Writing Awards XLIX
Ian Khara Ellasante of Lewiston, Maine for “grandfather: a dialect of water”
Ian Khara Ellasante’s poems have appeared in The Feminist Wire, Evening Will Come, Hinchas de Poesía, and cur.ren.cy. Originally from Memphis, Ellasante has also loved living and writing in Tucson, Brooklyn, and most recently southern Maine, where they are an assistant professor at Bates College.
C.C. Lewis of Boone, North Carolina for “Major Tom”
C.C. Lewis won first place in Nimrod International Journal’s 2017 Awards for New Writers in Fiction and second place in the Berkeley Fiction Review’s 2016 contest. They were a finalist for North Carolina Literary Review’s Fiction Prize in 2017 and 2018 and have received honorable mentions from Glimmer Train.
JR Boudreau of Ontario, Canada for “Pale Shepherd”
JR Boudreau is an accomplished reader, an amateur writer, and a struggling educator. His work has appeared in The Dalhousie Review, The Puritan, The Antigonish Review, and Echolocation.
Lee Thomas of Los Angeles, California for “On the Origin of Species”
Lee Thomas is a fiction writer in Los Angeles. She won the Peninsula Pulse’s 2019 Hal Prize. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Fiction Writers Review, The Hopkins Review, Third Street Writers, and The New Guard. She recently finished a collection of short stories.
— FINALISTS —
POETRY
Amanda Akers
Union, Ohio
“Domestic”
Ella Andrews
Medford, Massachusetts
“Not yet a Mother”
Miranda Beeson
New York, New York
“The Lexicon of Two”
Susan Booth
Atlanta, Georgia
“Architectural Memory”
C.W. Emerson
Palm Springs, California
“The Joy of Wild Things”
Lane Flores
Chicago, Illinois
“helen”
Pete Follansbee
Richmond, Virginia
“The Heron Returns from Winter”
Jonathan Greenhause
Jersey City, New Jersey
“Thanks a lot, Shakespeare, for the Starling”
Margaux Griffith
Ann Arbor, Michigan
“Concrete Slab Table”
Elizabeth Jackson
Raleigh, North Carolina
“Kitchen. Window. Wind.”
Christiane Jacox
Ridgefield, Connecticut
“First Child”
Ralph La Rosa
Los Angeles, California
“A Mouthful of Tacks”
Jennifer Lentfer
Washington, District of Columbia
“The Curve”
Eileen Malone
Broadmoor Village, California
“Pondsong”
Edward Meier
Neenah, Wisconsin
“Sister Rosa”
Leona Sevick
Bridgewater, Virginia
“Sting”
Harvey Soss
Brooklyn, New York
“Falling Into Grace”
Gabriel Spera
Los Angeles, California
“Reptilian”
Laura Budofsky Wisniewski
Hinesburg, Vermont
“Guide to Herbs and Spices”
Diana Woodcock
Midlothian, Virginia
“Survivor”
FICTION
Azure Arther
Dallas, Texas
“The Division of Names”
Al Aucella
Falmouth, Maine
“The Silent Café”
Jaime Balboa
Los Angeles, California
“The Leather Satchel”
Veronique Bequin
Guelph, Ontario
“Close Shave”
David Borofka
Clovis, California
“Retirement Dogs”
Ree Davis
Roanoke, Virginia
“The Putin Resurrections”
Dana DuGan
Hailey, Idaho
“The Elusive Scent of Others”
James Ellenberger
Cincinnati, Ohio
“Mushroom Daddy”
Paula Friedman
Gresham, Oregon
“Berkington”
Joanna Glum
Sacramento, California
“A Profile”
Sara Hosey
Sea Cliff, New York
“Blockbuster”
Isabella Kestermann
Los Angeles, California
“Who Is BROWN GIRL?”
