(A Press 53 Online Publication)
Winner of two Pushcart Prizes!

Issue 277, September-December 2025

This issue is dedicated to the memory of Dennis McFadden, winner of the 2016 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction with his novel in stories, Jimtown Road. Dennis left peacefully in his sleep during the early morning of August 8 in his cedar-shingled cottage called Summerhill in the woods of upstate New York. After cancer surgery a few years ago, Dennis was forced into retirement, so we did our best to keep him busy judging the Prime Number Magazine Award for Short Fiction and as a guest short fiction editor for several issues of Prime Number Magazine. This issue contains his last three selections for our annual awards competition. Dennis loved contributing to Prime Number Magazine and we always enjoyed reading his selections. We are all going to miss him.

In this issue of Prime Number Magazine we are celebrating the winners of our annual Prime Number Magazine Awards for Poetry & Short Fiction, winners of our free, monthly 53-Word Story Contest from May-August, winners of our “Prime 53 Poem” Summer Challenge, Flash Nonfiction selected by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood, Poetry selected by Terri Kirby Erickson, and Short Fiction selected by Rhonda Browning White. Click on any photo or blue text to get your reading started.

But first this message. . .

The 2026 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction is now open for entries

We’re looking for an outstanding, unpublished collection of short stories. Judged by Press 53 and Prime Number Magazine publisher & editor in chief Kevin Morgan Watson

First Prize: Publication, $1,000 advance, 53 copies

If a Runner-Up is selected: Publication, $500 advance, 25 copies

Deadline: December 31. Complete information here

Winners of the 2025
Prime Number Magazine Awards
for Poetry & Short Fiction

This competition runs yearly, January-March

Our Judges

POETRY: Molly Rice, author of Forever Eighty-Eights

Short Fiction: Dennis McFadden, author of Jimtown Road: A Novel in Stories, winner of the 2016 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction

OUR 2025 WINNERS

**Poetry First Prize ($1,000):** “Flowers from the Mouth” by Jennifer Louvet

**Short Fiction First Prize ($1,000):** "Ghost Weather" by Theresa Boyar

**Poetry Runner-Up ($250):** “Worry Doll” by Deig Sullivan

**Poetry Runner-Up ($250):** “To the Postal Worker Pulled Over for Suspected DUI on a Random Tuesday in March” by Sara Whitmore

**Short Fiction Runner-Up ($250):** "Billy's Paradox" by Steven Lang

**Short Fiction Runner-Up ($250):** "Summer Always Leaves in a Song" by Steph Rantz

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 and have some fun!

**May (a promise):** “Termination” by David Phipps

**June (hair): “**Unsafe at Any Speed (Dating)” by Jerry Levy

**July (sand):** “We Might Be Onto Something Here” by Lisa H. Owens

**August (cycle):** “You Used to Know Me” by Jen Jocz

Winners of the
2025 Prime 53 Poem
Summer Challenge

A free, annual contest for writers around the world for a new poetry form that contains eleven lines, a rhyme pattern, and 53 syllables, judged by co-inventor and Press 53 poetry editor Christopher Forrest

“an allegory for revolution” by C.C. Apap

“While waiting for biopsy results, I learn that tattoos are now linked to lymphoma,” by Jen Karetnick

Flash Nonfiction selected by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood

Shuly Xóchitl Cawood is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning, winner of the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry, and the flash essay collection What the Fortune Teller Would Have Said, winner of the Iron Horse Literary Review Prose Chapbook Contest. Shuly also leads writing workshops through Press 53’s High Road Fest Online, including the popular Let’s Write Together!, a one-hour lunchtime workshop at Noon Eastern on most Tuesdays.

Flash Nonfiction submissions are now open for Issue 281 (until we receive 101 submissions)

Editors' Selections in Poetry & Short Fiction

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. Here are the guest editors and their selections for Issue 271, May-August 2025.

GUEST EDITOR FOR POETRY

Terri Kirby Erickson

Author Photograph by Kim Shouse Photography

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven full-length collections of poetry, six of which were published by Press 53, including A Sun Inside My Chest, winner of the International Book Award for Poetry and Night Talks: New & Selected Poems. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies, including “American Life in Poetry,” Asheville Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, JAMA, NASA News & Notes, and many others. Honors include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, Nautilus Silver Book Award, Nazim Hikmet Poetry Award, Atlanta Review International Publication Award and others.

“I’ve Never Seen the Northern Lights,” by Nicholas Barnes

GUEST EDITOR FOR SHORT FICTION

Rhonda Browning White

Rhonda Browning White resides in Hickory, North Carolina. Her debut novel, Filling the Big Empty, was shortlisted for the 2022 Neilson Prize and is available from Redhawk Publications. She is the winner of The 2019 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction for her short-story collection The Lightness of Water & Other Stories. Rhonda’s work also appears in Ignatian Literary Magazine, Entropy, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Qu Literary Journal. Rhonda was awarded the Sterling Watson Fellowship in 2015 and a Standiford full scholarship in 2017 to Eckerd College’s Writers in Paradise.

“Setting the Standard” by Savannah Brooks

“The Expansion of the Sky on Monday” by Rachel Kalina

Meet Our Guest Editors for Issue 281, Jan-Apr 2026

Submit a story or poem now via Submittable

Poetry and Short Fiction are limited to 199 total submissions in each category,
so submit early!

Guest Poetry Editor

Maura Way is the author of Another Bungalow and Mummery, both from Press 53. Her poetry and flash memoir have been widely published in journals such as The Appalachian Review, Poet Lore, Hong Kong Review, Puerto del Sol, Hotel Amerika, and The Potomac Review. Her work has also been featured in the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Poetry in Plain Sight program. Originally from Washington, DC, Maura lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, by way of Boise, Idaho. She has been an English teacher since 1995, most recently at New Garden Friends School.

Sample a poem by Maura on her Press 53 author page

Guest Short Fiction Editor

Gerry Wilson is the author of the historical novel, That Pinson Girl (Regal House Publishing), and a short story collection, Crosscurrents and Other Stories (Press 53). A lifelong Mississippian, Gerry grew up in the red clay hills of the north that provide the backdrop for That Pinson Girl. In her fiction she likes to probe relationships gone awry and often draws on her Mississippi roots and family myths. For more than twenty years, she taught English and creative writing to high school students. Gerry's short fiction has most recently appeared in Persimmon Tree and December magazine. A recipient of a Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Artist Fellowship for 2025, Gerry lives in Jackson, Mississippi.

Read a story excerpt on Gerry’s Press 53 author page