Volume 1 – MUSEPAPER

Prize-Winning
Poems

Prize-Winning
Stories

Prize-Winning
Essays

"The Sum of its Parts" by Nina Gaby

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.

Nina Gaby

"Expat" by Hana Rowan-Seddon

Hana Rowan-Seddon is an 18 year old living near Brighton, UK. Taking a break from college has allowed her to focus more on her writing.

Hana Rowan-Seddon

"A Tale of Two Concerts" by Jeanne Wilkinson

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.

Jeanne Wilkinson

"Tastes" by Kirk McDavitt

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.

Kirk McDavitt

"Apples" by Laura Maynard

Laura Maynard is a Writer’s Craft teacher, living with her husband and son in the beautiful village of Enniskillen, Ontario. She feels lucky to be able to inspire a passion for writing in young people. Laura has published four short stories and is currently working on her first novel.

Laura Maynard

"Jordan and Karyn" by Jude Brewer

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, 2017was a finalist in the 2017 Montana Book Festival. He also hosts the literary “radio theatre” podcast Storytellers Telling Stories. New episodes available Tuesdays.

Jude Brewer

"TREATS" by Brian Feehan

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.

Brian Feehan

"SALT: A Homecoming" by Susan Maeder

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.

Susan Maeder

"President Marilyn Monroe Devours Her Young" by Joanna Koch

Joanna Koch writes literary horror and surrealist trash. Her short fiction has been published in journals and anthologies such as Synth, Sanitarium, Honey & Sulphur, and In Darkness Delight: Masters of Midnight. Joanna is a Contemplative Psychotherapy graduate of Naropa University. She lives near Detroit. Consume her monstrous musings at horrorsong.blog.

Joanna Koch

"The One That Got Away" by Adrienne Garrison

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.

Adrienne Garrison

"ICARUS" by Annie Dawid

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)

Annie Dawid

"Ice Lessons" by M.K. Sturdevant

M.K. Sturdevant’s work has appeared in Orion, Flyway, Slag Glass City, and The Trumpeter. She was listed in the Top 25 Emerging Writers by Glimmer Train Press, Jan/Feb 2017. She lives and works in the Chicago area.

M.K. Sturdevant

"The Cripple Makes a Wish" by 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.

Terri Trespicio

"40" by 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.

Kathryn Gahl

"Little House" by 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.

Constance Campana

"The Wolf in Me" by G. L. Connors

G. L. 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.

G. L. Connors

"Taking Our Time" by Jonathan Segol

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 and has just finished a coming-of-age novel about chop shops, Coney Island, graffiti, and Y2K.

Jonathan Segol

"Perfection" by Molly Seale

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.

Molly Seale

"Beginnings" by Keith Mark Gaboury

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.

Keith Mark Gaboury

"ENSŌ" by 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.

Natalie Mucker

"Folie Á Deux" by Laura Rose

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.

Laura Rose

"From the Garden" by Michele Flynn

Michele Flynn

"Whatever Gets You Through the Night" by Sally Lipton Derringer

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.

Sally Lipton Derringer