prize winners
WRITTEN. REFINED. RELEASED.
1
Poem Prizes
1
Story Prizes
1
Essay Prizes
1
• Total Awards •
Zea Archer of New Jersey
Zea Archer is a writer and librarian living in Northern New Jersey. Her poems, plays, and reviews have been read and performed in queer spaces, including Skin to Skin, Your Name Here, and The Lesbrary. Her nonfiction work on (impending) queer motherhood appears in Hot Metal Bridge and Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly.
#31
Sandy Longley of Delmar, NY | Provincetown, MA
Sandy Longley is a recently retired English Professor. Finishing Line Press published her chapbook, Navigating the Waters, in 2016. Other publications include New Millennium Writings, Nimrod International Journal, Southword Journal, Spillway, Passager, Mudfish. She divides her time between Delmar, NY and Provincetown MA.
#30
Sandra Luerken of Aachen, Germany
Sandra Luerken lives in Aachen, Germany. She started writing stories in her childhood and took some creative writing classes at university. Just recently, she decided to try and see what would happen if she actually sent her stories out into the world. Now, she is very excited about her first publication.
#29
Kathryn Wilder of Dolores, Colorado
Kathryn Wilder’s essays have been listed as notable in Best American Essays, and have appeared in such places as High Desert Journal, River Teeth, Southern Indiana Review, Fourth Genre, and Sierra. She has an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and lives among mustangs in southwestern Colorado.
#28
Sylvia Bowman of Port Townsend, Washington
Sylvia Bowman has written poetry for twenty years, with a volume of poems published by Irenicon Press. Now she finds short stories a nifty form for exposing character and interaction, so works and studies how to write satisfying short-shorts before tackling the longer prose form.
#27
James McCrae of New York City, New York
James McCrae's writing has been featured in Forbes, HuffPost, Adweek, Thought Catalog, Yogi Times, Entrepreneur, Elephant Journal, and others. McCrae's debut creative nonfiction book, Sh#t Your Ego Says, was published by Hay House in 2017.
#26
Nina Gaby of Vermont
Nina Gaby has been represented in numerous journals and anthologies, and currently focuses on the shorter form, using composites to illustrate the face of addiction and mental illness from an intimate perspective. Gaby is also a psychiatric nurse practitioner and a widely exhibited visual artist.
* First Literary Award *
* First Literary Award *
#25
Terri Trespicio
Terri Trespicio is a NY-based writer, speaker, and brand advisor. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College, has been a finalist for the Iowa Award, and won first place for nonfiction in The Baltimore Review in 2016. She is currently at work on her first book.
#24
Kathryn Gahl
Kathryn Gahl writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. “40” is from her memoir in verse, DANCE WHEN YOU CAN’T. Her works appear in over forty journals. A finalist at Glimmer Train and Wisconsin People & Ideas, she believes in the transcendent power of dark chocolate, deep sleep, and red lipstick.
#23
Keith Mark Gaboury of San Francisco, California
Keith Mark Gaboury earned a M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College. His poems have appeared in such publications as Eclectica Magazine, Five 2 One Magazine, and New Millennium Writings. After spending his days as a preschool teacher, Keith spends his nights writing poetry in San Francisco, California.
#22
Hana Rowan-Seddon of London, England | United Kingdom
Hana Rowan-Seddon is a 18 year old living near Brighton, UK. Taking a break from college has allowed her to focus more on her writing.
* First Literary Award *
* First Work to be Published in Print *
* First Literary Award *
* First Work to be Published in Print *
#21
Natalie Mucker
Natalie Mucker is a graduate student at Spalding University in Louisville, KY. She is working towards her MFA in creative writing. She is fond of animals, humans, yoga, creativity, kindness, all things food, and traveling—not necessarily in that order.
* First Literary Award *
* First Work to be Published in Print *
* First Literary Award *
* First Work to be Published in Print *
#20
Susan Maeder of the North Coast of California and southwestern France
Susan Maeder lives on the North Coast of California and in southwestern France. She most recently performed her narrative poem, “The Goosefoot Tango,” as a one woman show in France. A career highlight was receiving the annual poetry prize in 2014 from New Millennium Writings.
#19
Constance Campana
Constance Campana is a poet and essayist who lives in Attleboro, MA and teaches writing at Wheaton College. Recent publications have been in Dogwood, 491 Magazine, Three Rivers Poetry Journal, Brown Journal of the Arts, Cleaver Magazine and SNReview.
