Katherine Van Dis Awarded Spring 2013 Orlando Short Fiction Prize
KATHERINE VAN DIS lives in Durham, North Carolina with her husband and three-year-old son. She is a high school creative writing teacher and has also worked with writers in community centers and prisons. Though Katherine has lived in North Carolina for more than ten years, her roots are in Michigan, where many of her stories take place. She attended the University of Michigan where she received a Hopwood Award for fiction. She is...
Bridgett Jensen Awarded Spring 2013 Orlando Creative Nonfiction Prize
BRIDGETT JENSEN lives in southern Illinois with her husband and their four children. She is a graduate of Spalding University’s MFA in Writing Program. She teaches poetry and creative writing to children and has published work in The Louisville Review. Bridgett’s winning essay, “Lift,” was published in Issue No. 14 of the Los Angeles Review.
Diane Gilliam 6th Gift of Freedom Winner, Poetry
Diane Gilliam tells women’s urgent stories in poetry that is both stunning and accessible. Her recent work illuminates her interest in the interactive role myths, fairy tales, and other received stories play in how we become who we mean to be. Gilliam describes the Gift of Freedom grant as “actual, practical help for women who need to do their work in a world that often doesn’t know how much it needs that work, and...
ire’ne lara silva 6th Gift of Freedom Genre Finalist, Fiction
Fiction Genre Finalist Ire’ne Lara Silva’s work speaks for those on the margins. Her fierce, primal voice stands at the intersection of poetry and prose, and is concerned with the question of transformation: how do you find the way through pain, grief, and loss on an individual and communal level? She writes of her Gift of Freedom creative project plan: I’m working on two creative projects: my first novel, NACI, and a second short...
Florencia Ramirez, 6th Gift of Freedom Genre Finalist, Creative Nonfiction
Creative Nonfiction Genre Finalist Florencia Ramirez’ proposed creative project, Eat Less Water, is an environmental anthem for our time backed by a strong literary voice. Her writing is an estuary where the different rivers of her personality and experience converge. The salt water of her public policy training at the University of Chicago, the fresh water of her creative writing instruction, the brackish water of the activist, and...
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