Announcing the Winner and Finalists
for the 2024 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction!

For this year’s competition, we received 222 manuscripts from writers in 39 states and the District of Columbia. Our judge, Press 53 short fiction editor Claire V. Foxx took it down to the wire selecting her First Prize winner and six finalists. We thank everyone who entered and encourage you all to keep writing, submitting, and building readership for your work.

First Prize

I Think I'll Stay Here Forever by George Choundas of Pleasantville, New York

Claire’s comment: So many books tend either toward skepticism or sentimentality — sincerity is rare. These stories are sincere in the best sense of the word: thoughtfully told with genuine pathos that resonates in both the heart and the head of the reader, never forcing us to choose one or the other. What a refreshing reminder that fiction can be complex without being overly complicated; this is the quick-striking, thought-provoking subtlety of a great short story.

About our winner: George Choundas is a Cuban- and Greek-American, a former FBI agent, and an NEA Creative Writing Fellow. He has published a book of essays (Until All You See Is Sky, winner of the EastOver Prize for Nonfiction) and a book of stories (The Making Sense of Things. winner of the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize). He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee with work in over seventy-five publications, including The Best Small Fictions. His Greek great-grandfather, a fisherman, was murdered by pirates off Aegina. His Cuban great-grandfather, a lumberjack, was killed by a tree off perpendicular by several accelerating degrees.

As our winning manuscript, I Think I’ll Stay Here Forever will be published by Press 53 on May 3, 2025, at which time George will receive a $1,000 advance and 53 copies of his book.

Claire also named six finalists, listed here in alphabetical order by last name:

One Extremity Too Many: Stories by Jacob M. Appel of New York, NY

Soft Goodbyes Through Broken Veils by Clayton Bradshaw of The Plains, OH

The Roof of the World and Other Stories by Liang Guo of Fairfax, VA

The Unraveling by Paul Hiatt of Friday Harbor, WA

An Uprising by Michael Pikna of Aurora, CO

River in the House by Tracy Winn of Concord, MA

Everyone at Press 53 congratulates George and each of our six finalists. Thank you again to everyone who entered our 2024 competition, and for making Claire’s task of reading and judging all 222 manuscripts so difficult.

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The 2025 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction
Will Open for Entries September 1 - December 31

Judged by Claire V. Foxx, Press 53 Short Fiction Editor

The Press 53 Award for Short Fiction is awarded annually to an outstanding, unpublished short story collection. This competition is open to any writer age 18 or older, regardless of his or her publication history, provided the manuscript is written in English and the author lives in the United States or one of its territories.

Award: The winner of this contest will receive publication by Press 53, a $1,000 cash advance and 53 copies of the book; all prizes will be awarded upon publication. ​

Reading fee: A reading fee of $30 must be paid for each entry. Reading fees are nonrefundable. ​

Dates for submission: Enter September 1 through December 31, 2023 ​

How to Enter:
Online via Submittable, your online submissions manager

By US MAIL: to enter by mail, send one printed copy of your manuscript (please follow guidelines below), a cover sheet with the title, your name, and contact information, and a check or money order for the $30 reading fee (payable to Press 53), and mail to:

Press 53
560 N Trade St, Ste 103
Winston-Salem, NC 27101

Announcement of winner: The winner of the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction will be announced no later than May 3, 2024 to all entrants by way of Submittable and on the Press 53 website, Facebook, Twitter, and via email to our subscribers. A list of finalists will also be announced at that time. ​

Confirmation of entry: Confirmation of receipt of your entry will be sent via e-mail by Submittable immediately after submission. ​ For mailed entries, please include a stamped postcard or self-addressed stamped envelope, otherwise we will notify you of receipt by email.

Multiple submissions: Writers may submit multiple story collections. A separate reading fee is required for each entry. ​

Judging: Claire V. Foxx, Press 53 Short Fiction Editor, will be the only judge for the competition; the story collections will be judged “blind” and judged solely on the strength of the stories as a collection, and the winning collection will be published by Press 53. The judge’s decision is final. Please note: due to the volume of entries, feedback or critique on individual stories or the collection is not possible. ​

Eligibility: The competition is open to manuscripts written in the English language from writers 18 years of age and older, regardless of their publishing history, who live in the United States or one of its territories. Previously published stories may be (and probably should be) included in the collection. ​

Ineligibility: Previously published story collections, including self-published collections available in print or ebook, are not eligible. Individuals who work for Press 53 or have published a book with Press 53 are not eligible to enter. ​

Story Collection Guidelines (please read carefully):
1. Manuscripts should contain a collection of short stories, which can include flash fiction, and may include one, and only one, novella (a story of 12,000 to 25,000 words is our definition of a novella).
2. Manuscript must include a table of contents with page numbers. The stories should be double-spaced with pages numbered and set in a standard 12-point font (such as Times New Roman, Minion, Garamond, etc.).
3. Manuscript should be around 100 to no more than 250 pages in length. We do not favor one length over the other. Stories previously published in magazines, journals, and elsewhere can be (a probably should be) included in the manuscript.
4. The author's name should not appear on the manuscript. If submitting online, we will find your contact information via Submittable after the winner has been selected. If submitting by mail, please include a cover sheet with the title, your name, and contact information.
5. An acknowledgments page for previous publications of stories in the collection is not necessary.

​Any questions or concerns, other than technical issues with the submissions manager, please contact Editor@Press53.com ​

Submissions for the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction will open September 1, 2023 and will close at midnight Eastern Time on December 31, 2023. Press 53 reserves the right to extend the deadline.

Meet our winner and runner-up of the
2023 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction

This year we received 248 manuscripts from writers in 43 states and the District of Columbia. This year, judge and Press 53 short fiction editor, Claire V. Foxx named a First Prize winner, a Runner-Up (both receiving publication), and five Finalists.

