54th NMW Award for Fiction. Carrie Grinstead of Los Angeles, California for “Ghost Story”
Which is scarier…the ghost in your backyard or the ones in your heart? Grinstead’s haunting tale has both, and plenty else to terrify. “Ghost Story” will hold you in its grip long after you’ve finished reading.
Ghost Story | Carrie Grinstead Read More »
54th NMW Award for Flash Fiction. Amina Gautier of Chicago, Illinois for “Persephone”
Gautier’s story digs in sharp and deep, rooting through mythological narrative to explore the dual natures of light and dark, and the transformational powers awaiting those brave enough to unearth them.
Persephone | Amina Gautier Read More »
53rd NMW Award for Fiction.
It’s easy to forget there are places small and remote enough to have escaped the inexorable pull of “progress”… places that still bow to laws and customs all their own. Easy, too, to underestimate just how strong the clutches of those places can be.
Part ode to, part interrogation of the Southern Gothic genre, Goff’s story is here to remind us that though we may be done with the past, the past is seldom done with us.
Baptism | Ellen Pauley Goff Read More »
53rd NMW Award for Flash Fiction.
This affectionate and delightful tale reminds us that to offer true love and support, we must sometimes be willing to throw off the shackles of logic.
Crackup | Sean W. Murphy Read More »
52nd NMW Award for Nonfiction.
Melanie Hoffert of Battle Lake, Minnesota for “Bird Rearing During a Pandemic,”
In times of turmoil, when threats loom both externally and all-too-internally, what good can it possibly do to rescue one tiny beating heart? As Hoffert’s essay so marvelously reminds us, sometimes our own heart gets rescued too.
Bird Rearing During a Pandemic | Melanie Hoffert Read More »
Nonfiction Writing Contest 24 (2009)
First Place
I revised this piece so many times – adding, subtracting, changing…maybe because like all my work, it bridges the gap between what I experienced and what I know/feel about that experience. To paraphrase Forster, how do I know what I feel until I see what I write? Writing isn’t just about the words on the page, but about living and how you construct it… about exploring who you are, what the world expects you to be, mapping an intellectual and emotional cartography. And being able to send those maps out again, rejection after rejection after rejection… — Britton Gildersleeve
Anomie | Britton Gildersleeve Read More »
Flash Fiction Writing Contest 25 (2009)
First Place
Our stories are time capsules that contain what is otherwise destined to vanish—the essence of ourselves, our time, and place. I have a keen interest in telling stories from the view points of girls and young women, who are often marginalized or silenced. It is the exploration of the unsaid that illuminates the emotional truth we seek in any age. — Susan Chiavelli
Winter Oranges | Susan Chiavelli Read More »
Fiction Writing Contest 24 (2009)
First Place
Writing’s easy. Good writing’s hard. And it feels a long, long road between those poles, especially when, most of the time, you don’t really know how close to which one you are. Yet, it’s simple to recognise others’ True North: good writing elicits powerful emotions through the seemingly effortless witchery of combining even the most commonplace words. So, on my long walk, I’m trying to convey more by saying less, to speak more clearly by listening more closely, and to write better by reading with a care that reflects the love with which stories were written. I’ll let you know if it works! — Stephen Irwin
Tail the Barney | Stephen Irwin Read More »
Flash Fiction Writing Contest 24 (2009)
First Place
My favorite writers are mavericks who can foreshadow a dare we must offer ourselves – to be better. They risk their lives, risk losing their jobs, risk losing love or have already been risked by someone else. Their words keep us from fleeing when all a morning may offer is cold stale fear of what next could crush the only edge left on a last dream. Writers are everyone’s witnesses, reminding that last dreams can mutate and multiply into anything. — Adrienne Pond
No Longer Strangers | Adrienne Pond Read More »
Poetry Writing Contest #24 (2009)
First Place
For me, the most rewarding writing often starts out as one thing and morphs into something else entirely. When I began this piece, I was light-heartedly pondering the question of what goes on (or doesn’t) in the minds of cats, but then the poem grabbed my pen and the rest of The Visible Spectrum wrote itself. The desire to return to that state of altered consciousness and emotional openness is what keeps me writing. — Ellen Sullins
The Visible Spectrum | Ellen Sullins Read More »
