2013 Contest Winners Greg Grummer Poetry Award Judged by Dean Young Winner: Annie Christain, Villagers Chop Them in Half, Thinking They Are Snakes Runner-up: Maggie Millner, Squalls Winter Fiction Contest Judged by Ryan Call Winner: Ryan Habermeyer, The Foot Annual Creative Nonfiction Prize Judged by Marion Winik Winner: Deborah Thompson, The Last Séance Poetry Sarah...
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Ryan Habermeyer Winner, Fiction Contest A foot had been uncovered from a sandbar the night after the solstice. Nobody was sure how long it had suffered there in anonymity as it had been found in the lonely sandbar a half-mile from the shore where insomniacs went to count waves. The first witnesses initially...
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Annie Christain Winner, Greg Grummer Poetry Award "Come not between the Dragon and his wrath..." King Lear. Act I, Sc 2 "He thought the Beatles were witches flying on broomsticks from hell." – Dr. Phillip Joseph In a network of underground tunnels, I created white mono-atomic gold because I refused to sit around...
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Deborah Thompson Winner, Nonfiction Contest I wrote down memories, detail upon detail, with shamanistic obsessiveness, before they slipped away, before he slipped away. I wasn’t trying to resurrect him, I told myself. I didn’t believe in magic, not even in the magic of words, conjuring presence out of an empty hat. *** In...
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Chrysaor’s Spoils Altar Eres La Ronda Xanthan Investigation 2 Horns of Plenty Pilar Mehlis was born in Manhattan, NYC. She grew up in La Paz, Bolivia until, at the age of twelve, her family moved to Whitehorse, Yukon in Canada. There she lived and attended junior High School. She had her first painting lessons in...
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Johannes Göransson Do you think it’s easy to close a wound? To close the mouth of a wound? There is only one way: to go into the mirror and explode. Congratulations on your rotten body. Congratulation on your shredded mask. It looks like entrails on the wall, hanging from that obscene nail. Congratulations...
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G.C. Waldrep These are the postures of pain, the mannequins pain makes of us. The mind’s crows settle in the midst of the thorny bush, little dark tongues of flame. It is difficult sometimes to relinquish that which resembles bone, say the scientists. Winter’s docents, strapped to gurneys in the hospital corridors, sleep...
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Matthew Gilbert The search party’s joke goes, Nothing is lost in these woods except virginity. Mine went missing two days ago, disappeared hiking the Dakotas. Shirtless, outside the mosquito nets hung like wedding dresses, I examine the bites on my chest. I test the skin’s eaten charisma. The woods background like the self-help...
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Sarah Cook (how do you prepare for anything?) the world makes days out of our knees learns to bleed / quietly the shoulder that lets into the light a long black dress generous / shoulders roll down like open windows overseas you bury the last moment of instinct little thumbs rolling...
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Matthew Gilbert “ resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections.” -Salvador Dali, on his brother I was making the masks for your exorcism. Working on your face in hand-cut leather. Are you sure you want to get rid of me? They performed speech therapy on my sleep. You...
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Joe Pan After failed attempts to temper the course set upon by man in nature, following violent earthquakes & floods, the great city sank beneath the ocean waves in a single day & night of misfortune. – P. Aristonson, History of the Great Atlantic Coastal Creep Miami Lost Apollo. Florida sunset....
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Marianne Kunkel They tease about the fact that when I was growing up… I used to fight them, but then I would be the one who would become involved with the nonviolent movement. It feels good to be mean. It feels good to be mean to my sister, brother, my boy cousin who’s...
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Rachel Luria Anyone who is to be happy, then, must have excellent friends. —Aristotle “What is the matter with me? I will do something dreadful if I am not careful,” she thought, and turning her face to the wall, began trying to force herself to face bravely the fact that many people must...
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S.Marie Clay Let us talk about the blackness of heaven and winged bats. It is the back then I am after. Even though the past is a pregnant stove burning mutton, I want it. My daughter screams, the kitchen fills with lung. I place her near an open window. She knows something I...
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