Poetry

Nonfiction

Fiction

Winner:
Katherine Durham Oldmixon teaches at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas. Her poems and photographs have appeared in many print and online magazines. Her chapbook Water Signs, a finalist for the New Women's Voices Chapbook Award, was released in January 09. Katherine is completing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of New Orleans. An artist active in the community, she serves on the board of Texas Folklife, on the Community Council for the Humanities Institute at UT-Austin, and as the president of Austin Poetry Society. She and her husband, musician/video/technology artist Arturo Lomas Garza, garden in Austin.

Winner:
Jana Hsu is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing under The Jim Townsend Scholarship at Saint Mary’s College of California, and is working on her first novel-length manuscript. Before that, she was singing and acting in NYC’s Silk Road Café and hanging out with other emerging independent artists. She has a small speaking role as a journalist in the internationally acclaimed Bollywood film, When Kiran Met Karen. She enjoys being a writer and assistant editor for Resource Magazine, Novo Magazine, and various other print and online E-zines. Her first online journal publication comes out this Spring at www.hotmetalbridge.org

Winner:
Karen Gentry is pursuing her MFA in fiction from Georgia State University in Atlanta. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in American Short Fiction, The New Orleans Review, New Delta Review, NOÖ Journal, and The Southeast Review.

Winning Entry:

Papeles Picados

Judge's Comment:
These poems gracefully interweave languages and employ stunning, sometimes unsettling, imagery to create a powerful imaginative experience that touches both heart and head.   I particularly admire the way the poems sprout and blossom so unexpectedly from their roots in the physical and literal world.  They are wholly unpredictable and profoundly haunting.

Winning Entry:

He Called Me Bird

Judge's Comment:
Lyrical, almost surreal, the writing boils with unspoken tension and dances with unexpected grace. Powerful and haunting.

Winning Entry:

The Mask of Destiny

Judge's Comment:
A funny, smart meta-fictional exploration of the meaning behind a missing percolator. The story spins with a frenetic pace and takes us into some surprisingly deep intellectual and emotional territory.

Poetry Runners-Up:

Rita Mae Reese

Amahl Khouri

 

Poetry Honorable Mentions:

Annie Agnone

Mark Chapman

Daniel Biegelson

Bridget Lowe

P. Scott Cunningham

Mary Austin Speaker

Eleanor B. Paynter

Dawn Manning

Miho Nonaka

Christa Pandey

Jane Wong

Gregory Loselle

Nonfiction Runner Up:

Cesar Diaz, "Notes of a Migrant Boy Working in Prose"

Nonfiction Honorable Mentions:

Carol Perehudoff, "Vine of the Soul"

Erin Grauel, "Fa Gawsakes"

Amber Jensen, "Breathing Through the Night"

Sandi Sonnenfeld, "How to Love Your Cat and Subsequently the World"

Jessica Belt, "Salvadoran Graphics"

Kathryn Winograd, "Elegies"

Mary Bonina, "Going Away"

Marina Ruben, "Crabs in the Villa"

Eli Hastings, "Ghost Train"

Fiction Runners Up:

Gregory Loselle, "Buried Dinner"

Matthew Salesses, "The Forgotten War, or, In My War Novel"

Fiction Honorable Mentions:

B. G. Carter, "Hands Around the Bars"

Fred Setterberg, "Famous Long Ago," and "Children of Ike"

Deborah Wood, "This is the Difference Between This and That"

David Serafino, "Our Choices Are Limited"

Kara Westerman, "The Flag"

Dionne Irving, "The Poet"

Caleb Leisure, "Father Figure"

Scott Onak, "The Search for a Story of Significance"

Poetry

Judge: Andrei Codrescu

Nonfiction

Judge: Steven Church

Fiction

Judge: Michael Winter

Winner:
Emily Heilker grew up in Decatur, GA, and currently lives in
Athens, where she is studying for Comparative Literature. She has a dauchshund named Andrew and a clarinet which she plays when at a loss for words.