#18
Cezanne Alexander
#17
Sally Lipton Derringer of Nanuet, New York
Sally Lipton Derringer was a manuscript finalist for the Tampa Review Prize and a finalist for the Jeff Marks Poetry Prize, Arts & Letters Prize and Kay Murphy Prize. Her poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Los Angeles Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Journal of the American Medical Association, and others.
#16
Jeanne Wilkinson of Brooklyn, New York
Jeanne Wilkinson is a Brooklyn artist and writer. Her writing has been on NPR’s Living on Earth and Leonard Lopate Show, Columbia Journal, Digging Through the Fat, and Raven’s Perch, and her experimental videos featured at BAM, the Greenpoint, New York Independent Film Festivals and 13th St. Repertory Theater.
#15
Kirk McDavitt of Bucharest, Romania
Kirk McDavitt is a writer on sabbatical from teaching writing, currently residing in Bucharest, Romania. In addition to writing short fiction and non-fiction, he is working on a novel (a fictionalized account of his experiences in a Vipassana meditation course). It will incorporate fifteen of his original songs.
#14
Brian Feehan of Wilton, Connecticut
Brian Feehan lives in Connecticut. He attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop summer program. He’s had several short stories published, in the Foundling Review and Plots with Guns and five published plays (Heuer Publishing), one of which was a finalist for the Heideman Award at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville.
#12
Joanna Koch of Berkley, Michigan
Joanna Koch’s short fiction has been published in journals such as Dark Fuse, Hello Horror, and the anthology Game Fiction, Volume One. This story’s companion piece appears in the anthology “Trump: Utopia/Dystopia.”
An MA Contemplative Psychotherapy graduate of Naropa University, Joanna works near Detroit as an advocate for women’s rights.
An MA Contemplative Psychotherapy graduate of Naropa University, Joanna works near Detroit as an advocate for women’s rights.
#11
Ginny Lowe Connors of West Hartford, Connecticut
Ginny Lowe Connors is the author of several poetry collections, including Toward the Hanging Tree: Poems of Salem Village. Connors has also edited poetry anthologies, including the recently published Forgotten Women: A Tribute in Poetry. The editor of Connecticut River Review, she also runs a small poetry press, Grayson Books.
#10
Annie Dawid of Monument, Colorado
Annie Dawid’s three books of fiction are: York Ferry, A Novel (1993 Cane Hill Press); Lily in the Desert: Stories (2001: Carnegie-Mellon University Press Series in Short Fiction) and And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories of a Family (1998 Litchfield Review Press). Poetry: Anatomie of The World (2017)
#9
Jude Brewer of Portland, Oregon
Jude Brewer’s writing has appeared in New Millennium Writings, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Scintilla Press, and Cultured Vultures. His nonfiction short, 2012, 2016, 2017 was a finalist in the 2017 Montana Book Festival. He also hosts the literary “radio theatre” podcast Storytellers Telling Stories. New episodes available Tuesdays.
#8
Adrienne Garrison of Bloomington, Indiana
Adrienne Garrison is a writer, mother, and educator living in Bloomington, Indiana with her daughter and husband. She is currently working on her first novel and completing her MFA in Creative Writing with Pacific University in Oregon.
#7
Molly Seale of Makanda, Illinois
Molly Seale has most recently published essays in Hippocampus Magazine and Hotel Amerika as well as ON YOUR OWN, an anthology of poems and essays about widowhood. She holds an MFA in Theatre from the University of Texas and was a Fulbright-Hays grant recipient in the Performing Arts to the former Soviet Union. Her essay, “Illness,” was included in Robert Atwan’s Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2014. She lives in Makanda, Illinois.
#6
Laura Rose of Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Laura Rose, an advertising copywriter and manager, lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with her husband and daughter. Her nonfiction has appeared in Narrative, Memoir Journal, and Bucks County Writer.
#5
#4
M.K. Sturdevant of Chicago, Illinois
M.K. Sturdevant’s work has appeared in Orion, Flyway, Slag Glass City, and The Trumpeter, and she was listed in the Top 25 Emerging Writers by Glimmer Train Press. She lives and works in the Chicago area.
#3
Jonathan Segol of Troy, New York
Jonathan Segol's first writing was as a songwriter in New York and as a journalist for Street News. He now teaches writing at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, NY.
#2
Laura Maynard of Enniskillen, Ontario
Laura Maynard is a Writer’s Craft teacher, living with her husband and son in the beautiful village of Enniskillen, Ontario.
#1