Evelyn Maguire
Boston, Massachusetts
“Fort Henry”
Richard O’Reilly
Floral Park, New York
“Dutchman Rules”
Abbigail Rosewood
Brooklyn, New York
“Constellations of Eve”
Efrem Sigel
New York, New York
“Born Again”
Alan Sincic
Gotha, Florida
“Bacon”
Morgan Smith
Santa Fe, New Mexico
“Orphans of God”
Meredith Suter-Wadley
Kaiserstuhl, Switzerland
“Backcountry”
Paul Wilborn
Saint Petersburg, Florida
“Ground Zero”
FLASH FICTION
Peter Armstrong
Gotaland, Sweden
“Water”
Michelle Bitting
Pacific Palisades, California
“Walls”
Melissa Bowers
Gilroy, California
“The Vanishing Self”
Jane Copland
Berkshire, United Kingdom
“Cache Flow”
Lee Eisen
Manhattan Beach, California
“Your Last Story”
Adrian Fleur
Coconut Creek, Florida
“A Post-Apartheid Education For Girls”
Amina Gautier
Chicago, Illinois
“Tears on Tap”
Sheryl Goodspeed
Mayer, Arizona
“Snakes”
Heather Hall
Palos Verdes, California
“How to Leave a Marriage”
Ron Lavalette
Barton, Vermont
“Crickets”
Alix Mehalek
Juneau, Alaska
“Fishermen”
Ben Orlando
Arlington, Virgina
“Acceptance”
Kate Owen
Hillingdon, United Kingdom
“Nan”
Lee Reilly
Chicago, Illinois
“Pastor Bob’s Picnic”
Dave Sanfacon
Cambridge, Massachusetts
“Ghosts in the Garden”
Elizabeth Tucker
Truckee, California
“If He Had, He Would”
Seth Tucker
Wheat Ridge, Colorado
“The Silences”
Steven Wexler
Valencia, California
“Some Pill”
Michelle Wright
Victoria, Australia
“Water Hours”
Rachel Zarrow
San Francisco, California
“An Evening at the Bathhouse with My Former Lover’s New Love”
NONFICTION
Michael Bishop
Moscow, Idaho
“Going Bananas: A Surfer’s Taste of Globalism”
Linda Caradine
Portland, Oregon
“Mothman”
Jaclynn Chiodini
Fox, Arkansas
“’It’s like the bones were calling me’: Chasing the Ancestors in Dersim”
Claudia Crook
New York, New York
“The Great American West Farewell Tour”
Virginia Ewing
Raleigh, North Carolina
“Nine Swims”
Colton Green
Bronx, New York
“Extra Innings”
Elizabeth Hoban
Newton, New Jersey
“You”
Joanna Lau
Roslyn Heights, New York
“Windblown: A Gallery”
Ellen Leary
New York, New York
“Mickey”
Miki Lentin
London, United Kingdom
“Doing Good”
Bridget Lyons
Santa Cruz, California
“Tangled”
Roger Martin
Lawrence, Kansas
“On Stuckness”
Cynthia McVay
Ulster Park, New York
“The Triassics”
Wendy Noonan
Portland, Oregon
“Weeping Woman”
Liza Porter
Tucson, Arizona
“There Will Be Falling”
N. R. Robinson
Charleston, South Carolina
“Cherall”
Sarita Sarvate
Albany, California
“When I Crossed the Border”
Nicola Sebastian
Brooklyn, New York
“Sometimes We Forget”
Esperanza Snyder
Shepherdstown, West Virginia
“My Daddy’s Boxes”
Nicole Zimmerman
Penngrove, California
“Fallen”
— Honorable Mentions —
POETRY
Claire Bailey
Asheville, North Carolina
“Love song for sisters”
Partridge Boswell
Woodstock, Vermont
“Strike Anywhere”
Alex Chesstell
Eureka, California
“Carbon”
Cara Cilento
Cedar Grove, New Jersey
“My Two Feet”
Deborah Doolittle
Jacksonville, North Carolina
“From the Encyclopedia of Magical Verbs: To Thank”
Marcy Rae Henry
Chicago, Illinois
“Years that ask questions”
Owen Hickle-Edwards
