Jazmyn Michelle Blackburn
Brooklyn, New York
“Past Saxon”
Julie Chagi
Scotts Valley, California
“The Camel”
Fletch Fletcher
Phoenix, Arizona
“Snorting Your Antidepressants”
Perry Genovesi
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“Beside the White City”
Ben Hoffman
Long Island City, New York
“Of Your Life”
Ashish Kaul
Navi Mumbai, India
“Birds of Paradise”
Liam Keller
Toronto, Canada
“The Instant It Catches”
Deborah Levine
Hampden, Maine
“A Thousand Kisses Deep”
KC Luna
Chicago, Illinois
“The Calling”
Annie Montanus
Rollinsford, New Hampshire
“Casual”
Clare Rolens
San Diego, California
“Tidy”
Carwin Rose
Fayetteville, New York
“You Will Hear Her on the Wind”
William Sharkey
Hillsborough, North Carolina
“The Caveman”
Faith Shearin
Montgomery, Vermont
“The Kingdom of Childhood”
Claire Thomson
Nottinghamshire, Great Britain
“Human Resources”
NONFICTION
Stefan Balan
Andover, Massachusetts
“Hadrian”
Bonnie Becker
Addison, Illinois
“Catwalk”
Trina Chapman
Halifax, Canada
“The Little One”
Georgia Chehade
Poulsbo, Washington
“Dog Days”
Terry Connell
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“November 23”
Brettany DiMatteo
Wilmington, Massachusetts
“The Pain of Hunger”
Sarah Hunter
Jacksonville, Florida
“Drug Mule”
Tatiana Johnson-Boria
Framingham, Massachusetts
“Mother as Quantum Dimension”
John Kidwell
Baltimore, Maryland
“The Movie of Your Life”
Kressie Kornis
Atlanta, Georgia
“The Ghosts We Inherit”
BV Lawson
Falls Church, Virginia
“Synchronicity”
Jane Leed
Piedmont, California
“Sugar”
Ellen Schecter
Easton, Maryland
“Souvenir”
Anne Scott
Iowa City, Iowa
“Legacy, or In Defense of my Family: We Were Not Pathological, We Were Not Diseased, We Were Simply Flawed”
Sara Shea
Weaverville, North Carolina
“Cat”