First Prize

Shannon Robinson was named our First Prize winner for The Ill-Fitting Skin.

Judge’s comment: The Ill-Fitting Skin‘s layering of surreal and straightforward storytelling makes this collection an extraordinarily realistic read, in the sense that we all know even the most solid realities of life (and death) tend to blur and shimmer at their raw edges. The talkative bird that nests in a woman’s womb is as real as the "previous tenant"; the love of a mother for her uncontrollable son is as real as the wildness that is in her, and is her, too. The women of The Ill-Fitting Skin are real women—who work and grieve and create and destroy, who love and do not love, whether at the roll of the dice or because "the pages are paths, and you will have to choose among them."

Shannon Robinson's work has appeared in Gettysburg Review, Iowa Review, Water-Stone Review, Nimrod, Joyland, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in fiction from Washington University in St. Louis, and in 2011 she was the Writer-in-Residence at Interlochen Center for the Arts. Other honors include the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts, a Hedgebrook Fellowship, a Sewanee Scholarship, and an Independent Artist Award from the Maryland Arts Council. Currently, she teaches creative writing and pedagogy at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore with her husband and son.

The Ill-Fitting Skin will be published by Press 53 on May 3, 2024, at which time Shannon will received a $1,000 advance and 53 copies of her book.

Runner-Up

Garrett Ashley was named Runner-Up for Periphylla, and Other Deep Ocean Attractions.

Judge’s comment: The author of Periphylla, and Other Deep Ocean Attractions has an ear for language and an eye for the strangely beautiful, as great science fiction writers do. Without relying on tropes or gimmicks of genre writing, Periphylla, and Other Deep Ocean Attractions delivers reincarnation, zombification, and genetic modification with a piercing self-awareness that invites us both to chuckle at the absurd and to notice, in all seriousness, that what we might call "fantasy" often tells the truest story.

Garrett Ashley lived most of his life in Mississippi, and at the beginning of the pandemic finished his Ph.D. at the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Writers. His work has appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, The Normal School, Sonora Review, Analog SF&F, DIAGRAM, Reed Magazine, and Sequestrum, among other places. His story collection, Before the Snakes Came, was recently a finalist for the 2022 Moon City Press Short Fiction Award. He now lives in Alabama, where he teaches creative writing at Tuskegee University.

Periphylla, and Other Deep Ocean Attractions will be published by Press 53 on May 3, 2024, at which time Garrett will receive a $500 advance and 53 copies of his book.

Congratulations to our Finalists!

(alphabetical by title)

The Church of Divine Electricity by Emily Mitchell of Silver Spring, Maryland

The Existence of the Opposite by Robert Shuster of Bedford, New York

House of Horrors by Robert Long Foreman of Kansas City, Missouri

Invisibilia by Tom Howard of Arlington, Virginia

Shark Patrol by Tim Fitts of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

We send a big thank you to everyone who sent us their manuscripts for this competition. Narrowing 248 collections of stories down to a few is a difficult task that requires a lot of time and dedication. The above-mentioned titles all received more than one complete read through before Claire made her final selections. We hope you will join us in congratulating these authors, and we hope you will continue to send us your stories.

Winner and Finalists for the
2022 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction Announced!

Shena McAuliffe of Schenectady, New York, has been named winner of the 2022 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction for her story collection We Are a Teeming Wilderness, selected by Press 53 short fiction editor Claire Foxx. Shena will receive a $1,000 advance and 53 copies of We Are a Teeming Wilderness when it is published by Press 53 on May 3, 2023.

Judge’s comment
Claire V. Foxx, short fiction editor for Press 53, says, “We Are a Teeming Wilderness is the rare book that belongs both on the high shelf of the connoisseur and at the top of the stack on anyone's bedside table. These stories imagine the past with a keen awareness of the present, and vice versa. The result is a collection of characters—from microorganisms to hosiery salesmen to clairvoyants—who are bizarre, familiar, pathological, comic, sympathetic, foolish, and wise, sometimes all at once. Reading to escape, I found myself transported to near and distant pasts and speculative realities. Reading to learn, I found myself captivated by anthropologies at once historical, mythic, scientific, and intimately personal. Reading to enjoy, I had a plain good time; whatever readers are looking for when they pick up these stories, they’ll find more than they expect, which is the wonderful surprise of any great book.”

About our winner
Shena McAuliffe is the author The Good Echo: A Novel (Black Lawrence Press 2018), and a Glass Light Electricity: Essays (University of Alaska, 2020). Her short stories and essays have been published in Conjunctions, Black Warrior Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. She earned a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah, and an MFA in Fiction Writing at Washington University in St. Louis. She grew up in Wisconsin and Colorado, and now lives in Schenectady, New York, where she is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Assistant Professor of English at Union College.

Claire V. Foxx named the following manuscripts as finalists
Fly Fishing with God by Andrew Bertaina of Washington, DC

Curiosities by Ben Black of San Jose, California

When I Was a Stranger: Stories by David Crouse of Lake Forest Park, Washington

Why Shit Is Still Like This Around Here and Probably Always Will Be by Molia Dumbleton of Evanston, Illinois

Highwire Act & Other Stories of Survival by JoeAnn Hart of Gloucester, Massachusetts

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Thank You!

Press 53 received 307 manuscripts from writers in 39 states and the District of Columbia. We would like to thank all of these writers for sending us their story collections. As always, the quality of manuscripts was high, making the judging process difficult. Reading and considering so many story collections take a lot of time and concentration, so we thank everyone for giving Claire Foxx the time required to make her selections. We wish everyone much success in their writing, and we hope to read more of your stories in the future.

Past Winners of the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction