Finalists 2023

Fiction

Emily Adrian’s “E-Friends” from Granta
Vincent Anioke’s “The Stars Yet Undiscovered” from Peatsmoke Journal
Deya Bhattacharya’s “Gin and Peach” from Blackbird
G.D. Brown’s “Gospel” from COUNTERCLOCK Journal
George Choundas’ “The Thing About Pansyncrasy—Okay, Fine, Many Things” from Blood Orange Review
Meghan Dairaghi’s “Privately Strange People” from Alien Magazine
Barbara Diggs’ “Granddaddy at War” from FlashBack Fiction
Nzube Ifediba’s “The Dragon Slayer” from The Forge
Kayla Lightner’s “Let Me Tell You a Ghost Story” from Pithead Chapel
Nathan Alling Long’s “Lint” from Electric Literature
Julián Esteban Torres López’s “Uprooted From Medellín” from Alebrijes Review
Guy Melvin’s “Champagne Pools” from Sundog Lit
Brittany Menjivar’s “Prophecy” from Bureau of Complaint
Vasilios Moschouris’ “Next Times” from Chautauqua
Keith Polette’s “Gossip” from haikuKATHA
Doug Ramspeck’s “Gertrude” from Chautauqua
Leila Renee’s “Alight” from Split Lip Magazine
William Pei Shih’s “Happy Family” from Ursa
Joe P. Squance’s “Triboluminescence” from The Citron Review
Ayotola Tehingbola’s “We Should Have Told Mother This” from pidgeonholes
Erin Townsend’s “Stitches” from Arkana
Nicole Tsuno’s “Vestigial” from Passages North
Lucy Zhang’s “Fruit Selection” from Minola Review

Poetry

Lisa Allen’s “PROLAPSE: ETYMOLOGY” from South 85 Journal
Kelli Allen’s “The Price of a Corridor to Staying” from Red Fez
Kay E. Bancroft’s “bisect:ual” from Longleaf Review
Mary Biddinger’s “Everyone Has an Unreasonable Fear That Also Feels Like a Gift” from Pithead Chapel
Roseanna Alice Boswell’s “LIZZO EATING OUT THE CENTER OF A BURRITO IS FEMINIST DISCOURSE™️” from Ice Queen Magazine
Despy Boutris’s “June Morning with Thoughts of Mortality “ from The Sunlight Press
Wendy Taylor Carlisle’s “In the Week Before We Leave for the Clinic” from Susurrus, A Literary Arts Magazine of the American South
A. Henry Carnell’s “someday your animal” from The Hopper
María Castro Domínguez’s “Banana Child” from The Lincoln Review
Alyx Chandler’s “Home of the Hermitess” from Coffin Bell
Sydney Jin Cho’s “Like All the Red Things We Say to Describe Blood but Blood Itself” from Apogee Journal
Mariya Deykute’s “Homecoming” from Solstice Literary Magazine
Stephanie Yue Duhem’s “Fourth Wife” from Maximus
Ryler Dustin’s “Trailer Park Psalm” from Under a Warm Green Linden
Francine Ellen Witte’s “Here are Some Lies You Can Tell Me” from Red Fez
Renee Emerson’s “Spring Felling” from The Hopper
Laura Goldin’s “You Find Me Sad and Offer Me the Natural World, in Portraiture, for Comfort. As Usual, My Observations Disappoint You.” from Club Plum
Juliana Gray’s “Ode to Luminol” from Coffin Bell
Pragnya Haralur’s “SELF PORTRAIT AS EXPONENTIAL DAMNATION” from A Velvet Giant
Ellie Howard’s “Michelangelo Carves David into Medusa” from beestung
Stefan Karlsson’s “Memory Replacement Test” from Santa Clara Review
Candice Kelsey’s “In Response to My Children Who Still Ask about the Coyotes” from Variant Literature
Nadine Klassen’s “Kiwi Science” from Gnashing Teeth Publishing
Ben Kline’s “The Toast” from Ran Off With the Star Bassoon
Noelle Kocot’s “Ascent of the Mothers” from SurVision Magazine
Brad Liening’s “Old Barns” from Maximus Magazine
Alison Lubar’s “To Sprout a Lemon Seed” from Revolute
Lauren Mallett’s “Skipanon“ from The Night Heron Barks
Katie McMorris’s “Whenever I Mention Dropping Everything and Becoming a Farmer on a Remote Island” from the Arkansas International
Steven Ostrowski’s “Aging, and Outside Again, and For Quite a While Laughing” from MAYDAY Magazine
Samuel Piccone’s “Role-Play” from Portland Review
Charles Rafferty’s “The Problem With Not Owning a Ladder” from The Citron Review
Guillermo Rebollo Gil’s “You are who you owe yourself to” from Pacifica Literary Review
Kristen Rembold’s “Junk Trees” from South 85 Journal
henry 7. reneau, jr.’s “[*trigger warning]” from SoFloPoJo South Florida Poetry Journal
Fox Rinne’s “Body a Soft Dull Blade” from Booth
Todd Robinson’s “Summer Elegy II” from The Good Life Review
Sneha Subramanian Kanta’s “[Hindi]” from Sundog Lit
Mikey Swanberg’s “State And Local History” from Flyover Country
Kate Sweeney’s “Dropped Stitch” from Jet Fuel Review
Gin Faith Thomas’s “Lucy the Teenaged Werewolf Sometimes Just Sits Around Watching Reruns of Buffy.” from Bluestem Magazine
Yvanna Vien Tica’s “Migrating” from Shenandoah
Leila Tualla’s “I sometimes think of my identity in diaspora” from The Wild Word
Mathew Tuckner’s “State Bird of Figurative Language” from Four Way Review
Brendan Walsh’s “god.15” from The Westchester Review
Julie Weiss’s “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” from Orange Blossom Review
Jonah Wu’s “A BRIEF HISTORY OF HAIR” from beestung

