Open Awards 2008

We are pleased to announce...

Winners, Honorable Mentions and Finalists of our first annual Press 53 Open Awards

Poetry:

Flash Fiction:

Short-Short Story:

Genre Fiction:

Short Fiction:

Creative Nonfiction:

Novella:

Submit 3 of your best poems CLOSED

(Poems will be judged as a collective work)

Judge: Pamela Uschuk

Submit 1 story up to 750 words CLOSED

Judge: Jennifer Pieroni

Submit 1 story up to 1500 words CLOSED

Judge: Joseph Bathanti

Submit 1 story (any genre--sci/fi, horror, mystery,

thriller, romance, etc) up to 3000 words CLOSED

Judge: Patry Francis

Submit 1 story up to 5000 words CLOSED      

Judge: Dan Wickett

Submit 1 personal essay, stand-alone memoir, or

other CNF up to 5000 words CLOSED

Judge: Felicia Sullivan

Submit 1 novella up to 75 pages CLOSED

Judge: Roy Kesey

Writers ages 13-17 may submit 1 story up to

5000 words or 3 poems by CLOSED

Judge: Kyle Minor

May 31, 2008 on this website.

Fall 2008 in the first annual Press 53 Open Awards Anthology

GUIDELINES

Prose: submit 3 double-spaced copies of your best work in standard font (Times, Courier, etc), in 12-pt. type, with numbered pages.

Poetry: submit 3 poems (10 pages max), single-spaced. Note: 3 poems equals a single submission. Poetry will be judged on the collective strength of all 3 poems.

Cover Sheet: Include a cover sheet with your name, address, telephone, e-mail, category (Flash Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Young Writers, etc), with word count, and the title of the work(s).

Reading Fee: Include a $15 check or money order ($5 for Young Writers Award) payable to Press 53 for each submission. If you wish to pay by credit or debit card through PayPal, email us and we'll send instructions. Remember to print your receipt and mail it with your entry.

Mail submissions to The P53 Open Awards Contest, Press 53, PO Box 30314, Winston-Salem, NC 27130-0314.

Deadlines: Entry must be postmarked by the deadlines stated above. Press 53 has the right to extend deadlines if deemed necessary. Multiple entries are accepted but should include a separate $15 reading fee for each submission. Young Writers include a reduced reading fee of $5 with each entry. Simultaneous submissions and previously published pieces are accepted so long as any previous publishing agreements do not prohibit Press 53 from publishing the work in Sept. 2008. Work may be withdrawn from the contest at any time, but reading fees will not be refunded.

Prizes: Winning entries will be awarded the Press 53 Open Award (a beautiful personalized award), publication in the first annual P53 Open Awards Anthology, two complimentary copies of the book in which the work appears, and a winner's discount on unlimited additional copies to sell on your website or at readings.

Judges: Final judges for each category will be announced soon. Preliminary judges will include teachers, editors, and published writers. All work will be read blindly. Include a cover sheet with your name, address, phone number, email address and the title, genre, and word count of your submission. Your name should not appear anywhere on the manuscript itself. Please staple each manuscript separately. Judges' decisions are final.

Eligibility: Contest is open to writers anywhere in the world who write in English. Press 53 employees and family members are not eligible. Writers who have published full-length books with Press 53 are not eligible. Writers whose work appears in anthologies published by Press 53 are eligible. Judges agree to disqualify any work that, for whatever reason, they may recognize, so use your best judgement when submitting.

Awards: Check soon for photos of the Press 53 Open Award.

Disclaimer: Reading fees are non-refundable. Entries postmarked after deadlines will not be considered. Entries received with author's name appearing anywhere on mss will not be considered. No refunds will be made. Work withdrawn from the contest will not receive a refund. All manuscripts will be recycled, not returned. All submissions must be original works.

Winners Announced: On this website in May 2008. SASEs are not necessary. Winners will be notified by email. Other entrants may check this website for winners or email us.

