Each Morning I Pray to the Microwave

by Bacopa Literary Review 2019 Poetry contributor Claire Scott Rubin

Years ago I saw a play where a character prayed to a microwave. I thought it was a hilarious spoof on religion. The scene stayed with me, planted the seed of a poem. I wanted to continue with the humor, the over-the-top-ness of it. I played with the idea of a competition between god and a potato:

"I prefer God to a potato most of the time"

A pretty outrageous comparison that I hope makes the reader smile. I thought about the fact that both God and a potato have eyes and felt that would be fun to include.

After the first few lines, the speaker spins out into a tangled personal story of a failed relationship:

"Sara left in a bitter cloud of flying shoes, DVDs & fuck you's"

I wanted to show the speaker's life is chaotic like the lines in the poem, zigzagging from "a failed science experiment" to a cat who "rarely uses its litter box." The speaker is trying to sort through the chaos to find some solid place to stand. The best she can find is the blurry God who may or may not be a potato.

The poem is meant to be humorous, not sacrilegious. I hope that comes across (click on image for larger view):

Claire Scott Rubin, our 2018 Poetry First Prize winner, has received multiple prizes and Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Enizagam, Causeway Lit, New Ohio Review, and Healing Muse, among others. She is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn't.

You Had Me At Hello

by 2016-2019 Creative Nonfiction Editor Susie H. Baxter

In the 1996 film Jerry Maguire starring Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger, she uttered a line that I and many others would never forget: "You had me at hello."

Likewise, Hugh E. Suggs, author of "From One Field to Another" in the 2019 Bacopa Literary Review contest, had me at hello:

The afternoon they took Daddy away to die at the VA, I just sat stunned beside that leased hospital bed in the Florida room we'd built together. The shape in the disheveled mattress, way too small for the void left behind.

From the last words of that introduction, I assumed I was about to read a poignant portrait of a beloved father who was missed deeply, and the story did not disappoint. Suggs continued painting a picture of his daddy with a a vivid brush as he showed how perseverance and optimism pulled his young father through hard times.

Daddy became good at looking ahead, to where he was going. That was all he could do in all those fields plodding behind that mule. That, and hold on tight. Because there was one thing for sure, there'd always be more dirt to plow and better days, somewhere ahead. Days when no one would beat him. Days without hunger in hollow places. Some that ached, others that pinched. But despite every injustice he'd suffered, every time he felt the strain of it all, he just kept believing. And he later reminded me--that you, and the rows you plow in this life, must not get bent.

That paragraph resonated with me since my own father, a farmer, endured some of the same trials as the father in this story, and mine was also adamant that his rows be arrow straight.

I was pleased to nominate "From One Field to Another" for First Prize in Creative Nonfiction and delighted that it came from Writers Alliance of Gainesville's own Hugh E Suggs.

If you have not read this piece in Bacopa Literary Review 2019 (pp. 136-140), check it out!

Print Edition here.

Kindle Edition here.

New Editor Stephanie Seguin: Bumping Against Humorous

Humor is an icebreaker. It brings people closer, it makes people feel good. It relieves pain and transforms the way people look at the world. "Seven Ways to Become a Master Humor Writer When You Don't Think You Have a Funnybone," Sarah Cy, The Writing Cooperative.

Even if the history of your own funny bone involves that awful twang of ulnar nerve bumping against humerus--definitely NOT humerous--you've certainly experienced the joyful release of out and out laughter when reading something well-written and funny, from subtle satire to sappy slapstick.

You also "get" why the best cartoons make us laugh. It's the element of surprise, the shift from the brain's usual track to a fresh perspective. That can happen with good writing, too, even if it's not a version of stand-up comedy. Think of those memories that bring a smile to your lips and tears to your eyes. Writing with inherent humor might bring on nostalgia, anxiety, grief, joy, or a host of other emotions.

