Tag Archives: Poetry Prize
25th Annual Arts & Letters Prize Winners
Announcing the Winners of the 2023 Arts & Letters Prizes in Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, & Poetry:
Arts & Letters Prize for Fiction
Patricia Grace King, “Pax Americana”
“I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Pax Americana.” This story deftly intertwines elements of the interpersonal with larger societal and political narratives to produce a profoundly humane reflection on marriage, politics, youth, and choices, told in an assured and compelling voice.”
– Francesca Ekwuyasi, Judge
Finalists:
Brenda Salinas Baker, “The Apprentice” and Shane Dutta, “Sally’s Daughter”
Susan Atefat Prize for Creative Nonfiction
Jonathan VanBallenberghe, “Winchester Street: Living with My Father’s Suicide”
“Word by word, the author of “Winchester Street: Living with My Father’s Suicide” brings the reader inside the psyche of the narrator’s father, and his decision to end his life. Even more gripping, we also read about the narrator’s own feelings toward suicide—as well as the cultural allure of guns that cause so much destruction. The author’s composed voice underlies the deep trauma of the event. I greatly admire the clear and unsentimental tone as a portal into the depth of feeling this narrative conveys. The writing is stunning, the story urgent, the reflective voice compelling. This essay most assuredly deserves to win.”
– Sue William Silverman, Judge
Finalists:
Tatiana Hollier, “I Am the Ornament of the Sky” and Jaye Murray, “Sentry”
Rumi Prize for Poetry
Owen Lewis, “Something’s Wrong,” “More Than Twice,“ and “Waking Early This New Year’s Day”
“Though there were moments I liked in each of the manuscripts of the finalists, I have chosen this manuscript because this poet was able to sustain, in poems that were about something of real emotional substance, an acute attention to making the language both lovely and telling.”
– Rodney Jones, Judge
Finalists:
Robin Knight, Ari Mokdad, Sammi LaBue, Mark Smith-Soto, David Moolten, and Ruth Kessler
Each winner receives $1000; the winning pieces will appear in an upcoming Issue.
24th Annual Arts & Letters Prize Winners
Arts & Letters Prize for Fiction Zoe Pappenheimer, “Apparitions”
“Apparitions” is a beautifully written story that weaves together two very compelling storylines and juxtaposes two very complex relationships. I loved the seamless way the author moves between past and present, between memory and present action, and the way the tension grows gradually through small moments in the story, through those unspoken conversations that seem to be taking place between these characters. As the title implies, there are metaphorical ghosts in this story, including ghosts of all of the characters’ former selves, but there is also a very emotionally charged surface story, one that raises questions that are both topical and timeless. This is truly a remarkable story by an extraordinarily talented writer. I loved everything about it.”
– Andrew Porter, Judge
Finalists:
Holly Pekowski, “Almost There;” Adam Peterson, “Stumbledown”
Susan Atefat Prize for Creative Nonfiction
Jodie Noel Vinson, “First Do No Harm”
“First Do No Harm” is a timely, deeply personal meditation on the experience (and ripple effects) of long Covid, as well as a rigorously researched investigation into medical history (and its own ripple effects today). The author writes of volunteering at a vaccine clinic as “an acknowledgement that we are all connected, that our decisions—to get on a plane, to shop at a store, to wear a mask, to get the jab—have consequences on other lives; that to do no harm is never a passive decision, but an always active awareness.” This essay in itself is a beautiful reminder that we are all connected, a beautiful example of an active, compassionate awareness at work. I’m grateful to have read “First Do No Harm” and am honored to award it the Arts & Letters/Susan Atefat Prize for Creative Nonfiction.
– Gayle Brandeis, Judge
Finalists:
Alisa Koyrakh, “The Love of Doing”
Rumi Prize for Poetry
W. J. Herbert, “The Birth of Venus,” “Liminal Passage,” “Ice Storm,” and “Journal of the Plague Years”
“The other selections were great, but I kept coming back to these…they work beautifully separately and apart. I love this poet’s lyric touch. Elegant diction and a light touch with imagery…These poems have an irresistible grace to them!”
– Allison Joseph, Judge
Finalists:
Laurence O’Dwyer, Vernita Hall, Saudamini Siegrist, and Donte Collins
Each winner receives $1000; the winning will appear in our Fall Issue.
23rd Annual Arts & Letters Prize Winners
Arts & Letters Prize for Fiction
Karen Day, “The Cellar”
“[“The Cellar” is] a taut and wonderfully written story that uses the suspense of a looming natural disaster and the claustrophobia of a basement hideout to explore as well as explode the secrets, tensions, hopes, and dreams of a Midwestern family in crisis. Through precise dramatization, “The Cellar” moves beautifully in and out of time, casting a revelatory weight on the present with each excavation of the past.”
– Novuyo Tshuma, Judge
Finalists:
Thomas Maya, “El pan de cada dia,” Perry Glasser, “Not That Anyone is Asking,” and Reena Shah, “Stardust”
Susan Atefat Prize for Creative Nonfiction
Lee Anne Gallaway-Mitchell, “The Tax of Quick Alarm”
“One thing I particularly love about “The Tax of Quick Arm” is how immersed the author made me feel in the life of a military spouse in Korea—this is a life I’d rarely, if ever, contemplated on my own, and suddenly she had me *right there,* and she did it with grace and efficiency. The dual way she uses the MOPP system is also brilliant. And most of all, I feel like this is an essay the world *needs* right now, when so many women are at MOPP 3 because of systems they did not build and can’t control. It is, sadly, wonderful timing for this piece to find an audience.”
– Kristi Coulter, Judge
Finalists:
Jill Christman, “The Sandbox Ghost,” Frank Walters, “Judging the Distance,” Mary Petty Anderson, “Newt Terrell,” and David Mairowitz, “Transcribing Robert”
Rumi Prize for Poetry
L.A. Johnson, for “Where Warm and Cool Air Meet,” “Downriver,” “Radiant Stranger,” and “House Full of Someones”
“What is sight, what is smell, how do they lead us into life, into what we believe and become? In “House Full of Someones” we are strangers, we are putting our eyes to the window, we are with the speaker of the poem, we are curious, what world is this? We are caught in between the dead and the living, we are in the language. I am in awe of how the poem progresses, of what it seeks to achieve. At the end, the poem knows that knowledge is gotten through waiting, through patience, and as we wait with it, I ask myself, what have I learnt? Yes, it is too late for the dead to go back, to be alive, but what possibility lies in death? What becomes of us, of the dead in this world? What have we smelled, what have we seen, what do we wait for?
– Romeo Oriogun, Judge
There are poems that teach us about the fullness of our humanity, that open spaces and show us the world that exists just beyond what we have been used to. When I read “Where Warm and Cool Air Meet”, “Downriver” and “Radiant Stranger,” I was ushered into a world where grace is alive and grief is pain, but also the gateway to hope. In the world of these poems even joy must be disguised before it is achieved and at the end of pain there is rebirth, a human life for a lemon. At first this looks impossible, but the language of these poems is alive, it is real, it leads us not just into the process of grief but also through the process of rebirth.”
Finalists:
Danielle Williams, Monique Ferrell, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Tom Laichas, Sally Lipton Derringer, George Kramer, Christopher Shipman, Doug Ramspeck, and Betsy Sholl
Each winner receives $1000; the winning will appear in our Fall Issue.
