Collins Literary Prize Winner, Poetry (2015) Ants can withstand 5,000 times their weight, a strength attracting the envy of man. But still, even the strongest backs can break. I glue heads to a centrifuge and wait for the force of spinning to make neck snap, “Ants can withstand 5,000 times their weight.” We’re making new… More “The Scientific Process” By Zachary Bradley (2015)
Collins Literary Prize Winner, Prose (2015) Nia was still sleeping when I woke up. She was snoring loudly as I crawled my way down the rickety ladder that supported my lofted bed. I walked past her bed, her open mouth smushed ungracefully against her pillow, and made my way into the kitchen. I turned on… More Cold Water By Catherine Hires (An Excerpt) (2015)
Jennie Hackman Memorial Award for Short Fiction, Third Place (2015) Another shot. Tequila dried onto his knuckles, his fingernails. When he makes a fist, the skin between his fingers sticks together, like his hand’s one ball of flesh and bone. It tastes like an extra-bitter version of Vicks nose spray is dripping down the back… More A Tie By Joshua Couvares (2015)
Jennie Hackman Memorial Award for Short Fiction, Second Place (2015) Her bedroom lights haven’t been off for twenty-four years. Oh, it is silly, isn’t it — to be scared of the dark? Yet here she is, shivering in her nightgown, far too tired to go to sleep. She likes to think she is a reasonable… More Lights in the Night By Stephanie Mei Koo (2015)
Jennie Hackman Memorial Award for Short Fiction Winner, 2015 The woman tells her it will all be alright. She smiles when she says it, so the infant believes her, because the woman doesn’t smile often. The lines that the sudden curvature of her mouth create are strange, alien to the small blue eyes. The woman… More Floating By Loriann Dozier (2015)
Wallace Stevens Poetry Contest, Third Place (2015) for K.E.J. Despite the buckshot of light from the sky’s many barrels we can’t see them circling Boulder Ridge at three o’clock in the morning. You and I, blanket wrapped in the center of what you call the moonfield—an abandoned soccer tract where I’d played paintball as a… More “Last Coyote” By Michael Stankiewicz (2015)
Wallace Stevens Poetry Contest, Second Place (2015) Silvana is talking about America, my bike is between my skirt. I try to guess her age. Later, I ask if she thinks the man next to the door is— we talk, half-shouting in the café. Where is your daughter, now? I’m mostly speaking to stones behind a… More “Where are you from” By Marissa Stanton (2015)
Wallace Stevens Poetry Contest, First Prize (2015) Before they put the yellow sod back on they asked if we’d like to take little clumps of earth and help put him to rest, fingerprinted bits to keep him in the ground in the urn in Montana where it’s cold underfoot and always dry. We nodded and… More “September 18th” By Abigail Fagan (2015)
Spanish LA SANGRE DERRAMADA ¡Que no quiero verla! Dile a la luna que venga, que no quiero ver la sangre de Ignacio sobre la arena. ¡Que no quiero verla! La luna de par en par. Caballo de nubes quietas, y la plaza gris del sueño con sauces en las barreras. ¡Que no quiero verla! Que… More “The Blood Shed” translation by Ana Arriaga