“A moving and powerful story about sisterhood, grief, loss, and picking up the pieces without completely losing one’s self.”—Edwidge Danticat, 2016 Kore Press Short Fiction Award Judge
Leticia del Toro is a California poet and short story writer with roots in Jalisco, Mexico. Her work has appeared in Huizache, Zyzzyva, Cipactli and Mutha Magazine, among others. She earned an M.A. in English from the University of California Davis and has attended the Voices of Our Nations Arts program. Her awards and honors include a Hedgebrook Residency for Women Authoring Change, a fellowship from the New York State Summer Writers Institute and the 2016 Rona Jaffe Scholars Award in fiction to attend Bread Loaf.
Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Create Dangerously , andClaire of the Sea Light. She is also the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, Haiti Noir and Haiti Noir 2. She has written five books for children and young adults, Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou , and Mama’s Nightingale, as well as a travel narrative, After the Dance. Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She is a 2009 MacArthur fellow. Her most recent books is Untwine, a young adult novel. (photo by Jonathan Demme).
THANK YOU TO EDWIDGE DANTICAT, TO ALL THE READERS, AND TO THE WRITERS WHO SUBMITTED!
Congratulations to the finalists!
Linda Downing Miller, for her story, “In Response to Threat”
“The first line of this story draws you in immediately then takes you to the most unusual and wonderfully surprising place. This writer takes a sad and distressing subject and makes it funny, poignant, and eye opening. This writer’s range is outstanding as is her story.”
Linda Downing Miller’s short stories have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Fiction International, and Fifth Wednesday Journal. She earned an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and teaches creative writing in Chicago at the Center for Life and Learning, the Newberry Library, and elsewhere. She lives in Oak Park, Illinois.
Francesca Momplaisir, for her story, “An Unimaginable Stillness”
“The unimaginable stillness of the title is actually felt in our hearts after reading this incredible short story. The characters are so vivid that we feel we know them. This story is stirring at every turn with its many layers and depth. An impressive short story about an extraordinary moment and its lingering aftermath.”
Francesca Momplaisir is a Haitian-born writer and multilingual literature scholar who has published fiction and poetry in both English and her native Haitian Kreyol. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, the University of Oxford in England, and New York University including a PhD in African and African diaspora literature as an NYUMcCracken fellow. She continues work on a novel she researched under a Fulbright fellowship in Ghana. She is a proud single mother of two precious sons and lives in New Jersey.