We're smiling because we've added a new editor to our 2020 team, Stephanie Seguin, winner of Bacopa Literary Review 2012's Second Place in Fiction, among whose many talents is humor writing. Even in fiction that's not outwardly intended as "humor writing," you'll find her adept with external/internal dialogue that surprises and/or makes you smile:

Kylie rolls her eyes. The girl isn't even walking right. Zombies don't hold their arms stiff out front like a mummy. Mummies hold their arms like that because they are wrapped, their elbow joints constricted. Zombies' arms hang limp at their sides. . . . (Stephanie Seguin,"Skank," Penduline, Issue 5.)

In this same piece, notice the author's playfulness with language:

She heard the word so many times it had shaken loose its husk and become something else, like when you repeat the name of a common object over and over until melts into something foreign, something that sounds strange to your ears and feels odd in your mouth.

*     *     *

Stephanie Seguin, received a B.A. in English and French from the University of Florida. Her dormant humor blog will soon be back online, featuring relevant topics such as fake collectible primate babies and rubber truck testicles. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, where she writes, mothers, and conspires to overthrow tyranny.

by Senior Editor Mary Bast

2019 Pushcart Prize Nominations

CONTRATULATIONS TO Bacopa Literary Review 2019's SIX PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINEES:

   Michael Dylan Welch, "Shengxiao" (Haiku)

Michael Dylan Welch has served as Poet Laureate for Redmond, Washington, and runs National Haiku Writing Month and his website Graceguts, devoted mostly to poetry. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies in more than twenty languages. He lives in Sammamish, Washington.

   Raphael Kosek, "When the saints come among us" (Poetry)

Raphael Kosek is 2019 Dutchess County NY Poet Laureate. Her chapbook, Rough Grace, won Concrete Wolf Chapbook's 2014 Prize, and Brick Road Poetry Press has published her poetry collection, American Mythology. Kosek's poems have appeared in  Poetry East, Catamaran, Briar Cliff Review, and elsewhere. She teaches English at Marist College and Dutchess Community College.

   Avra Margariti, "The Calligrapher" (Fiction)

Avra Margariti is a queer Social Work undergrad from Greece. She enjoys storytelling in all its forms and writes about diverse identities and experiences. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Daily Science Fiction, The Forge Literary Magazine, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Argot Magazine, Glintmoon, The Arcanist, Flash Fiction Online, Terse Journal, 50-Word Stories, pif Magazine, and other venues.

   Jeff Streeby, "A Brindle Bull: After Kuoan Shiyuan" (Mixed Genre)

Jeff Streeby is an American poet and haibunist. His mixed-form collection, An Atlas of the Interior, is available from Unsolicited Press. His chapbook of haibun, Wile: Sketches from Nature, was published by Buttonhole Press. Streeby is an Associate Editor for poetry and prose at OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters.

   Miranda Sun, "Red Elegy" (Poetry)

Miranda Sun is twenty years old. An alumna of the NYS Summer Young Writers Institute and Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, her work has been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and published in Body Without Organs, Lammergeir, TRACK//FOUR, Red Queen, riverbabble, Sobotka, YARN, The Gravity of the Thing, and more. She loves bubble tea and aquariums, and currently reads for Ninth Letter Online..

   Ed Coonce, "The Photograph" (Creative Nonfiction)

Ed Coonce is an Encinitas CA artist, writer, actor, and the Creative Director for Theatre Arts West. An alumnus of San Diego State University where he studied art and anthropology, he hosts a weekly meetup, East Hell Writers.

by Senior Editor Mary Bast 

Short Story Swoon

by Mary Bast

The short story should consider staging its own kidnapping and then show up three weeks later in The New Yorker claiming that some things happened that cannot be discussed. [Short stories] are better than the novels I've been reading. They are more daring, more artful, and more original. Yet while I know plenty of people with whom I can discuss novels, there are only two people I know with whom I can swoon over short stories. . . Ann Patchett, foreword, The Best American Short Stories 2006.