Winner:
Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel teaches writing at Chief Charlo Elementary for the Missoula Writing Collaborative and volunteers with the New Lakes Center for the Arts. Her nonfiction essays have received numerous awards, including the 2005 Richard J. Margolis Award. In 2007 her lyric essays received creative nonfiction awards from Dislocate and Fugue. (Photo by Aimee Gervais Lewis.)

Winner:
Martha Otis lives in Miami with her daughter, Serena.  That’s Martha with her daughter and nephew up in northern Minnesota, where they vacation in the summer.  Martha received her MFA from the University of Florida, and writes in the nanoseconds of free time she has between teaching and parenting.  Apollonia is a chimpanzee, which is not the same as a gorilla. But even gorillas might do well by asking themselves, regularly, “What Would Apollonia Do?”

Winning Entry:

"semiotics: muisic, motion, stills"

Judge's Comment:
I liked the concentrated energy of this poet's lines, the spacing, the riffs, and the evident intelligence.

Winning Entry:

The Kisha Club

Judge's Comment:
A series of 8 meditations allows the author's name to become a touchstone for dives into a deep, nuanced narrative of identity--both personal and cultural. Characters come to life and jump off the page. In an essay shaped with tension-filled scenes, arresting images, and compelling narrative movement, there are no wasted words and lots for readers to love.

Winning Entry:

Apollonia in Estrus

Judge's Comment:

"Apollonia in Estrus" is a crazy story about a gorilla who plays music. Hilarious, important and wonderful.

Poetry Runners-Up:

Carolyn Creedon
Erica Kalnay

Poetry Honorable Mentions:

Jared White
Christina Hutchins
Sandra Giedeman
H L Hazuka
Brent Armendinger
Latasha Diggs
Samantha Thomas

Nonfiction Runners Up:

Kim Adrian
Cienna Madrid

Nonfiction Honorable Mentions:

Carol Perehudoff
Anna Keener
Lisa Nikolidakis
Starkey Flythe
Susan Bavaria
Sarah Shellow
Emily Plum Guclu
Kisha Schleqe
Meriweather Falk

Fiction Runner Up:

Ann Bronston

Fiction Honorable Mentions:

C. Greg Kirmser
Sheba Karim
Amity Stoddard
Rebecca Edmunds
Benjamin Kostival
Shelly Oria
Valerie Harbolovic
Spencer Wise

 

Poetry

Judge: Cynthia Hogue

Nonfiction

Judge: Steven Church

Fiction

Judge: Michael Winter

Winner:
Christina Vega-Westhoff

Columbia, MO

Winner:
Heather Leigh Johnson

Clayton, GA

Winner:
Hannah Huber

Richmond, VA

Winning Entries:

"Open Water"
"I'll Put the Potatoes in Your Face"
"Never an Answered Question"

Judge's Comment:
There is both mystery and music in these poems, the glimmer of a story that is hinted at, partially detailed, without being explained or located so that readers are thrown off balance, the poems' speakers perhaps traumatized, perhaps survivors whose lives (stories) are fractured and partial.  What we're told speaks to human endurance under duress, as well as gestures toward the role of memory in defining our lived experience. In the spare elegance of these poems lies hard-won and understated grit, a deepening resonance that we return to again and again as readers to contemplate.

Winning Entry:

“In My Other Life”

Judge's Comment:

From the arresting and dream-like opening lines, the essay grabbed and held my attention. It's a lyrical and voice-driven exploration of consciousness, where imagination becomes the vehicle through which we explore the "What if?" possibilities of human experience, love, and obsession. It's an evocative but economical essay, sophisticated in both shape and form; and it demonstrates true writing talent.

Winning Entry:

"Belly Dancer"

Judge's Comment:

“Belly Dancer” is a small story of a girl trying to figure out who her mother and father are. Told from the point of view of the girl, the story has already begun when we see the mother returning from a holiday alone in Jamaica. The mother has missed her daughter’s tenth birthday. We feel, somehow, the mother has earned this trip. There are tropical birds in this story, and a terrific scene where the father and daughter attend the mother’s night club performance. You can’t ever really figure out how this story is going to end. It’s a fine blend of narration, dialogue, humour, voice, and the friction that comes when the wild try to live with the tolerant. What happens at the end, a small emotional moment, might break your heart. It broke mine.

