2008 Fiction Contest Winners

Perigee is pleased to announce the winners of our 2008 Fiction Contest:

First Place
Jessie Aufiery, for “Somewhere Along the Way”
Guest Judge Thomas E Kennedy says: "(This story) presents a kind of dystopian world, though one that seems to approximate where we live now—or some parts of it, or somewhere close by—as hip as it is well-written."


Second Place
Brian E. Drake, for "Some Places of Interest to the Anomalist"
Kennedy says: "An anomaly itself and a brief one, though impeccably written, unerringly errant, boldly odd, apparently meaningless, rippling with little jokes along its deadpan, tongue-in-cheeky surface, original and self-defining."


Third Place
Randy Susan Meyers, for "Sure Has Been a Long Time Since You Killed Mama"
Kennedy says: "An unsentimental handling of a situation which might have, but doesn't, collapse into the terrible emotions it contains."


Honorable Mention
Kevin P. Keating, for "In the Secret Parts of Fortune"
Kennedy says: "(This story is) memorable for its Gothic mood in modern dress."


Our thanks to all who entered, and to our Guest Judge Thomas E Kennedy. His clarity and wisdom helped make a difficult process manageable, and ensured the very best of a bright bunch of submissions rose to the top.

Congratulations to the winners! You can expect to receive a letter with your contest prize included within the month.

A list of finalists will be released on our blog in the coming days.

Mathias B. Freese Finalist for Awards

Perigee congratulates Mathias B. Freese for receiving an Independent Publisher Excellence Finalist Book Award for his story collection Down to a Sunless Sea, which is also a finalist for the Reader Views Literary Award as well as a finalist in the "popular fiction" category of the 2008 Arizona Book Awards, sponsored by the Arizona Book Publishing Association. For an in-depth study of Freese's brilliant book, please go to the January Perigee issue and click on REVIEWS.
Purchase Down to a Sunless Sea at Wheatmark Press

Perigee 2008 Fiction Judge Thomas E. Kennedy Wins Ellie Award

Our congratulations to Thomas E. Kennedy for winning the 2008 ELLIE, the most prestigious essay award in America.

BEST ESSAYS: This category recognizes excellence in essay writing on topics ranging from the personal to the political. Whatever the subject, emphasis should be placed on the author’s eloquence, perspective, fresh thinking and unique voice.

Winner: Thomas E. Kennedy’s essay, “I Am Joe’s Prostate,” from New Letters, was selected as the best essay published in an American magazine at the 43rd Annual National Magazine Awards on May 1, 2008. The awards are sponsored by The American Society of Magazine Editors.

Kennedy’s essay was one of six finalists that included work from The Atlantic, ELLE, Entertainment Weekly, Harper’s Magazine, and The New Yorker. Among the authors were Stephen King and Walter Kern, but Kennedy won.

Latest news from THE WASHINGTON POST: New Letters snagged the essay award for "I Am Joe's Prostate" by Thomas E. Kennedy. " 'I Am Joe's Prostate' steals its title from the 1950s Reader's Digest series, but Reader's Digest was never like this," the judges wrote. "Wince-inducing, outrageously honest and wickedly funny, Thomas E. Kennedy's account of his prostate-cancer scare is essay writing at its most original. Laugh the whole way through, then ponder the subtext of medical testing gone haywire."

Deadline: May 1st, 12:00 am CST

Perigee's 2008 Fiction Contest closes in just over 24 hours, at midnight when April becomes May. Be sure to get your stories submitted before this deadline for a chance at $600 in cash prizes, publication in our summer issue, and a Pushcart nomination.

Thomas E Kennedy has generously offered to serve as our guest judge for this competition. You can learn more about him at his website, and you can read some of his recent fiction from our 18th issue.

Contest guidelines are available here, where you can also submit instantly.