Chicago, Illinois
“The Chicago Playlist”
Tashe House
Garner, North Carolina
“The Clearing”
Andromeda Rose
Dearborn, Michigan
“Jigsaw”
Michael Nelson
Kalamazoo, Michigan
“If There’s a Gun in a Chekhov Story, It’s Going to Go Off”
Karen Pojmann
Columbia, Missouri
“Meridians and Hemispheres”
Teresa Sutton
Patterson, New York
“Barefoot”
Helen Wallace
St. Petersburg, Florida
“To the Buyer of Our Old Home”
Gregg Weatherby
Ithaca, New York
“Blue Jay”
Mark Weaver
Allen, Texas
“Monday Night Football”
FICTION
Nancy Allen
Dallas, Texas
“Cross Over the River”
Leslie Campbell
San Francisco, California
“Thunder in Illinois”
David Canning
Brooklyn, New York
“Nectaween”
Brad David
Melbourne, Australia
“Drive Thru”
Deac Etherington
Tumacacori, Arizona
“Drifting”
Ellen Furman
San Diego, California
“Russian Beauty”
Alex Li
New York, New York
“The Best Stories”
Michael Miller
Edmonds, Washington
“Success”
Olive Mullet
Big Rapids, Michigan
“No Outlet”
Paula Paige
Cromwell, Connecticut
“Vaucluse”
Martha Payne
Atlanta, Georgia
“Waiting”
Laura Picklesimer
Sierra Madre, California
“Boiling Point”
Lisa Rosenberg
Montclair, New Jersey
“Travelers”
Glenn Schiffman
Whitefish, Montana
“Aeneas”
Daniel Talamantes
San Francisco, California
“No Promethean Zombie”
FLASH FICTION
Jennifer Boyd
Austin, TX
“The Test”
Eoin Connelly
Dublin, Ireland
“The Man Who Is Still A Boy”
Stephanie Cotsirilos
Portland, Maine
“Triptych”
Derek Hanebury
Port Alberni, British Columbia
“Bungy Love”
Arthur McCaffrey
Waltham, Massachusetts
“Lost in Translation”
Aishwarya Mishra
Jharkhand, India
“Nomenclature”
Anne Raustol
Weaverville, North Carolina
“Yellow”
Charlie Salkever
Newton, Massachusetts
“The Party”
Kevin Sandefur
St. Joseph, Illinois
“Out in the Sticks”
Lexi Schwartz
Denver, Colorado
“Arizona”
Nicola Sebastian
Brooklyn, New York
“Sometimes We Forget”
Steven Simoncic
Wayne, New Jersey
“Girls Weekend”
Laurie Steed
Kingsley, Australia
“But What Have You Done Lately?”
Christina Tabacco
San Francisco, California
“Mermaid”
Alexander Weinstein
Ann Arbor, Michigan
“We Only Wanted Their Happiness”
NONFICTION
Mary Elizabeth Cartwright
Arlington, Tennessee
“Face It, Smart: A Family Affair Through Text Messages”
Debka Colson
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
“Baking Lessons: Needing, Rising & Letting Go”
Jane Copland
Fox, Arkansas
“About the Skating”
Richard Hague
Cincinnati, Ohio
“Ruins & Punishments”
Regina Hanson
Las Vegas, Nevada
“Beat Down”
Stephen Howie
Sedro Woolley, Washington
“Three Fingers Wide”
Elizabeth Andrew
Minneapolis, Minnesota
“Microscope, Kaleidoscope”
Andrew Jones
Downers Grove, Illinois
“A Crack in the System”
Yennie Jun
Geismar, Louisiana
“In the Bathhouse”
Margarita Meyendorff
Rosendale, New York
“Interview with the FBI”
Kathleen Minor
Dalton, Georgia
“Booker T. Washington and Childish Gambino: Masters of Form”
Ruth Rosengarten
Southorpe, United Kingdom
“Things”
Willa Schneberg
Portland, Oregon
“The Man Who Became Cambodia”
Rachel Shapiro
Paradise Valley, Arizona
“Magic”
Michele Sharpe
Gainesville, Florida
“The Honeybee”