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Press 53 . PO Box 30314, Winston-Salem, NC 27130-0314 Email Us

Meet Our Judges

PAMELA USCHUK is the editor-in-chief of Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts, and serves on the board of the Southwest Writers Institute. She is a Professor of creative writing and Eco Texts at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO, and has been the Director of the Center for Women Writers at Salem College, where she was an Associate Professor of creative writing. She also teaches poetry writing workshops for the University of Arizona's Poetry Center. Pamela’s work has appeared in over two hundred journals and anthologies worldwide, including Poetry, Parnassus Review, Agni Review, Pequod, Ploughshares, Calyx, Future Cycle, and others. Among Uschuk’s literary prizes are the Struga International Poetry Prize, the Dorothy Daniels Writing Award from the National League of American PEN Women, the 2001 Literature Award from the Tucson/Pima Arts Council for Finding Peaches in the Desert, as well as awards from the Chester H. Jones Foundation, Iris, Ascent, Sandhills Review, and Amnesty International. Her nonfiction has been featured in such journals as Parabola, Terrain, and Inside/Outside. Her work has been translated into French, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, Czech, Albanian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Korean, and Russian.

POETRY: Pamela Uschuk

DAN WICKETT began the Emerging Writers Network in 2000, reviewing books. Since then it has grown to a network of nearly 2000 individuals receiving Dan's book reviews, interviews, e-panels and other literary suggestions. He is a member of the Litblog Co-op. Dan co-founded Dzanc Books with Steven Gillis in 2006. Together they publish literary fiction, set up Dzanc Writer in Residency Programs, and do what they can to help literary journals expand their subscriber bases. Dan is also the editor of Visiting Hours, which will be published by Press 53 in the fall of 2008.

FLASH FICTION: Jennifer Pieroni

SHORT-SHORT FICTION: Joseph Bathanti

KYLE MINOR is co-editor (with Okla Elliott) of The Other Chekhov (New American Press, 2008.) His most recent work appears in The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, and the Random House anthology Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers. He serves as Visiting Writer at the University of Toledo, where he teaches fiction and poetry.

CREATIVE NONFICTION: Felicia Sullivan

YOUNG WRITERS: Kyle Minor

ROY KESEY was born and raised in northern California, and currently lives in Beijing with his wife and children. His fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in more than fifty magazines and anthologies, including McSweeney’s, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, PRISM International, the Robert Olen Butler Prize Anthology, The Future Dictionary of America and New Sudden Fiction 2007. His story “Wait,” first published in The Kenyon Review, was recently chosen to appear in Best American Short Stories 2007. He’s the author of Nothing in the World, a novella published by Bullfight Media in 2006, and of All Over, a collection of short stories that will appear as Dzanc Books’ debut title in October 2007. Look for his book reviews at The Nervous Breakdown.

NOVELLA: Roy Kesey

JOSEPH BATHANTI is the author of four books of poetry: Communion Partners; Anson County; The Feast of All Saints; and This Metal, which was nominated for The National Book Award and won the 1997 Oscar Arnold Young Award from The NC Poetry Council. His first novel, East Liberty, winner of the 2000-2001 Carolina Novel Award, was published in 2001 by Banks Channel Books. His latest novel, Coventry, published by Novello Festival Press, is the winner of the 2006 Novello Literary Award. His book of stories, The High Heart, is the winner of the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction and is forthcoming from Eastern Washington University Press in the fall of 2007. His poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in Manhattan Poetry Review, The Nebraska Review, Carolina Quarterly, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Louisiana Literature, The Sun, Seattle Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Texas Review, California Quarterly, Studies in Short Fiction, Southern Humanities Review, South Dakota Review, Kentucky Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Southern Poetry Review and many others. At present, he is Professor of Creative Writing and Co-Director of the Visiting Writers Series at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. He also teaches in the low residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Carlow University.

Eight Categories

Eight Award-Winning & Industry Professional Judges

Eight Beautiful Etched-Glass Awards

Publication in our first annual Press 53 Open Awards Anthology

$15 Reading Fee ($5 Young Writers)

Where Will Your Name Be?

Young Writers:

Winners Announced:

Winners Published:

JENNIFER PIERONI is editor-in-chief of the literary journal Quick Fiction. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts, with her husband and cat, El Toro.

PATRY FRANCIS is the author of the celebrated first novel The Liar’s Diary (Dutton Adult). Her work has also appeared in The Ontario Review, Tampa Review, Antioch Review, Colorado Review, The American Poetry Review, Massachusetts Review, and dozens of others of publications. She is winner of a Silver Rose Award for Excellence in the Art of the Short Story, is a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and a two-time recipient of a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

GENTRE FICTION: Patry Francis

FELICIA C. SULLIVAN is a graduate of the Columbia University MFA program. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best American Essays notable. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, Swink, Post Road, Mississippi Review, and Pindeldyboz and in the anthologies Homewrecker: An Atlas of Illicit Loves and Money Changes Everything, among others. Sullivan was the recipient of the 2005 Tin House memoir fellowship, and in 2001, she founded the critically acclaimed literary journal Small Spiral Notebook. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Algonquin Books will publish her memoir, The Sky Isn't Visible from Here in February of 2008.

