Michelle Wright Awarded Fall 2014 Orlando Short Fiction Prize
It’s so hard to create a world and draw living characters and make the reader feel something, all in just a few short pages–“Moon Shiny Night” did all of this beautifully. Without even naming the characters I felt connected to these girls, felt their brief, wondrous connection to the old man next door–and I ached, knowing it would all be over, and the old man would be left alone. —Vanessa Diffenbaugh,...
Denise Leto Awarded Fall 2014 Orlando Poetry Prize
I love the play of the biological, anatomical, and marine references and the mixed references to geography and Christianity with the most subtle eroticism, “writing notes with her other hand: desire.” For the poem is desire, and is sometimes the fulfillment of desire. But also end, loss, death as the body gives itself back to where it was born–perhaps. –Cheryl Clarke, Fall 2014 Orlando Poetry Finalist Judge...
Caitlin Scarano Awarded Spring 2014 Orlando Flash Fiction Prize
Having any of my work, whether it be a poem, an essay, or a short story, accepted for publication is special and motivating for me – it always inspires me to create more and to share my work. I think it is great to know that someone else finds my work worthwhile and worth promoting. Caitlin Scarano Congratulations to Caitlin Scarano on the selection of her story, “Of Possible War,” for the Spring 2014 Orlando Flash...
Laura Lauth Awarded Spring 2014 Orlando Poetry Prize
Publication is hope—and humbling. When I write poetry, I’m making something like a song. They were always meant to be sung. Until then, it’s sheet music.—Laura Lauth Congratulations to Laura Lauth on the selection of her poem, “Mass Grave, Ukraine,” for the Spring 2014 Orlando Poetry Prize! Her poem is a haunting glimpse at the aftermath of genocide and the way memory and new life somehow coexist, hand-in-hand....
Katie Umans Awarded Spring 2014 Orlando Short Fiction Prize
I think every writer has to have (or find) an unconditional love for the solitary work of writing. However, the acknowledgment of publication pulls the writer briefly out of that seclusion, along with whatever insecurities or other distortions can grow there. Katie Umans Congratulations to Katie Umans on the selection of her story, “The Banshee and the Chef,” for the Spring 2014 Orlando Short Fiction Prize! Her story plunges us into...
Kate Angus Awarded Spring 2014 Orlando Creative Nonfiction Prize
I’m always so grateful when anything I write finds a home. It reminds me that I’m not just speaking to myself–that someone, even if I never meet them, is listening. That sense of being heard–that my work now has a life outside of just my brain and a folder on my desktop–lets me separate enough from the piece to start working on something new. Kate Angus Congratulations to Kate on the selection of her essay,...
Sarah Wetzel Awarded 2013 To the Lighthouse Prize
“River Electric with Light,” Sarah Wetzel’s astounding manuscript, is winner of AROHO’s 2013 To the Lighthouse Poetry Book Prize. Finalist Judge, Tracy K. Smith says, “Like the river of the collection’s title, these poems ride upon a current of arduous insight and indelible imagery. And, like all courageous writing does, they make their own particular peace with the likelihood that even...
Marsha Mathews Awarded Fall 2013 Orlando Flash Fiction Prize
Marsha’s winning flash fiction story, “Bus Ride to the City,” will be published in Issue No. 15 of the Los Angeles Review.
Toni Martin Awarded Fall 2013 Orlando Short Fiction Prize
Toni Martin is a physician and writer who lives in Berkeley, CA. Her book, When the Personal was Political: Five Women Doctors Look Back was published in 2008 Toni’s winning short story, “Eye See You,” will be published in Issue No. 15 of the Los Angeles Review.
Holly Sneeringer Awarded Fall 2013 Orlando Creative Nonfiction Prize
Holly’s winning essay, “Under Water,” will be published in Issue No. 15 of the Los Angeles Review.
Jenifer Browne Lawrence Awarded Fall 2013 Orlando Poetry Prize
JENIFER BROWNE LAWRENCE is the author of One Hundred Steps from Shore (Blue Begonia, 2006). Awards include the 2011 James Hearst Poetry Prize and a Washington State Artist Trust GAP grant. Recent work appears in Bellevue Literary Review, Caesura, Cider Press Review, Narrative, North American Review, Rattle, and So to Speak. She serves on the advisory board for the Centrum Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, and is co-editor at Crab...
Helen Jones Awarded Spring 2013 Orlando Flash Fiction Prize
HELEN JONES has a BA in English from UC Davis, and has published poetry in Reed Magazine and Porter Gulch Review (under her maiden name of Smith). She has an essay forthcoming in EQUUS magazine and lives in Washington state with one Kiwi husband, two miniature donkeys, three cats, and five hens. She is currently working on a memoir. Helen’s winning flash fiction story, “The Boardwalk, 1969,” was first...
Abby Chew Awarded Spring 2013 Orlando Poetry Prize
ABBY CHEW recently moved away from southeastern Ohio, where she worked as a teacher and goatherd at Olney Friends School. Currently, she teaches English at The Webb Schools in Claremont, California, where she lives with her dog Alice. Her first book of poems, Discontinued Township Roads, is forthcoming in late 2013 from Word Press, an imprint of WordTech, Inc. Abby’s winning poem, “Storm,” was published in...
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...
Leia Penina Wilson Awarded 2012 To the Lighthouse Prize
The winner of our 2012 To the Lighthouse Poetry Publication Prize was Leia Penina Wilson’s “I built a boat with all the towels in your closet.” Selected by guest judge Evie Shockley, the book will be released by Red Hen Press in fall of 2014. Leia Penina Wilson spends most of her days baking tiny cakes and cookies. On the days she’s not baking, she plays Magic the Gathering and cuddles with her boyfriend on...
Sarah Elizabeth Schantz Awarded Fall 2012 Orlando Short Fiction Prize
SARAH ELIZABETH SCHANTZ is in her final semester as a MFA candidate at the Jack Kerouac School in Boulder, CO. She lives on the outskirts of town in an old farmhouse where the corners collect dust, cobwebs and a lot of ghosts. She was twenty-one the first time she read Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”—a literary experience that changed everything about how she approached her gender and her writing; she is ecstatic to receive the...
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