Winning Work

Read "By Any Other Name" by Bron Bateman, a poem about identity, familial love, and identity.

Read "Autogynepygmaliac" by Val Cossey, a poem about self-love, expression, and exploration.

Our Gender Trouble finalist is a hybrid work. Look to the footnotes for an exploration of gender dynamics and fraught roles.

Read "Keloid," our third-place finalist: a story about what we can still do when there is nothing else to be done.

Our second-place finalist is an intimate poem that explores the wounds of war that never truly heal before being opened again.

Our History Repeating finalist, "Patch Notes for the End of the World," is a hybrid piece that uses software patch notes to catalogue generational trauma—and how the cycle is broken.

"Countdown" follows the last few days of an astronaut’s time on Earth before attempting to save the world.

"Shine Early, Spring Salmon" is as reflective as it is somber, illustrating what we've lost while "The invaders are at the gates."

Our Silent Spring finalist, "Caddis,” navigates the way our natural world is tightly woven together—and what happens when it frays.