Fractured Lit 2024 Elsewhere Prize Judged by Tara Campbell Winners and Shortlist

We’ve got our winners for this contest!

1st Place: All and Sundry by Candace Leigh Coulombe

This story captures the spirit of Elsewhere by transporting us to a familiar place made utterly surreal: a mega mart with everything from milk to robot lovers to xenobiological babies. The recurring theme of a lost child lends a haunted air to the mega store, which is, on its face, a place of plenty, but in reality, it only reflects the gaping hole we try to fill with consumerism. And there’s no better place than OmegaMart, to find “the things that you’ll lose and the things that will make you forget them.” The echoes of the child calling “Mama, mama, mama” will stay with me as long as I stroll down the endless aisles of a megaversal store, searching for a panacea for uncertainty with the shape of our lives. ~Tara Campbell

2nd Place: Sweetie Come Brush Me by Leesa Fenderson

People and language define the environment of this story. Pumpkin Circle is a distinct place with vibrant characters and an unconventional narrator, a collector of “rumors and how-tos.” In this example of universality through specificity, lessons on how to ride a bike downhill and peel a mango unspool alongside neighborhood stories of love, betrayal, and regret, drawing us in regardless of where we’re from. The sensations and flavors that surround the characters both nurture and torture them, and the language is unfettered, trusting us as readers to bridge the divide between our “where” and this Elsewhere. ~Tara Campbell

3rd Place: The Ox and the Magpies by Suqi Karen Sims

The story might be ancient, but this retelling puts a new spin on the Chinese folktale “The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.” With beautiful language, the author places the emphasis on the role of the animals in the story, sharing their thoughts as they stage-manage the humans in the narrative. Magpies might be jaded and have other things to do, but they have their reasons for helping to reunite the lovers of legend. ~Tara Campbell

We’re also publishing Marked by Desiree Cooper & Or the Highway by Holly Pelesky

1. Like Prey by Abigail Bereola
2. Marked by Desiree Cooper
3. All and Sundry by Candace Leigh Coulombe
4. Of Souls & Forests by Arria Deepwater
5. Crow by Renesha Dhanraj
6. Sweetie Come Brush Me by Leesa Fenderson
7. A Lamb, Rising by Freyja Harrison-Wood
8. Fireworks at Dusk by Jennifer Musaji
9. Or the Highway by Holly Pelesky
10. The Marvelous Daisy-Sue, Every Sunday After Church by Al Shapiro
11. The Ox and the Magpies by Suqi Karen Sims
12. The Yard by Ivan Suazo
13. A Man Will Come by Colin Watts
14. Universal by Hally Winters