Drum Roll Please….here are the winners of the 2015 Summer Writing Contest!
FICTION WINNERS, judged by Antonya Nelson:
First Place: “What We Are Doesn’t Have a Name Yet” by Ellen Scheuermann
Antonya said: “This piece admirably introduces and marries two unfamiliar worlds — the military and the fringe religious — in a fascinating series of escalating events. I felt transported into unknown territory.”
Second Place: “Showroom” by Nicholas Lepre
“Like Eudora Welty, this writer infuses the ordinary with a sense of the sublime, the strange way the natural world — dust, sunshine — makes up the fabric of one’s life.”
Third Place: “Les Hommes de Foi” by Jenn Alandy Trahan
“The story captures a critical violent moment in its narrator’s self-destructive spiraling, resolving on the calm just before the storm.”
We will print all three stories in Issue 32.
POETRY WINNERS, judged by Julie Carr:
First Place: Julie’s comments were: “Lary Kleeman’s sonnet sequence, “Geometries of Indifference” reminds me of the work of A.R. Ammons: at once ornate and colloquial, formal and playful. The poem meanders easily between the present, the remembered and the imagined, keeping the reader off-kilter but returning her again and again to the stability of the real thing – melon, turtle dove, body, sage, and pine: language is sensation and the senses speak a language Kleeman knows how to read. Complex, rich, and delightful.”
Second Place: Dan Collins’ “How I Relate to the Great Peshtigo Fire (So Long Ago)” “is a moving vignette about loss. With admirable economy Collins moves us through the ash and detritus of fire, arriving finally to the found thing that carries a whole life. I read this poem many times and found it compelling with each return.”
NONFICTION WINNERS, judged by Wendy C. Ortiz:
First Place: “The Safe Side” by Sue Silverman
Wendy said, “How does one interpret the messages of the body? In this essay, we take a trip into the psyche of the narrator who, aware of their own hypochondria, is also painfully aware of their own mortality. The heart of this piece is, in fact, the heart.”
Second Place: “Mothers Always Know” by Tom Pyun
“The threads of culture, family, and queerness intersect, chafe, and find equilibrium in this poignant, 21st century narrative.”
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE WINNERS! This contest was particularly difficult to judge–there were so many wonderful pieces, and everyone here at BMR really enjoyed reading all the submissions. Thank you to everyone who entered! Issue 32 will feature all of these wonderful pieces, plus several more. It goes live in December.