Short stories have a special place in literature, not pint-sized or incomplete fiction, but a genre all their own. In calls for submission we've emphasized the construction of a good short story as "tight and concise writing that includes characterization, conflict, change, and draws in readers with its depth, clarity, and powerful, authentic voice." To describe how those components lead to daring, artful, and original work, however, is not an easy task.

Paris Review's "The Art of the Short Story" cites Ernest Hemingway's preface to a student's edition of his short stories:

"There is very little to say about writing short stories . . . If you can do it, you don't have to explain it. If you cannot do it, no explanation will ever help.
        A few things I have found to be true. If you leave out important things or events that you know about, the story is strengthened . . . But it is all there. It is not visible but it is there."

You've probably heard of the shortest short story, often attributed to Hemingway:

"For sale, baby shoes, never worn."

Do you see? Important events have seemingly been left out, yet the story is there.

It is this quality, along with her elegant writing, that drew me to 2019 Fiction First Prize winner Avra Margariti's 890-word story, "The Calligrapher." All is there, though not visible:

"Ink clings to the bristles of Mihiro's brush, hovering over the parchment on top of her varnished heartwood desk. The kanji blossom like flowers in a midnight garden . . ."

We know immediately that Mihiro is not simply a calligrapher, but one whose work is artful. We learn scant details of Mihiro's relationship with boyfriend Robert, that he has a firm handshake, that "his work takes him to the West Coast, where he closes deals and fattens his bank account."

All is not well between Mihiro and Robert, but instead of documenting specifics, Margariti implies the action though the metaphor of calligraphy:

       " . . . her fingers curl around a sturdy brush handle. She begins working on her commissions, only to halt when she glances at her right wrist. An inkblot that looks like a bruise, is her first breathless thought, but no.
        A bruise that looks like an inkblot . . .
      She doesn't remember sleep dragging her eyelids shut, but knows something is different.
        Her hands--those fragile things Robert so likes to swallow in his own strong palms--are stained black and gray. Love, life, fate: every line on her palms stands in relief, so that her hands look like cracked earth, like something powerful and tectonic. . .
        Scrambling to her feet, Mihiro takes in more of her body. . . The still-wet kanji overlap with each other and blend with the now-fading bruises. More words emerge right before her eyes, written in the sure swirls and swipes of an invisible calligraphy brush.
        On her body is a story that Mihiro has yet to read. To her surprise, it's a story she wants to know."

And this is where Margariti's words end, though of course we readers know what is there. 

*     *     *

Avra Margariti is a queer Social Work undergrad from Greece. She enjoys storytelling in all its forms and writes about diverse identities and experiences. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Daily Science Fiction, The Forge Literary Magazine, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Argot Magazine, Glintmoon, The Arcanist, Flash Fiction Online, Terse Journal, 50-Word Stories, pif Magazine, and other venues.

Adaptation and Applause

Guest post by Bacopa Literary Review 2019 contributor Dror Abend-David

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." But there is certainly a great deal more to imitation than flattery. "Mirror," "imitation," or "adaptation" poems, rewrites of well-known poems with slight but pivotal changes, are referred to by many names that betray different attitudes. They all share the flattery of using the original poem as a form to work with--but to different degrees, they can also include elements of parody, criticism, and, of course, competition--the attempt of adapting poets to perform the original poem better, or at least differently, from their own unique perspective.

In my poem, "A Supermarket in Brooklyn Heights," I adapt Allen Ginsberg's well-known poem, "A Supermarket in California." In my adaptation, I compare the works of two important Jewish Modernists: Allen Ginsberg and Louis Zukofsky. The two are contemporaries (although Zukofsky is 22 years older), and they redefine American identity in different manners. Ginsberg courageously discusses his gay identity (hence his reference to Walt Whitman) while providing only scant and sporadic references to his Jewish heritage. Zukofsky, with equal courage, provides extensive and erudite references to his Jewish heritage, creating a model for Jewish American poets that followed him.

