Announcing the Winners of the 2024 Arts & Letters Prizes in Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, & Poetry:
Arts & Letters Prize for Fiction
Faith Shearin, “The House Next Door”
[“The House Next Door”] is a thoughtful exploration of class privilege and the attendant struggles with both empathy and self-awareness. It has strong and sensitive character development for the female lead, and some quite lovely sentences.”
– Tiphanie Yanique, Judge
Finalists:
Ruth Beaumont Cook, “Melvin vs. Marilyn”; Rebecca Morean, “Beyond Guernica”; and Charles Wheelan, “Reality Show”
Susan Atefat Prize for Creative Nonfiction
Siavash Saadlou, “Dear God”
“I’ve selected “Dear God” as the winner for its tense and tender evocation of a time in the speaker’s life when he was coming to understand how the Iran-Iraq war would shape his family and identity forever.”
– Beth Ann Fennelly, Judge
Finalists:
Rebecca Evans, “Firsts”; Mekiya Outini, “0 | 1”; and Josina Reaves, “All I Could Not Have, All I Could Not Be”
Rumi Prize for Poetry
Liza Katz Duncan, “Four Ghosts” and “Jaws Mural”
“I love the urgency of both subject and syntax in these poems, which leap from the present to the past, from the personal to the global. In this poet’s hands, the most terrible subjects — infertility, environmental degradation, shark attacks — are rendered chillingly beautiful.
– Chelsea Rathburn, Judge
Finalists:
Janine Certo, Tina Demirdjian, Iqra Khan, and Mike Schneider
Each winner receives $1000; the winning pieces will appear in an upcoming Issue.