2016 Orlando Prize Winners & Finalists
2016 Orlando Prize Winners & Finalists It was a privilege to read the work of so many talented women. We hope you will join us in celebrating the success of the selected winners and finalists, chosen anonymously by our extraordinary Orlando finalist judge and editor of the upcoming Waves publication, Diane Gilliam! POETRY WINNER: “MOORING THE BOAT TO THE DOCK” by Sarah Black [Birmingham, AL] “Mooring the Boat to...
Sarah Black Awarded 2016 Orlando Poetry Prize
Congratulations to Sarah Black on the selection of her poem, “Mooring the Boat to the Dock,” for the 2016 Orlando Poetry Prize. “Mooring the Boat to the Dock,” will be published in Waves: A Confluence of Women’s Voices, Featuring Maxine Hong Kingston. “Mooring the Boat to the Dock” holds the brutality of history in one hand the work of life in the other. It testifies to the enduring power of the...
Tessa Lunney Awarded 2016 Orlando Short Fiction Prize
Congratulations to Tessa Lunney on the selection of her piece, “Those Ebola Burners Them,” for the 2016 Orlando Short Fiction Prize. “Those Ebola Burners Them,” will be published in Waves: A Confluence of Women’s Voices, Featuring Maxine Hong Kingston. “Those Ebola Burners Them” takes us into a place of life and death, where heroic choices are made that will never be able to be brought back to the...
Valerie Speedwell Awarded 2016 Orlando Flash Fiction Prize
Congratulations to Valerie Speedwell on the selection of her piece, “Regina,” for the 2016 Orlando Flash Fiction Prize. “Regina,” will be published in Waves: A Confluence of Women’s Voices, Featuring Maxine Hong Kingston. “Regina” creates an unstoppable presence and voice, in a rush of language and rhythm that admits no argument or challenge, despite the obstacles it names. The sheer energy and vitality...
Jocelyn Edelstein Awarded 2016 Orlando Creative Nonfiction Prize
Congratulations to Jocelyn Edelstein on the selection of her essay, “Keep Calling My Name: Frogs, circles and climate change,” for the 2016 Orlando Creative Nonfiction Prize. “Keep Calling My Name: Frogs, circles and climate change,” will be published in Waves: A Confluence of Women’s Voices, Featuring Maxine Hong Kingston. “Keep Calling My Name: Frogs, circles and climate change” looks for ways in which...
“Twelve Parables,” by Diana Spechler
1. For seventh grade, you’ll attend The Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart. “All girls,” your mother says. “Won’t that be nice?” (Soon you’ll learn its alternate name: The Newton Cunty Fuck Pool of the Secret Lesbian.) “Aren’t we Jewish?” “What kind of question is that—are we Jewish.” “What is a sacred heart?” “I should know? That’s something you’ll ask the Catholics. The school’s on Dad’s way to work.” “So I’m going...
Orlando Writers and the Rising Wave
What a deep writerly pleasure it was for me to read the most recent Orlando submissions and to make the final selections. It was not surprising that the work that came in was so various and so fine—but such work always surprises the mind and the spirit and heart. I send my thanks to all for the privilege of reading, and congratulations to the winners and finalists. The winners of this Orlando cycle will be included in a new AROHO...
Blood Sugar Canto by Ire’ne Lara Silva
“Being named the 2013 Fiction Genre Finalist for the Gift of Freedom Award validated me as a fiction writer and buoyed my belief that I could push forward with my projects and that they would find an audience.” —Ire’ne Lara Silva Buy on Amazon “Silva is a poet-curandera who “sings the body electric,” transforming suffering into song. She probes the ways that love, justice and...
Words Like Love by Tanaya Winder
Buy on Amazon How do we pronounce words like love? How do we believe in them, and how can we apply them to the missing, wounded and massacred: To the missing indigenous women in North America, to a wounded culture, a dying language and the open grave of a massacred history that we refuse to stare into? Tanaya Winder seeks to articulate this heartbreak in her debut collection of poetry, Words Like Love, poems that act as a...
AROHO Literary Thumbprint
AROHO has inspired and supported countless women, women whose works have gone on to inspire and change the lives of so many others. This thumbprint is a representation of the mark AROHO has made on the literary world. Our thanks to all of the women who took part in making this gift possible. Title Sponsored by 67 Ways to Save the Animals Anna Sequoia A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain Robin Vidimos A Room of One’s...