Of course, there are other themes in this adaptation as well: West Coast versus East Coast, spectacle versus textuality, and my own perspective as an immigrant who is unable to share the optimist national statements that are made by Whitman and Ginsberg (click on image for a clearer view):

Articles & Books by Dror Abend-David: 

• "Gender Benders and Unrequited Offerings" 
• "Propagating Nazi Ideology is Not Free Speech"
• Media and Translation: An Interdisciplinary Approach 
• Representing Translation: The Representation of Translation and Translators in Contemporary Media 
• Scorned My Nation: A Comparison of Translations of The Merchant of Venice into German, Hebrew, and Yiddish 

Brindle Bull: The Search for Enlightenment

Commentary by Kaye Linden

Some writers possess the skill and passion to transport a reader to a magical place where we hold our breath for a few moments and sigh with the beauty of the read. Such is Bacopa Literary Review 2019's Mixed Genre First Prize winner Jeff Streeby, with "A Brindle Bull: After Kuoan Shiyuan."

          morning with a caul of mountains
          other things
          I have not forgotten

Those FWP guys I ran into up at the boat launch told me that right below a big tangle of old blowdown the channel would deepen and widen, and sure enough it did. The river was running pretty high for the time of year, but not so high I had trouble with the few low bridges on that upper stretch. 

          July 15th
          again the hours
          disappearing into each other 

At an old diversion dam, a little surprise--a dozen late salmon flies the size of hummingbirds climbed and dived over the one big boil.

          At just the right moment 
          firewood blooms
          making good on their promises . . .

In order to fully appreciate this lovely story, one must understand the analogy expressed. Kuoan Shiyuan was a Japanese Zen practitioner and artist who offered ten images representing the search for enlightenment, symbolized by the slow emergence of a bull. At first one is searching for the "bull" externally until, during years of meditation practice, one realizes the "bull" has been standing there all along.

The journey down the river symbolizes (as rivers always do) the journey of life, where we pass by features and events without truly grasping their wholeness. In this narrator's journey along the river, he undergoes an enlightenment experience when locking eyes with a bull on the bank.

. . . From the shade of a cottonwood, a brindle bull watched my canoe and its reflection move downstream, watched my paddle rising, dripping, then dipping again as it passed into itself at the surface where it seemed to disappear. The old orejano, summer fat and slick and packing a pair of the longest, heaviest horns you ever saw, lifted his blunt muzzle to search the air then looked back at me, no more certain than before.

          On the Jefferson River
          one swallow's perch song
          making a summer

The narrator's perception changes from that experience and the rest is an account of clarity and increased joy.

Why is a bull the choice for the symbol of an awakened experience? The bull is a massive animal, difficult to overcome, manage, or tame. Thus, it is with enlightenment. The more one chases it, the further away it runs.

Jeff Streeby has the knack of holding us spellbound.

And right then, you know, just like that, something happened. Our gazes met and held for maybe a second, no more, each seeing in the other everything in the space between come into focus all at once . . . one second . . . to see it all and figure it out, every last loose end and double meaning clearing up for me for good.

I like the casual way Streeby meanders through his journey on the river, observing and describing such things as "the chirring of cicadas in a willow thicket" or "a stand of tall canary grass." We canoe down the river, enjoying the ride, listening to the guide until "From the shade of a cottonwood," he points out "a brindle bull . . . an old orejano, summer fat and slick . . . lifted his blunt muzzle . . . looked back at me."

The reader is caught up in the effective description of a moment when a magnificent creature connects with a human. The canoeist experiences a true epiphany where he is in the moment and nowhere else, not in the past, nor in the future.

We roll down the river after that experience of now and perceive differently "July's heady musks . . . Elderberry, chokecherry . . . heavy with ripening fruit . . . the chinkle of cowbirds calling."

The journey has truly come alive for this man on his canoe because he has fully realized an enlightened moment with Kuoan's bull.

