Orlando Prize Winners & Finalists Fall 2012
Orlando Poetry Prize Winner Marilyn McCabe, “On Hearing the Call to Prayer Over the Marcellus Shale on Easter Morning” Finalists Mary-Kim Arnold, “This is for the Sad Girls” Karen Mcpherson, “Bantam Sampling: Prospect Mountain Road” Erin Radcliffe, “Pishing” Orlando Creative Nonfiction Prize Winner Ellen Smith, “The Locust: A Foundational Narrative” Finalists Jennifer Simpson, “After, We Were Birds” Jennifer Bird, “Searching For the...
Orlando Prize Winners & Finalists Spring 2013
After reviewing all entries to the Orlando Prizes contest, we want to commend each and every writer who submitted. There were so many fabulous pieces with so much to say, and so many fresh and innovative ways of communicating your courageous material. We truly wish we could work with each of you to see these pieces come to publication. For now, let us just say, with deepest sincerity, well done, and keep going! Orlando Poetry Prize...
“The Dream” by ire’ne Lara Silva
The Dream is this: a balanced life—a happy, loving partner/family; a long, healthy life; abundant economic resources; a lengthy career filled with accomplishments and awards; acknowledged ‘mastery’ of your chosen art; and a harmoniously serene mind and heart to enjoy it all. In reality, we are more likely fragmented and struggling—always spread too thin, always juggling more priorities than we can handle, always trying to carve out...
“Virginia Woolf and a River,” by Florencia Ramirez
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write,” wrote Virginia Woolf. She described this as the “great problem.” Thirteen years ago, two women, within a canyon of red stone and brush, each with copies of Virginia Woolf’s book, “A Room of Her Own,” conspired to bring together a community of women writers (a room) and a vision to finance creative expression with literary awards (money). Two years ago, I entered the...
“Beautiful Caves”
Kate Gale asks Gift of Freedom winner Diane Gilliam, “In a world where almost anyone would rather be involved in commerce or consumer culture or interaction with the screen, why poetry? It’s not as active as football, not as immediate as mall shopping, not as intrusive as Facebook. It is ancient and quiet, sitting on the side, waiting. It is contemplative and has no place in our modern culture. Or does it? What is...
“Two Edges”
March 28, 2013 As I begin to feel my way toward speaking about Virginia Woolf, there’s a song that keeps coming through and since I’m a believer in anything that keeps trying to come through I’m going to let it in. It’s a song by Joan Manuel Serrat based on a small poem titled “La saeta” by Antonio Machado. It speaks to a traditional Andalusian song type, sung this time of year to the “Jesus de la agonia” in which the singer asks...
“Girl”
Whatever it is she is wanting, it is not too much to ask. We would give it to her if we could, now we are grown women in a car outside the small yellow house where she is forever fifteen, forever leaning her elbows on the front windowsill, pretending not to watch for whatever it is she’s wanting. The living room curtains are closed behind her. Behind her, her mother and sister are fighting. Your sister waged a war in that house, is...
Kettle Bottom by Diane Gilliam
Diane Gilliam, AROHO’s 6th Gift of Freedom Award Winner, has been widely recognized for the voice of honesty, beauty, and resilience that she has given to Appalachian culture and history–among the many other subjects of her writing. Her second book, Kettle Bottom, is a collection of poems written in the voices of people living in the coal camps at the time of the 1920-21 West Virginia Mine Wars. Kettle Bottom has won...
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...
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