Poetry Runners-Up:

Eric Insel
DeAnna Vaughn

Poetry Finalists:

Farrah Field
Mathew King
Kristen Yawitz

Poetry Honorable Mentions:

Toni Christopher
Theodore Cotler
Selene Foster
Olivia Friedman
Elizabeth Horner
Janine Joseph
Esther Lee
Rachel Michaud
Natalie Richards
Rose Swartz
Maw Win

Nonfiction Runners Up:

J.C. Jaress “Three Immeasurables”

Dorothy Barnhouse “Singing and Running”

Nonfiction Finalists:

Joy Ibsen “What About Herb?”

Nina Porzucki “Touch”

Nonfiction Honorable Mentions:

Noel Franklin “Blackened Blue Highways”
Angela Foster “Falling Away”
Samuel Autman “The Last Sanctified Lady”
Stan West “Silence Kills”
Christopher Locke “Closer to the Bone”
Kelli Ohrtman “Shortcut Mechanics”
Kyla Jardin “Still Half Smiling”
Jennifer Park “My Larcenous Heart”

 

Fiction Runners Up:

Skip Horack “Borderlands”

Rick Bolner “Digby Luvs Tennessee Williams?”

Fiction Finalists:

Caroline Skinner “Almost”

Daniel Terry “Alma Confesses”

Fiction Honorable Mentions:

Nicki Reno-Welt “Silver
Cody-Rose Clevidence “Swallows
Karen De Balbian Verster “The Bad Seed
Ramonda Talkie “Stealing Time
Allison Amend “Dominion Over Every Erring Thing
Shena McAuliffe “Anatomy of the Eye
Gabriela Garay “The Swimming Pool

 

Poetry

Judge: Bill Lavender

Nonfiction

Judge: Lee Gutkind

Fiction

Judge: Fredrick Barton

Winner: Hannah Baker

Washington, DC .

Winner: Jill Drumm

North Miami, FL

Winner: Chrys Darkwater

New Orleans, LA

Winning Entries:

To Occupant, Wedgwood's Pyrometer, To Dr. Cotton from William Cowper

Winning Entry:

Thick Soup

Winning Entry:

How (Not) to be a Poet

Poetry Runners-Up:

Vincent Cellucci

Casey Charles

Cheryl Clark

Samantha Cosentino

Jeff Grieneisen

John Pursley

Samantha Thomas

DeAnna Vaughn

Jillian Weise

Nonfiction Runners Up:

Steven Montgomery, "Black-eyed Birth"

Rose Bunch, "Ghosts'

Margo Feeley, "Cashing Out"

Reesa Grushka, "The Journey Home"

Lisa Lieberman, "The Boy"

Elizabet Travis, "A Foreign Place"

Kristen Yawitz, "Rear Views"

 

Fiction Runners Up:

Rose Bunch, "Coyote"

Reese Kwon, "Limbo"

Sonja Livingston, "Roseanna's Fall"

Lane Ashfeldt, "Dancing on Canvey"

Kira Kupfersberger, "Dirt"

Claire Ortalda, "The Murder of Mother Mike"

Horatio Potter, "I"

Stephanie Soileau, "This is Permanence"

Justin St. Germain, "Coffin Shopping"

Poetry

Judge: Hank Lazer

Nonfiction

Judge: Dinty Moore

Fiction

Judge: Michael Winter

Winner: Melanie Drane

Cleveland, Ohio.

Winner: Bernadette M. Esposito

Iowa City, Iowa

Winner: Ryan Chapman

Boca Raton, Florida.

Winning Entries:

The Knifemaker; The Year the Rice-Crop Failed; Water as Ink

Winning Entry:

Yemen Coffee Comes from Yemen

Winning Entry:

The Things Good Husbands Do