Literate Yourself! TM

Poetry

First Place: Jacinta V. White, Kernersville NC “To Mocksville,” “Wedding Sheets,” “Washing Day”

Second Place: Allison Smythe, Rocheport, MO

Honorable Mention: Kathy Ackerman, Tryon, NC

Judge: Pamela Uschuk, editor-in-chief, CUTTHROAT: a Journal of the Arts

Poetry Finalists:

Alice J. Hudson, Kernersville, NC

Alice Osborn, Raleigh, NC

Annie E. Wenger-Nabigon, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Glenda C. Beall, Hayesville, NC

Jennifer L. Stevenson, Winston-Salem, NC

Joan Wiener, Asheville, NC

John Thomas York, Greensboro, NC

Judith Glazier, High Point, NC

Lenard D. Moore, Raleigh, NC

Lianne Jackson, Winston-Salem, NC

Lynn Veach Sadler, Sanford, NC

Margaret Baddour, Goldsboro, NC

Margo Williams, Wilmington, NC

Maryland Wolf, Greensboro, NC

Maureen Sherbondy, Raleigh, NC

Pat Riviere-Seel, Asheville, NC

Patrice Warrender, Sebastopol, CA

Rowena Copeland, Greenville, SC

Ruth Moose, Pittsboro, NC

Sara Claytor, Carboro, NC

Susan Lefler, Brevard, NC

Terri McCord, Greenville, SC

Flash Fiction

First Place: Matt Siegel, Milledgville, GA “Look-Back Time”

Judge: Jennifer Pieroni, editor-in-chief, Quick Fiction

Flash Fiction Finalists:

Clifford Garstang, Staunton, VA “The Mask of the Jaguar”

Debra F. Marsh, Winston-Salem, NC “In Full Moon”

Jan Parker, Fuquay-Varina, NC “Where Bugs Walk on Water”

Kevin Brown, Fayetteville, AR “Hong Kong Karma”

Laurie Bargebuhr, Summerfield, NC “Voices”

Matthew Goldberg, Fayetteville, AR “Hands”

Maya Davis, Advance NC “Evenings End”

Roxann Larotonda, Raleigh, NC “Daughter-in-Law Blues”

Steve Godwin, Wendell, NC “Blue Ballerina, 1982”

Short Short Story

First Place: Laura van den Berg, Boston, MA “To the Good People of Mars”

Judge: Joseph Bathanti,author of The High Heart (Eastern Washington University Press)

Short-Short Story Finalists:

Bill Cameron, Portland, OR "Counterflow"

Gale Tanner, Forsyth, GA "God's Dog"

Jan Schubert, Climax, NC "Devil Loose in Alabama"

Karen LaBorde, Metairie, LA "Silver Minnows and Flourescent Worms"

Lisa Muir, Boone, NC "Cooper Ridge"

Mary Ann Peden-Caviello, Winston-Salem, NC "Princess"

Ray Morrison, Winston-Salem, NC "Spring Planting"

Robin Craig, Helensvale, Queensland, Australia "Genesis"

Sara Claytor, Carrboro, NC "Big Bad Wolf Red"

Wilma W Reitz, Greenville, SC "Fear Itself"

Genre Fiction

First Place: J Dillon Woods, Carbondale, IL “The Exorcise Machine”

Honorable Mention: Gale Tanner, Forsyth, GA “Gifts of the Spirit”

Judge: Patry Francis, author of The Liar’s Diary (Dutton Adult).

Genre Fiction Finalists:

BV Lawson, Arlington, VA "The Tradition Thief"

Ellen Hamilton, Gainesville, GA "Her Whole Long Life"

Jon Batson, Raleigh, NC "Love at the Lumina Pavilion"

Short Story

First Place: Lisa Williams Kline, Mooresville, NC “Must Remain Anonymous”

Honorable Mention:

Susan Olson Lawson, Cornelius, NC “The Time it Takes”

Joyce Allen, Carrboro, NC “Dreams of the Predator”

Judge: Dan Wickett, Emerging Writer's Network and executive director of DZANC Books

Short Story Finalists:

Alexander Lumans, Carbondale, IL "Excavating the Blind"

