We’re so excited to announce the winners of this contest! Judge Dan Chaon had a difficult decision, but narrowed it down to three winners. Congratulations to everyone on the shortlist. This was a fierce competition this year!
The winners are:
1st place: Triple Body Walking by Aishatu Ado “The voice of this striking story starts out in the incantatory, formal register of a traditional fable, but grows slinky and jazzily sinister as you go along. Full of vividly eerie images of daily village life and feverish visions of the supernatural, the story evokes a genuinely fearsome creature–proud, formidable, terrifying, and yet limned with sorrow and loss.” ~Dan Chaon
2nd place: Reckoner by Adam Fell “A mysterious allegory in the tradition of Hawthorne, Barthelme and Brockmeier, “Reckoner” is sharp, witty, and sublimely, pointedly ridiculous–until the turn at the end bears down with surprising emotional heft.” ~Dan Chaon
3rd place: Owl Fantasma by Pascha Sotolongo “This one has some elements of a campfire ghost story, but the rich voice of the teenaged narrator and the vivid sense of detail and milieu add depth and feeling to the scares.” ~Dan Chaon
Also publishing: Zen Lyrics for the Carhartt Guru by Sherry Mayle
Shortlist:
- Closed for the Season by Galen David Bunting
- The Walker at Night by Simon Capobianco
- Wolfie by Danielle Claro
- Bakunawa and the Seven Sisters by Nathalie De Los Santos
- Windows into the Solar System by Jaclyn Eccesso
- In the Hedgerow by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles
- Reckoner by Adam Fell
- Disenchanted by Lisa Ferranti
- Out of the Woods by Jo Gatford
- Triple Body Walking by Aishatu Ado
- Song by Hana Jabr
- The Ethics of Hematophagy by Alison Leigh Jones
- My Mother the Sea by Sarah Lineberry
- Zen Lyrics for the Carhartt Guru by Sherry Mayle
- The Ghost of No Regret by Cristina Osmena
- Almalette by Mar Ovsheid
- The Return by Katie Sakanai
- The 6:42 A.M. Caltrain from San Jose by Holly Sewell
- The Invisible Wild by Alan Sincic
- OWL FANTASMA by Pascha Sotolongo