Creative Nonfiction Winners Creative Nonfiction Winners We Are Not Free February 12, 2026 Written by: Hannah Murray Winner of the 2026 Aetna Prize for Creative Nonfiction The sun hangs high in the sky when our car escapes narrowly between... Arboreal: A Field Log April 25, 2024 By Zeynep Özer Winner of The Edwin Way Teale Award for Nature Writing 1 There is a tree on my way home. It’s planted towards the middle of the... Little Loves (2024) April 24, 2024 By Gabrielle WincherhernWinner of The Aetna Creative Nonfiction Award On some level, you always thought love was going to be the thing that saved... “Stealing Paris” by Michaela Barnes May 6, 2023 In 1982, I stole some beautiful things in Paris. Looking back, I realized I learned how to maintain my composure after earlier failed attempts at... “A Night and a Day in Hibbing, Minnesota” by Nick Rommel May 6, 2023 My introduction to Hibbing, Minnesota took place by a gate at the end of a pine needle-strewn forest road, where I met Steve, an elderly man whose... “When Treading Water Above a Bottomless Pit” by John Guillemette Jr. June 4, 2022 Contest Winner for the Edwin Way Teale Award for Nature Writing (2022) I moved to Oregon during the dreadful forest fires of 2020. I moved out of... The Road to Hell By August Jones (2017) June 30, 2017 When I was seven, we made poetry books in school. I wrote two poems about my childhood dog, one about my grandpa, and one about 9/11. The rest were... Splitting By Alyssa Palazzo (2017) June 28, 2017 Left I. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. A slender Italian with olive skin and a swollen stomach sits across from me. We are on a... i think i dreamed you by Aryanah Haydu (2017) June 27, 2017 day 1 We met and though I was elsewhere involved, I knew that he would be the sweetest thing my eyes would ever reach. He had a long term girlfriend... 12