Written by: Jenna Ulizio Winner of the 2026 Aetna Prize for Creative Writing for Children & Young Adults The Oil Burns at Both Ends PROLOGUE: The party was classy, expensive, and the best networking of the year, and Carson already wanted to tear her skin off. They…
Category: Contest Winners
Are You Still Using This Device?
Written by: Jenna Ulizio Third Place Winner of the 2026 Jennie Hackman Memorial Prize for Short Fiction I was stuck in the paragraph break between Form and function of the Schistocerca gregaria in simulated winter and Subjects were exposed to the elements via refrigeration. I scanned over the words again and again, but…
Check Engine
Written by: Piper Kimball Second Place Winner of the 2026 Jennie Hackman Memorial Prize for Short Fiction The armistice had become routine, and so it came as a shock to Beth when the once-familiar, now-forgotten engine grinding began again. She felt, for a moment, blissfully sucked down time’s vortex, and…
Stars Made Anew
Written by: Joei D’aloia First Place Winner of the 2026 Jennie Hackman Memorial Prize for Short Fiction I. On Wednesdays, the uniform is drenched in soggy dough water. The water is full of soggy dough that no one else wants to clean. It must be because I’m new that I’m cleaning it….
Ashes, Ashes
Written by: Paige Annecchino Prose Winner of the 2026 The Edward R. and Frances Schreiber Collins Literary Prizes The club was too loud, the way things are loud when they’re trying to distract you from yourself. The bass didn’t just shake the floor—it shook decisions loose. It encouraged the sort of thoughts that had consequences the next morning. High ceilings disappeared into…
The Untitled Body Project
Written by: Sophie Wallis Buckner Winner of the 2025 Edwin Way Teale Award for Nature Writing The experience of the body as part of the self is a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness. Neuroscientists have recently begun to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying this sense of body ownership. This research…raises fundamental…
Eleven Things You Don’t Do
Written by: Jenna Ulizio Winner of The Edward R. and Frances Schreiber Collins Literary Prize When you leave, don’t make a sound. Getting out of the Painted Lady is the test. How do you want to be seen in the city tonight? Or, how do you not want to be…
A Requiem for the Endling
Written by: Lucy Lyttle Third Place Winner of the Jennie Hackman Memorial Prize for Short Fiction An endling is the last known individual of a species or subspecies. Once the endling dies, the species becomes extinct. […] Booming Ben, a solitary heath hen (Tympanuchus cupido cupido), was last seen 11…
Letter from 1968
Written by: Karen Lau Second Place Winner of The Jennie Hackman Memorial Prize for Short Fiction “Mom, I’m at the state police barracks in Stafford Springs. I need you to come get me. Please.” My voice wavered on the last word as I held the telephone to my ear. She…
Gretel
Written by: Grace Carver First Place Winner of The Jennie Hackman Memorial Prize for Short Fiction The land was starved. And so, its people starved with it. The winter had been harsh, the fields suffocatingly white and uninhabitable, the hulking evergreens that surrounded the village heavy with ice. Gretel swore…