蜜柚直播

This will be the sixth year the literary competition has been held. It drew a record 620 submissions from throughout the United States and 蜜柚直播.

In addition to cash prizes, the nine finalists receive scholarships to the Masters Workshop (March 12-13, 2018) that follows the festival.

Voris took third place in non-fiction writing for her 鈥淲ith Vampires, There Were Rules.鈥� Judge Ron Hogan wrote: 鈥淭his is a precisely calibrated glimpse inside a young girl鈥檚 mind as she paces uncomfortably at the brink of womanhood. It鈥檚 a short piece, but that means there鈥檚 not a wasted breath.鈥�

POETRY (judged by Mary Jo Bang)

First place: Whitney Kerutis from Boulder, Colo.

鈥淭he Auctioneer鈥檚 Daughter鈥� and other poems

She is a MFA candidate at The University Of Colorado Boulder where she works on several projects including Timber Journal, Subito Press and Letter Machine Editions. Her work can be seen in journals such as Anamesa Journal, WINDOW Journal and The Thought Erotic

Judge: 鈥淭he titles of these poems 鈥� 鈥淭he Auctioneer鈥檚 Daughter,鈥� 鈥淗ell March,鈥� 鈥淏ody Room鈥� 鈥� draw the reader in and create immediate suspense. The poems themselves skirt explanation but instead act as echo chambers where someone is speaking out of a silence, into a silence. The poems invite the reader to tease apart the echoes as a way of entering the speaker鈥檚 state of mind.鈥�

Second place: Emily Van Kley from Olympia, Washington

鈥淗ouseboat鈥� and other poems

Her work has received the Loraine Williams Prize, the Iowa Review Award, and the Florida Review Editor鈥檚 Award. Her collection, The Cold and the Rust, was named winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize and is forthcoming from Persea Press. She has published poetry in a wide range of journals and anthologies, including Prairie Schooner, The Mississippi Review, Best New Poets, and Best American Poetry among others.

Judge: 鈥淭hese profoundly thoughtful poems never reductively state their claims but instead create Emily-Dickinson-like slanted truths that are carefully woven into their sounds and rhythms and subtle associative leaps. Here, as in Dickinson, it鈥檚 the poem鈥檚 prosodic elements where 鈥榮lantness鈥� works its subtle magic and fosters a mysterious empathic bond between the speaker and the reader.鈥�

Third place: Heidi Johannesen Poon from Charlottesville, Virginia.

鈥淐hosen鈥� and other poems

She has published a Chapbook with the Poetry Society of America. She has an MFA from Iowa and fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, MacDowell, Iowa, Brown, Rona Jaffe (Breadloaf) and Carlow University (Patricia Dobler Award).

Judge: 鈥淭here is a sly daring to these very spare poems. They speak to the sense of estrangement that occurs when one stands at a remove from the world and looks on from a distance. From that 鈥榦utsider鈥� position, everything is tenuous, excitable (like atoms), and of course more than a bit dangerous.鈥�

NONFICTION (judged by Ron Hogan)

First place: Saloma Miller Furlong from Harrisonburg, Virginia

鈥淧once Dee Day Leon鈥�

She has published two books: 鈥淲hy I Left the Amish: A Memoir (Michigan State University Press, 2011),鈥� a finalist for the 2011 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Award, and 鈥淏onnet Strings: An Amish Woman鈥檚 Ties to Two Worlds鈥� (Herald Press, 2014). She has appeared in two PBS documentaries, 鈥淭he Amish鈥� and 鈥淭he Amish: Shunned鈥� that aired on American Experience. In 1997 her short story 鈥淪arah鈥檚 Courtship鈥� was published in Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Woman.

Judge: 鈥淭his digs into a moment and holds tight. A controlled narrative with a sharply etched perspective, it puts us in this young girl鈥檚 life at a critical turning point.鈥�

Second place: David J. Kennedy from New York

鈥淔orever Gnawing at My Chains鈥�

He graduated from Harvard College, where he was a staff writer, editor, and cook at The Harvard Lampoon. At Harvard he became the first American to win both the national and international parliamentary debate championships. He received his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was an executive editor of The Yale Law Journal. He clerked for two federal judges, the Hon. Kimba M. Wood of the Southern District of New York and the Hon. Wilfred Feinberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. For the past 17 years he has served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney specializing in civil rights work in the Southern District of New York, under, among others, Mary Jo White, James Comey, and Preet Bharara. He is also an adjunct professor at NYU Law School.

Judge: 鈥淎 lively recreation of the inner workings of post-Civil War Washington 鈥� the conversations that take place outside the corridors of government that shape a nation鈥檚 path. Intriguing AND funny, this nonfiction piece reads with the urgent momentum of a novel.

Third place: Kirsten Voris of 蜜柚直播.

鈥淲ith Vampires, There Were Rules鈥�

She is a science editor who used to live in Ankara, Turkey.

Judge: 鈥淭his is a precisely calibrated glimpse inside a young girl鈥檚 mind as she paces uncomfortably at the brink of womanhood. It鈥檚 a short piece, but that means there鈥檚 not a wasted breath.鈥�

FICTION (judged by Kevin Canty)

First place: Sarah Harris Wallman of New Haven, Connecticut.

鈥淏irth Stories鈥�

In 2013, she was awarded Prada鈥檚 international fiction prize as well as the grand prize from Dogwood Journal. Her stories have appeared in places like Kelly Link鈥檚 zine LCRW and the app Great Jones Street. She has an MFA.

Sarah says: 鈥淚 attended your conference in 2014 as a short-story finalist and I learned so much (and had a fabulous time).鈥�

Judge: 鈥淚t鈥檚 sharply observed and very well-written but what drew me to this story was its unusual narration. This felt almost like a first-person-plural, a story in which the real protagonist was a group of women and not a single consciousness. Also, I loved this story鈥檚 open heart. It鈥檚 not at all afraid to engage the emotions.鈥�

Second place: David Philip Mullins from Omaha, Nebraska

鈥淭he Brightest Place in the World鈥�

He is the author of 鈥淕reetings from Below: Stories,鈥� which won both the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and the International Walter Scott Prize for Short Stories. He鈥檚 a graduate of the Iowa Writers鈥� Workshop, and his fiction has appeared in The Yale Review, The Massachusetts Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. He received the Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, the Dorothy and Granville Hicks Residency in Literature from Yaddo, an Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature from the Nebraska Arts Council, and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at Creighton University.

Judge: 鈥淭his story moves skillfully between several characters to tell a story of a larger disaster diffracted through individual lives, felt through individual hearts.鈥�

Third place: Kim Taylor Blakemore from Portland, Oregon.

鈥淭he Rabbit Thief鈥�

She is the author of the novels Bowery Girl, a NYPL Best Reads for Teens; and Cissy Funk, a WILLA award-winner for Best YA Novel. She is also the author of two interactive historical romances, 鈥淭he Very Thought of You鈥� and 鈥淚t Don鈥檛 Mean a Thing.鈥� She teaches Craft of Fiction and Historical Fiction workshops with PDXWriters.

Judge: 鈥淭his except from a historical novel is told with clarity and grace. The period details seem sharp and accurate and seen in passing, out of the corner of the eye. The research never shows, which is an accomplishment.鈥