Congratulations to our 2023 Writing Contest Finalists and Winners

Adult Nonfiction

Grand Prize Winner: Terry Ratner – Seasons

Category Winner: ML Barrs – Confessing Ain’t Easy

Rosie Sorenson, MA, MFT – INTRODUCTION to memoir: If You Would Only Listen to Me: A Medical Memoir of Gaslighting, Grit and Grace

Tim Campbell – Jake at the Dump

Bridey Thelen-Heidel – Bright Eyes: A Memoir

Robyn Ferrell – Becoming Mrs. Smith

Julie Dearborn – Kate

Suhail Rafidi – The Black Box of Memory

ML Barrs – My Mother’s Bridge

Allison Hong Merrill – Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops

Cindy Foster – Wrestling with the Uranium Spirits – a Cautionary Tale of Nuclear Waste Cleanup on Native American Lands

Poetry

Category Winner: Daniel Moreschi – Tumultuous Trails

Carlos Garbiras – My Daughter’s Cracked Lips

Anna Marie Garcia – Abuela

Kenneth E Baker – How to be a Poem in a Prose World

Jamie Armstrong – DNA

Constance Hanstedt – My Mother Died on Earth Day

Pat Obuchowski – I Want to Live in a Sarong

Ángela N. Solis – abuela?

Elizabeth Googe – Retell Retail

Jeff Walt – Forensic Files

YA/Children’s

Category Winner: Oscar King IV – Veilweaver

Lucinda J. Sweazey – The Wasteland Crew: Knives of Kaine

Jocelyn Forest Haynes – Wilder

Allison M. Bell – Hatched

Ayushi Thakkar – Burning Daylight

Carlos Garbiras & Justine Rege – Dancing Ants

Derek Wheeless – Jubilee Watson and the Mystery of the Peanut Butter Key

Anita Perez Ferguson – Lupe Throws Like a Girl

Vicki Montet – Hiram’s Heaven

Kiki Murphy – Judy & Fern

Adult Fiction

Category Winner: Lauren Domagas – Young Men

Jason T. Small – Author’s Helper

Anna Marie Garcia – Neighborly Conversations

Alex Tricarico – Ghost Town

Melissa Geissinger – Compliance Setting

Tracy Marie Oliver – Strange Ground

Norman Charles Winter – The Last Real Radio Station in America

Duygu Balan – Written All Over Me

Wendy C Wong – A Red Book

Eliza Mimski – The Switch, Inc.