Anne Leigh Parrish, Seattle, WA "Snow Country"

B.J. Buckley, Lolo, MT "Eohippus"

Barbara Rosson Davis, Greensboro, NC "The Sheer Desire to be Splendid" and "Wiley Raccoon and Dream Rabbit"

Carol Kenny, Greensboro, NC "Physics Hoodoo Voodoo" and "Brothers at the Hip"

Danny Thomas, Sanford, NC "Gladrags"

Donna Oetzel, Washington, DC "Waisha"

Dory Adams, Pittsburgh, PA "As Easy As That"

Judith Glazier, High Point, NC "In the Barrow Brothers' Barn"

Karen DeQuatro, Wakefield, RI "Courting Grace"

Kathy Norcross Watts, Winston-Salem, NC "Losing Grace"

Michael Rae Zeoli, Winston-Salem, NC "A Kept Woman"

Pamela Hildebran, Hildebran, NC "Failure to Appear"

Richard A. Ballou, Cary, NC "Return of the Magi" and "Thanksgiving Day Man"

Robert Wicker, Tallahassee, FL "The Afterlight"

Ronald Frank Balazik, Alexandria, VA "Heart Heat"

Steve Mitchell, Winston-Salem, NC "Dandelion"

Creative Nonfiction

First Place: Rachel Elizabeth Furey, Carbondale, IL “Mississippi Mud”

Judge: Felicia C. Sullivan, author of The Sky Isn't Visible from Here (Algonquin Books)

Creative Nonfiction Finalists:

Allen Smith, Alexandria, VA “Pastor Lady

Alice Owens Johnson, Black Mountain, NC “Christmas Below Sea Level”

Barbara Rosson Davis, Greensboro, NC “The Caretakers”

Brooke Hewes, Missoula, MT “Falling Forward” and “Buffalo Hippies”

Deborah C. Davis, Winston-Salem, NC “Nobody’s Daughter”

Diane Hoover Bechtler, Charlotte, NC “My Husband, the Chevette”

Ellen Rice Tichich, Northfield, MN “Misplaced”

Elizabeth Bernays, Tucson, AZ “Pollards”

Fred Bahnson, Efland, NC “The Tender Groin of the Land”

Sonya Huber, Statesboro, GA “Healthcare for All, Almost”

Lisa J. Brown, Zionville, NC “Yankee Come Home”

Lisa Williams Kline, Mooresville, NC “Proctoring”

Marc Lewis, Raleigh, NC “Brief Iowa Drive”

Nan Philipp, Oro Valley, AZ “Quarry Me Deep”

Susan Perry Benson, Angier, NC “Uncle War”

Susan Vogel, Boone, NC “Diet Daze” and “The Real Thing”

Novella

First Place: Joan Corwin, Evanston, IL "Safe Shall Be My Going"

Honorable Mention:

Dean Gessie, Newmarket, Ontario, Canada "Epsilon Delta

James Reed, Omaha, NE "Sleeping Rooms"

Colby Prout, Charleston, SC "Once Buffalo"

Judge: Roy Kesey, author of Nothing in the World (Bullfight Media)

Novella Finalists:

Devon Marsh, Winston-Salem, NC "How I Know"

Egidio Coccimiglio, Los Angeles, CA "A Pleasant Vertigo"

KC Wilson, Jacksonville Beach, FL "Thou Shalt Not"

Skip Hollingsworth, Roanoke, VA "Thirst"

Stephanie Coyne-DeGhett, Potsdam, NY "Women in the Landscape"

Young Writers

First Place:  Tom Stanley-Becker, Chicago, IL “Bittersweet” (short story)

Honorable Mention:Tina Hanae Miller of Coconut Grove, FL "Broadway," "It's going to rain, the trees say," and "Icarus" (poetry)

Judge: Kyle Minor, co-editor of The Other Chekhov (New American Press)

Young Writers Finalists:

Andrew Calder, Melbourne, FL for poetry

Anna Olkovsky, Staten Island, NY for poetry

Cory Adkins, Pfafftown, NC for poetry

Tyler Adkins, Pfafftown, NC for short story

Melissa Tolentino, Wake Frest, NC for short story

Nora Benedict, Carbondale, IL for short story

Yasmine Anderson, Roanoke, VA for poetry

Zachariah Claypole White, Hillsborough, NC for poetry

Introducing the first annual Press 53 Open Awards -- New Guidelines for 2009

Coming October 2008

SHORT FICTION: Dan Wickett

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