I am thrilled to announce our 2017 Fiction Contest Winners, finalists and Editor’s Picks. Please read to savor the depths of these pieces and to see the wide range of Fiction we select.
Many thanks to Robert Lopez, the 2017 final judge and author most recently of All Back Full, for his choices:
Winner of the $1,000 Fiction Prize: Tim Benjamin for his scintillating, ironic premise piece, “A Visitor.”
Runner-up: Roberta Hartling Gates for “Search for a Martyr,” an inventive, historical take on a spy for de Gaulle in WWII.
The Solstice Editors Picks are as follows:
Mariya Tahir for “The Chaiwalla,” a lushly detailed story of a vendor’s class conflict in India.
And Michael Mark for “On a Night in Shelby County,” a riveting tale of a crime and racial prejudice.
Also, Solstice presents, separate from the contest, Featured Fiction by established artists and authors:
Christopher James, photographer and author of “The Last Lonely Planet,” a dark, compelling story of a couple touring in India as their marriage disintegrates.
And Mardith Louisell’s “Hawaii,” which in ironic riffs reveals the deep mourning of one sister for another while dealing with plumbing problems.
Solstice Fiction Editor Lee Hope and Assistant Fiction Editor Brenda Prescott selected the pieces that went on to the final judge, as well as the Editors’ Picks. We congratulate our contest winners and finalists and give sincere thanks to all who submitted to the contest!
And now we send out a call to established and emerging writers to submit your best work to our award-winning magazine starting September 1st.
Lee Hope, Editor-in-Chief and Fiction Editor
Lee Hope, is the author of the novel Horsefever, a finalist in the Midwest Book Awards. She is a recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, and a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship for Fiction. She has published stories in numerous literary journals such as Witness and The North American Review. She founded and directed a low-residency MFA program and has taught at various universities. She also teaches for Changing Lives Through Literature, which serves people on probation and parole.