*     *     *

Jeff Streeby is an American poet and haibunist. His mixed-form collection, An Atlas of the Interior, is available from Unsolicited Press. His chapbook of haibun, Wile: Sketches from Nature, was published by Buttonhole Press. Streeby is an Associate Editor for poetry and prose at OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters.

Good Fortune: 2019's Haiku Prize Winner Michael Dylan Welch

by Michael Dylan Welch

by Senior Editor Mary Bast

In an earlier post about haiku, Writing on the Head of a Pin, 2019 Haiku Editor Kaye Linden suggested that each word must count, each word must offer meaning.

Our guidelines also noted that the widely-practiced 5-7-5-syllable format isn't necessary. Japanese haiku is based on sounds, not syllables, and many of our haiku entries--as in other contemporary literary journals--vary in number of syllables (see Haiku Society of America and their journal, frogpond).

We invited haiku with "a juxtaposition, a flash of surprise, an interesting perspective on life," and the symbolism in Michael Dylan Welch's Haiku First Prize winning work arises from a juxtaposition of action/variety of flower/ Chinese Zodiac sign.

The Chinese Zodiac, represented by twelve animals, corresponds to a cycle of years. From February 5, 2019 to February 24, 2020, for example, we are in a Year of the Pig--the pig a symbol of wealth whose chubby face and big ears denote good fortune.

I've added in parentheses below a few qualities of each of the twelve animals, so you can see the clever depth of Welch's few words. For example, in the "year of the rat" (the rat characterized as quick-witted and persuasive), someone who has damaged a violin leaves three exotic African violets with the mended violin as a charming and disarming apology.

It is our good fortune to have haiku master Michael Dylan Welch's work in Bacopa Literary Review 2019, and I leave readers to further discern the symbolic range of sign-flower-action in his prize-winning haiku:

         Shēngxiào / 生肖

year of the rat--                         (quick-witted, persuasive)
three African violets
by the mended violin

year of the ox--                          (patient, kind)
peach blossoms
left in the letterbox

year of the tiger--                       (authoritative, courageous)
the glow of cineraria
in misty moonlight

year of the rabbit--                     (compassionate, sincere)
the unfinished painting
of purple jasmine

year of the dragon--                   (fearless, charismatic)
a bleeding heart
fallen to the mantel

year of the snake--                     (introverted, smart)
yellow orchids
for the election winner

year of the horse--                     (impatient, independent)
a pair of calla lilies
nodding in a vase

year of the goat--                       (mild-mannered, peace-loving)
a red carnation
in the journalist's lapel

year of the monkey--                 (fun, active)
the encyclopedia opens
to chrysanthemums

year of the rooster--                  (independent, practical)
talking so much in the garden
she misses my gladiolas

year of the dog--                       (diligent, faithful)
rose bushes hiding
a garden gnome

year of the pig--                        (loving, appreciative of luxury)
the abundance
of hydrangeas

*     *     *

Michael Dylan Welch has served as Poet Laureate for Redmond, Washington, runs National Haiku Writing Month and his website Graceguts, devoted mostly to poetry. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies in more than twenty languages. He lives in Sammamish, Washington.

From the Editor: 2019 Issue

Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know the side you are used to is better than the one to come?

--Rule Thirteen, Forty Rules of Love as taught to Jalal ad-Din Rumi

by the wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz

The worldwide perspective of this year's Bacopa Literary Review arises from a great diversity of authors' ages, backgrounds, gender identifications, and countries of origin--from Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Tunisia, U.K., and from coast to coast in the U.S. As a result, it's not surprising to find reference to displacement and immigration across genres.

In the current editorial team's four annual issues, each year's world events have been reflected in submissions, from 2016's disorientation and anxiety, to 2017's concerns about the environment and human suffering, then to 2018's accusations of a culture ignorant of reverence where so much is wrong, culminating in 2019's works that bemoan universal wrongs.