Nonfiction

Anne P. Beatty’s “Up Home” from Shenandoah
Gardiner Brown’s “Camp[ing]” from Burrow Press
Ali Bryan’s “Meditations on Trash in a Time of Dumpster Fires” from Invisible City
Eiren Caffall’s “Red tides” from Guernica
Bryn Dodson’s “I Dream I’m The Death Of Happy Voldemort” from Birdcoat Quarterly
Melissa Fraterrigo’s “The Sacred Disease” from Sundog Lit
Tanya E. Friedman’s “Freckled” from Atticus Review
Ge Gao’s “Separate Fidelities” from Hypocrite Reader
Gabriella Graceffo’s “Second Syntax” from Birdcoat Quarterly
Lindsey DeLoach Jones’s “In the After” from Pigeon Pages
Enshia Li’s “Watching the Voice of China with My Mother at Thirteen” from The Adroit Journal
Ann Montgomery’s “Guéri par miracle” from Peatsmoke Journal
Larry I. Palmer’s “On Learning to Love the Sea” from Blackbird
Linda Petrucelli’s “The Juror” from Parhelion Literary Magazine
Caroline Rash’s “Love – and Mushrooms and Zooms – In the Ruins” from North Carolina Literary Review
Aurora Shimshak’s “Triptych with Mom and Horses” from Shenandoah
Coyote Shook’s “Where Have You Gone, Mrs. Duvall?” from Beaver Magazine
Lucy Zhang’s “How to make me orgasm” from The Cincinnati Review
Mary Zheng’s “With Dignity” from Kitchen Table Quarterly
Melissent Zumwalt’s “IT ALL HAPPENS AT A MCDONALD’S” from Arkana 

Art

Nazrene Alsiro’s “Close” from Beaver Magazine
Christina Baltais’ “Meds” from Spoonie Press
Zane Barrow’s “Existential” from HAD
Michele Billings’ “Raven” from Big Bend Literary Magazine
Despy Boutris’ “Untitled” from Your Impossible Voice
Sonia Charales’ “The Starman Sits at Dawn” from antonym
Kate (Junehyo) Choi’s “Within the Oak Tree” from The Good Life Review
Robin Croft’s “The Laughing Lady” from Posit
Martins Deep’s “Future Gazer” from Harbor Review
Biswamohini Dhal’s “Mother’s Milk” from Chestnut Review
Delano Dunn’s “Snowfall in LA” from The Offing
Kathleen Frank’s “Trails to the Tetons” from Chestnut Review
Marina Fridman’s “Eye Drawings from the Fear Project” from New Orleans Review
Brianda Zareth Huitrón’s “Retroalimentación“ from West Trade Review
Autumn Rose Hunnicutt’s “Begin Again” from Blood Orange Review
Angie Kang’s “The Dip” from The Offing
Carla Keaton’s “Lead Me to Life: Voices of the African Diaspora” from SAPIENS
Baseera Khan’s “Oneness (believe in monotheism)” from Hennepin Review
Greg MacDonald’s “dd041720-alt” from Club Plum
Mafloku’s “no trienta” from Cold Mountain Review
Angela Masker’s “Ashes to Ashes” from long con magazine
Jocelyn Mathewes’ “The Geography of Hope” from Vita Poetica
Younes Mohammad’s “Open Wounds: Portraits of Peshmerga” from The Ilanot Review
Thuthukani Myeza’s “All Kings Die” from Agbowó 
Delta N.A.’s “Between Two Worlds” from orangepeel
Sarah Ozanne and Jane Orange’s “Myth: Artist Collaboration” from Harpy Hybrid Review
Marta Santalla’s “The Way” from Kitchen Table Quarterly
Dagny Sellorin’s “Things to Come” from Split Rock Review
George Sfougaras’ “Tanner’s Gate” from the other side of hope
Kathryn Smith’s “The Motions” from Anomaly
Stipan Tadić’s “Jesus Saves” from Alien Magazine
Danielle Taphanel’s “Little Town” from Honey Literary
Nina Tichava’s “You Don’t Even Know How Breathtaking You Are” from 805 Lit + Art
Jim Tsinganos’ “E Pluribus Unum” from DMQ Review
Veronika Vajdova’s “Euphoria” from The Adroit Journal
Maya Varadaraj’s “SAREE TUCKED INTO HER WAIST & PLEATED OVER HER SHOULDER” from Hennepin Review
Emily Verdoorn’s “Desert; Wool Light; and August” from EcoTheo Review
Yvonne Welman’s “Comment on Klimt” from Harbor Review

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