Jack Marshall Wins US and Canadian Competition

Results of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation's annual United States and Canadian competition have been announced. Among the award winners is Perigee's April 2008 Featured Poet Jack Marshall.

Jack Marshall has published twelve books of poetry, of which Sesame, 1993, was awarded the PEN Center West Award, a Pushcart Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Two other books, Arriving on the Playing Fields of Paradise, 1984, and Gorgeous Chaos; New & Selected Poems, 1965-2001, each won a Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. A collection of new poems, The Steel Veil, will be published by Coffee House Press in Fall, 2008. He has also published a memoir, From Baghdad to Brooklyn; Growing Up in a Jewish-Arabic Family in Midcentury America, from Coffee House Press, 2005, which was voted a finalist for the PEN Center Award in Creative Non-Fiction. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
 

5th Anniversary Issue

On April 15th Perigee is celebrating its 5th anniversary with an amazing 20th issue containing all new poetry, prose, and visual art. We are also featuring the 2007 Poetry Contest winners, and our recent Pushcart nominees. On top of all that, we've got new features and reviews, and we're wrapping up submissions to our 2008 Fiction Contest.

It will be a great issue, and one which we hope you will enjoy as much as our recent installments. Perigee is up to wondrous things these days, but it is only because of you, our readers, our writers.

Let us continue to celebrate.

Issue 20 Contents:

FICTION–
Cummins, Walter “Randy Andy and Mary Ella”
Drake, Brian E “Don Juan Eats Pastries in the Afternoon”
Drew, Cynthia “A Light in the Water”
Griswold, John “Goodbye, Young Man”
Jersild, Karen “Perfectly Aligned”
Kennedy, Thomas E. “Dancing with Mary Ella”
Marsh, A.R. “Charlie’s First Time”
McCall, Margo “Cabin Fever”
Memmott, David “The Dream Machine.” An Excerpt from Primetime.
Valentine, Neil A “Little Green Stream”

POETRY–
Acharya, Anirban “Drone”
Ahmed, Shurooq Amin "The Other Wife" (3rd place)
Barbere, Danny P “Taking Flowers”
Beach, Sandy “My Pillow: An Alba”
Beach, Sandy “Stillness”
Burchell, Graham “Day of the Dead”
Chaney, Gayla "Stranded Motorist" (2nd place)
Crisafi, Rosemarie “Everything Looks Different in a Carnival Mirror”
Crisafi, Rosemarie “Crows”
Eason, Haines “Four Walls”
Golberg, E. Laura “Lace”
Hilliard, Shanoa “8 Track Tapes and Vinyl Thoughts”
Holmes, Katherine L “Icarus October”
Millner, Jesse “Beyond Death”
Wallisky, Karen "Displacement" (1st Place)

VISUAL ART–
Maxwell, Thomas “Adrift in the Visage”
Wing, Steve “Patina 4”
Wing, Steve “Archangle 2”

MEMOIR–
Shaw, Kevin “The Play’s the Thing, or How I Learned to Act Like a Man in Little League”

NON-FICTION–
Brenna, Duff: Review of Prime Time, by David Memmott
Brenna, Duff: Review of The Other Chekhov, by Okla Elliott and Kyle Minor
Fellows, Sue “Sue’s Column”
Gover, Robert : Review of You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos, Book 1, by Robert R Arthur
Johnson, Greg “Oiling the Tinman’s Jaws: An Interview with David Memmott"
Mood, John “Rilke in American Pop Culture, Part One”
Storie, Jensea "Our Poetry Contest Judge Joseph Millar"


Stay tuned ... big things are in store.

2008 Fiction Contest Closing Soon!

Our 2008 Fiction Contest is closing soon! If you are planning to submit, you only have until the end of April to do so. Why bother? How about a Pushcart nomination, $600 in cash prizes, and publication in this summer's issue of Perigee.

We are honored to have Thomas E Kennedy serve as this year's guest judge.

Click here to read full guidelines and submit through our easy online process.