Essay in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2018;
(cited in BAE 2015, 2016, 2020); PUSHCART poetry finalist

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Summer/Fall 2014 Awards Issue

Editor’s Note:

Welcome to our Summer/Fall AWARDS ISSUE!  We are thrilled to announce our contest winners and finalists.  For all submitters, many many thanks for your fine work, so fine that some of you who are not finalists here will be receiving requests from us to publish your work.  Also soon we will be posting here a new feature:  a list of Memorable Fiction and Nonfiction Contest Pieces.

For FICTION:  The winner of the $1,000 prize is Patricia Ann McNair for her passionate, vivid story “My Mother’s Daughter.”

Runner-up is Jim Meirose for “Mister Lucas’ Punishment,” a premise piece that offers a microcosm of life.  A must read!

The three fiction finalists are: Susan Muaddi Darraj for “The Fall,” a haunting tale of a family’s multi-ethnic identity.  Susan is the winner of the AWP 2014 Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction.

James Anderson for his ironic, poignant “The Hat Salesman,” presenting a most unpredictable love affair.

Susan Bernhard for “Winter Loon,” a novel excerpt which takes us deep beneath the surface into the tragic life of a child.

In addition, not a contest entry, but FEATURED FICTION: Liza Ketchum’s young adult/adult adventure “Shotgun Summer.”

 

In NONFICTION, the winner of the $500 Prize, donated by Michael Steinberg, is Mary Collins for a lyrical, intense narrative of her tragically troubled brother.

Runner-up is Elizabeth de Souza for “The Knotty One.”

The nonfiction finalists are: Leslie Lawrence for “At the Donkey Hotel,”

an up-close view of a unique vet in Morocco.

Beth Richards for “Before, After,” a deeply moving depiction of a sister’s death.

Also, not contest entries but FEATURED NONFICTION:

Marianne Leone’s affecting “The Official Story.”

Mimi Schwartz’s ironic, “AD IN/AD OUT.”

Michael Steinberg’s piece on craft, “One Story, Two Narrators.”

And Dale Peterson’s critique, “Nature Writing and T.C. Boyle.”

 

And deep thanks to Karin Rosenthal for her nationally-known photographs.

 

Poetry Editor’s Note

If we think of rhythm as the relationship between contrasting elements, then there is a wonderful rhythmic conversation playing throughout all the poems in this issue. Why do we say things that can break glass? Matthew Gallant asks in his poem Inscription, just as Richard Garcia’s piece offers us the destruction of light into painful shards. Meanwhile the form of Tanuja Mehrotra’s Torch Song, which threads so many snippets with the repeating lines of a ghazal, seems to speak to Alysia Harris’ poem, Crow’s Sugar—the winner of this year’s Stephen Dunn Prize—whose form offers us the dynamic tension between alternation and alteration. And it’s hard not to hear each of these poems as both another nod to impermanence, as Greg Kosmicki writes in his fine poem One Time, and a fair shake against it. It was a pleasure and privilege to read all the poems submitted to this year’s contest, and we hope you enjoy the conversation between the poems selected for this summer’s issue.

Ben Berman and Jamaal May

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS:  SolLitBooks second eBook just published!  The Message by Eugenio Volpe.  A riveting tale of a veteran with PTSD.  Order from Amazon today!  Many thanks to co-editor for eBooks, Jenifer DeBellis.

And congratsto Mike Miner, his eBook “Everything She Knows” won an honorable mention in the 2014 Global eBook Awards!

Solsticelitmag will be moderating a panel at AWP15.  Title: Making Diversity Happen.  And we’ll be sharing a booth at the AWP Bookfair with Talking Writing.  More to come.

Also, we thank our donors at our June annual bash and fundraiser! You will be listed soon on our donor’s page!  Our first silent auction was a success! Many thanks to two restaurants in the Boston area:  Sweet Basil and Not Your Average Joes for donating gift certificates.  And to Richard Hoffman and to Beacon Books, for donating so many copies of his stellar memoir, Love and Fury.  Please get this provocative family saga of betrayal and reconciliation.

In these trying times, literature can reflect our innermost concerns.  Read on.  Lee Hope

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editors' Notes

  • Editor’s Note
    by Lee Hope
  • Poetry Editor’s Note
    by Ben Berman

Fiction

  • Winner
    My Mother’s Daughter
    by Patricia Ann McNair
  • Runner-up
    Mister Lucas’ Punishment
    by Jim Meirose
  • Finalist
    The Fall
    by Susan Muaddi Darraj
  • Finalist
    The Hat Salesman
    by James Anderson
  • Finalist
    Winter Loon
    by Susan Donovan Bernhard
  • Featured
    Shotgun Summer
    by Liza Ketchum

Nonfiction

  • Winner
    The Coverless Book
    by Mary Collins
  • Runner-up
    THE KNOTTY ONE: Obscurity and the Black Male Artist
    by Elizabeth de Souza
  • Finalist
    Before, After
    by Beth Richards
  • Finalist
    At the Donkey Hotel
    by Leslie Lawrence
  • Featured
    AD IN / AD OUT
    by Mimi Schwartz
  • Featured
    The Official Story
    by Marianne Leone
  • Featured
    One Story, Two Narrators: Reflection’s Role In Writing and Teaching Personal Narratives
    by Michael Steinberg
  • Featured
    Nature Writing and T.C. Boyle
    by Dale Peterson

Photography

  • NUDES IN WATER SERIES
    by Karin Rosenthal

Poetry

  • Winner
    Crow’s Sugar
    by Alysia Nicole Harris
  • Runner-up
    Shards
    by Richard Garcia
  • Finalist
    One Time
    by Greg Kosmicki
  • Finalist
    Torch Song (Threaded Ghazal 2)
    by Tanuja Mehrotra
  • Finalist
    Inscription
    by Matthew P. Gallant
  • Featured
    Boy on a Hothouse
    by Alison Stone
  • Featured
    Persephone After
    by Alison Stone
  • Featured
    Unfinished Poem
    by Terry Blackhawk
  • Featured
    Rooftop Flying in Ahmedebad
    by Terry Blackhawk
  • Featured
    Character Work: Family (for Uganda)
    by Danez Smith
  • Featured
    The Young Just Live
    by Joy Priest
  • Featured
    Perigee
    by Joy Priest

Video & Audio Lit

  • Belt
    by Andrew de Souza
  • What Makes Us Jazz
    by Ruth Ballard


Contributors

Avatar photoAlison Stone
Avatar photoAlysia Nicole Harris
Avatar photoAndrew de Souza
Avatar photoBeth Richards
Avatar photoDale Peterson
Avatar photoDanez Smith
Avatar photoElizabeth de Souza
Avatar photoGreg Kosmicki
Avatar photoJames Anderson
Avatar photoJim Meirose
Avatar photoJoy Priest
Avatar photoKarin Rosenthal
Avatar photoLeslie Lawrence
Avatar photoLiza Ketchum
Avatar photoMarianne Leone
Avatar photoMary Collins
Avatar photoMatthew P. Gallant
Avatar photoMichael Steinberg
Avatar photoMimi Schwartz
Avatar photoPatricia Ann McNair
Avatar photoRichard Garcia
Avatar photoRuth Ballard
Avatar photoSusan Donovan Bernhard
Avatar photoSusan Muaddi Darraj
Avatar photoTanuja Mehrotra
Avatar photoTerry Blackhawk

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