( a Press 53 Online Publication)

Issue 239, May—August 2023

On July 17 of this year, Prime Number Magazine will celebrate its 13th anniversary. Thank you to all the writers and readers who hav supported us!

In this issue, we have our winners of out free, monthly 53-Word Story Contest, poetry selections from guest poetry editor Cheryl Wilder, story selections from guest short fiction editor Dennis McFadden, and meet our guest editors for Issue 251, January-April 2024. But first we’d like to make the following announcement….

Winners of our FREE, monthly 53-Word Story Contest

A free, monthly writing competition. Join our email list to get your prompt on the first day of each month.
Write a 53-word story about (prompt)
Send your story by the fifteenth (15th) day of the month to 53wordstory@gmail.com

Get your prompt for May and have some fun!

Editors' Selections

Each issue, we ask our guest editors to select their favorite poems or stories from those submitted during our open submission period. Submissions are free and only accepted through Submittable the first two months of each quadrimester (Jan-Feb; May-Jun; Sep-Oct). Here are the guest editors for Issue 223, April-June 2022.

Guest Editor for Poetry

Cheryl Wilder

Cheryl Wilder’s collection Anything That Happens, a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection (Press 53), received Second Finalist in the Poetry Society of Virginia North American Book Award and Honorable Mention in the Brockman-Campbell Book Award. She is the author of the chapbook, What Binds Us (Finishing Line Press); her work appears in Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 9/11 & Its Aftermath (Press 53), Barely South Review, and Architects + Artisans, among other publications. She served as writer-in-residence at SistaWRITE, held residency at SAFTA, and received a North Carolina Arts Council Artist Support Grant for her forthcoming poetry collection. Co-founder of Waterwheel Review and president of the Burlington Writers Club, Cheryl earned her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her home is near the Haw River in North Carolina.

Guest Editor for Short Fiction

DENNIS MCFADDEN

Dennis McFadden grew up in Brookville, a small town in western Pennsylvania very much like the fictional Hartsgrove of Jimtown Road: A Novel in Stories, winner of the 2016 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. A graduate of Allegheny College and a retired project manager for the state of New York, he lives and writes in a cedar-shingled cottage called Summerhill in the woods of upstate New York. His stories have appeared in dozens of publications, including The Missouri Review, New England Review, The Sewanee Review, Crazyhorse, The Antioch Review, Prairie Fire, The Massachusetts Review, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and The Best American Mystery Stories. His first short story collection, Hart’s Grove, was published by Colgate University Press in 2010. In 2018 he was awarded a Fellowship at the MacDowell Colony.

Meet Our Guest Editors for Issue 251,
January-April 2024

(Submissions are open now through June 30 at Submittable)

prime number

: any integer other than 0 or ± 1 that is not divisible without remainder by any other integers except ± 1 and ± the integer itself (Merriam-Webster's Dictionary)

In literature: poetry and prose that is distinctive and unique (Prime Number Magazine)

Prime Number Magazine is a Press 53 publication, founded by Clifford Garstang and Kevin Morgan Watson on July 17, 2010, beginning with Issue 2, and continuing with all issues in prime numbers

(All poetry and fiction in Issue 239 of Prime Number Magazine is protected by individual author’s copyright © 2023)