Rumi's Rules of Love are introduced in Batool Alzubi's "Illegally Alive," whose protagonist thinks, These quotes are for people with a bearable amount of sadness... my life wasn't only turning upside down, my life was falling out of my hands.  Yet, the mother, daughter, and son in this story do bear the sadness of leaving their Syrian town, and a treacherous first crossing in their exodus to Europe.

An immigrant boy's fate is more tragic in CB Follett's "Photograph of a Very Young Boy," as there were too many waves and each too big... this was never the escape he was promised.

In "Everything About Today is Violet," Ojo Taiye tallies the costs of geographic borders, lamenting that yesterday is one place to bury two million undocumented displaced children.

Robbie Curry refers to old borders between countries as "Ghost Fences," where specters whisper of... electric deaths.

In "A Simple Sea Song for my Father," Jennifer Grant deepens our view of the sea as a gulf of unfinished stories. This is one of several works about lost fathers and mothers, most in grief, some in relief. B.W. Jackson's Jacob has cared for his invalid father since his mother's death, eyes opening to the beauty and character of the family home as he has gradually restored it. River Kozhar's cats have provided lifesaving company, from childhood to adulthood, in the face of her parents' gaslighting. Edward M. Cohen's Shiva after the mother's funeral was sparsely attended because she had done so much complaining in her final years that most of her friends had drifted away.

Threaded throughout this issue you'll find a variety of Haiku, whose very nature emphasizes the Yin-Yang balance of existence: nothing is all bad or all good; instead, these apparently opposite qualities are intertwined.

Tall yellow grasses
sewn by barbed wire. Then mule deers'
leaps rip the stitches (Carolyne Wright, p. 7)

sparrowhawk fence
an ending to the summer
as leaves start to stutter (Alan Summers, p. 39)

old    worn    out of touch
past prime    show up anyway
arrive like morning  (Jani Sherrard, p. 82)

There is also much joy in these pages, from "A Soundtrack for Early Motherhood," through "Cool Party Mix" and "Kiss Rehearsal," to a "Middle-Age Cartwheel." Even the loss of a parent can be held dear, as in "My Father's Irises" by Sayuri Ayers: ...a bulb / in my hand, its roots / clinging to my fingers. And Raphael Kosek reminds us the saints still come among us, When... the cry of the hawk punctuates / our sleeping and our waking, / calling us to all that is unnamed / but keener than a slim blade / piercing the only body we know.

by Bacopa Literary Review Senior Editor Mary Bast

Tenth Anniversary Celebration

by Senior Editor Mary Bast

With our 2019 issue, Bacopa Literary Review rejoices in ten years of publication. To celebrate, below are our First and Second Place prize winners from each year (follow links for more about the authors and/or the works):

2010
Fiction (Editor Gen Aris): First Place Rick Sapp, "What the Old Man Knew About Time;" Second Place Jordanna Faye Brown, "Guardamar"
Creative Nonfiction (Editor Mary Bast): First Place Elaine Jordan, "Swimming with Joan Baez;" Second Place Charles Patrick Norman, "Walking Around the World for Life"
Poetry (Editor David Maas): First Place Angela Masterson Jones, "At the Crossing;" Second Place Valerie Ann Asay, "Arise"

2011
Fiction (Editor Gen Aris): First Place JoeAnn Hart, "Open House;" Second Place Mandy Manning, "Growth"
Creative Nonfiction (Editor Mary Bast): First Place Amanda Skelton, "Warding Off the Monkey;" Second Place Carolyne Wright, "Los Olvidados:The Forgotten Ones"
Poetry (Editor Eldon Turner): First Place Colleen Runyan, "me or the tea;" Second Place Erika Brumett, "Fight Overheard in Sign Language"

2012
Fiction (Editor Gen Aris): First Place Cecile Barlier, "Legionnaire;" Second Place Stephanie Seguin, "Candy Andy"
Short Fiction (Editor Kaye Linden): First Place Grier Jewell, "Girl in the Gibbous Moon;" Second Place Margaret F. Chen, "The Yellow Curtain, The Red Floor"
Creative Nonfiction (Editor Dorothy Staley): First Place Jeremiah O'Hagan, "The Hymnal;" Second Place Colleen O'Neil, "Transplant"

Poetry (Editor Eldon Turner): First Place Sb Sowbel, "Room 5, Guest 1: Being Human, American Style;" Second Place Nancy Hastie, "Barefoot days fall firefly nights"

2013
Fiction (Editor Gen Aris): First Place JL Schneider,  "Dick and Jane Meet Again;" Second Place Shayne Laughter, "The Valentine"
Short Fiction (Editor Gen Aris): First Place Stephanie Barbe Hammer, "Red"
Creative Nonfiction (Editor Dorothy Staley): First Place Gina Warren, "A Sparrow;" Second Place Samantha Claire Updegrave, "Canoe"
Poetry (Editor Eldon Turner): First Place Carolyne Wright, "Sestina: Into Shadow;" Second Place Karen Majorowicz, "(sens of plas)"

2014
Fiction (Editor Gen Aris): First Place Charlotte M. Porter, "Pangs;" Second Place Jim Fairhall, "The Night Baker on Firebase Arsenal"
Creative Nonfiction (Editor Dorothy Staley): First Place Melani "Mele" Martinez, "Burned;" Second Place JL Schneider, "Man in a Bag"
Poetry (Editor E.R. Turner): First Place Julia Wagner, "Coming to Center;" Second Place Richard King Perkins II, "Distillery of the Sun"

2015
Fiction (Editor Shellie Zacharia): First Place Ellen Perry, "Milk--Bread--Soft Drinks;" Second Place Debra A. Daniel, "Assisted Living Home"
Creative Nonfiction (Editor Dorothy Staley): First Place Kaye Linden, "The Linear and Circular One Sentence of Tattoo Designs;" Second Place Michael Kite, "Memories of a Honeymoon and Milk Carton"
Poetry (Editor Gen Aris): First Place Diane Stone, "Local Weather;" Second Place Justin Hunt, "Autumn, Huntington Beach"

2016
Fiction (Editor U.R. Bowie): First Place Afia Atakora, "The Crooked Man;" Runner-Up Joseph Saling, "Eva"
Creative Nonfiction (Editor Rick Sapp): First Place Jessica Conoley, "I Am Descended from Giants;" Runner-Up Debra Burks Hori, "A Clothesline Meditation"
Poetry (Editor Kaye Linden): First Place Carolyne Wright, "Sestina: That mouth...;" Runner-Up Leslie Anne Mcilroy, "Big Bang"

2017
Fiction (Editor U.R. Bowie): Chad W. Lutz, "Ignis Fatuus, and More, at Eleven"
Flash Story (Editor Kaye Linden): Charlotte M. Porter, "Terminal Trance"
Creative Nonfiction (Editor Susie H. Baxter): Raphael Kosek, "Caregiver's Journal: How to Survive, or Not"
Poetry (Editor J.N. Fishhawk): Claire Scott, "A Mote of Dust"

2018
Short Story (Editor Kaye Linden): Dean Gessie, "Nobody Knows How Much You Love Him"
Creative Nonfiction (Editor Susie H. Baxter): Roberta Marstellar, "I Said No"
Prose Poetry (Editor Kaye Linden): Cynthia A. Roby, "U-Turn"
Poetry (Editor J.N. Fishhawk): Patrick Synan, "Outside the Clinic"

2019
Fiction (Editor Mary Bast): Avra Margariti,"The Calligrapher"
Creative Nonfiction (Editor Susie H. Baxter): Hugh E. Suggs, "From One Field to Another"
Mixed Genre (Editor Kaye Linden): Jeff Streeby, "A Brindle Bull, After Kuòān Shīyuǎn"
Haiku (Editor Kaye Linden): Michael Dylan Welch, "Shēngxiào / 生肖"
Poetry (Editor J.N. Fishhawk): Raphael Kosek, "When the saints come among us"