Welcome to our 11th Anniversary issue of Prime Number Magazine! In this special issue you’ll find information on three writing competitions: our FREE annual “Prime 53 Poem” Summer Challenge; the PNM Flash Fiction Prize; and the 2022 Press 53 Award for Poetry. Oh, and one more contest: read the winners of our FREE monthly 53-Word Story Contest that draws more than a thousand entries each month from around the world (get your prompt and enter this month’s contest). We have poetry selections from guest editor Faith Shearin; short fiction selections from guest editor Jen McConnell; a new feature, the Press 53 Spotlight, showcasing in this issue short fiction from co-founder and former managing editor of Prime Number Magazine, Clifford Garstang; poetry from our inaugural poetry editor, Valerie Nieman; short fiction from Marjorie Hudson from her best-selling collection Accidental Birds of the Carolinas; and poetry from Smile, or Else by Chanel Brenner, winner of the 2021 Press 53 Award for Poetry. We will also introduce our guest editors for Issue 211 of Prime Number Magazine, Jan-Mar 2022: LaWanda Walters and Michael Beadle. Send them a poem and/or short story!
We hope you enjoy every word of this issue and that you will share our link with your friends. To see all of this, scroll down and click on the images or the light blue links to get started on your reading journey. Your escape has arrived!
Contests Now Open!
Open until August 31, a FREE contest for a poetry form invented by Press 53 editors, with our top four picks published in Issue 199 on October 1. Details here
Open now till August 31: Reading fee: $11. First Prize $251; Second Prize: $151; Third Prize $53, plus publication for all three in Issue 199 on October 1. Details here
Deadline: July 31. We’re looking for an outstanding, unpublished poetry collection. Reading fee: $30. Winner receives publication, a $1,000 advance, and 50 copies. Details here
Read these winners of our FREE monthly
53-Word Story Contest
It's free, it's fun; the winner gets published in Prime Number Magazine and receives a free book from Press 53.
Get the new prompt for this month’s competition here.
Prompt for our winners below in parentheses: Write a 53-word story about (_____)
April (something tasty): “That Awkward First Kiss” by Paul Adam Short
May (a sentence): “What Defines You” by Angel Pritts
June (a whistle): “I Can Do It with My Eyes Shut” by Audrey Lindsay
Guest Editors' Selections
Each issue, we ask our guest editors to select their favorite poems or stories from those submitted during our open submission period. Submissions are free and only accepted through Submittable. Here are the guest editors for Issue 197, July-September 2021. Submissions are now open, July-August for Issue 211, to be published January 1, 2022.
Guest Editor for Poetry
Faith Shearin
Faith Shearin is the author of Lost Language (Press 53) and six previous books of poetry: The Owl Question (May Swenson Award); The Empty House; Moving the Piano; Telling the Bees; Orpheus, Turning (Dogfish Poetry Prize); and Darwin’s Daughter. She has received awards from Yaddo, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Recent work has been featured on The Writer’s Almanac and included in “American Life in Poetry.”
Guest Editor for Short Fiction
Jen McConnell
Jen McConnell is a fiction writer who dabbles in poetry. Welcome, Anybody is her debut collection of short stories. Her work has recently appeared or is upcoming in Sledgehammer Lit, Hindsight Magazine, The Louisville Review, Reflex Press, What Rough Beast and Vagabonds. She’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and awarded a grant from the Greater Columbus Arts Council. Currently, she serves as Creative Nonfiction Editor and Co-Fiction Editor for The Bookends Review. A California native, she earned her MFA from Goddard College in Vermont and now toils by day as a corporate copywriter in the Midwest.
New Feature!
Beginning with this issue, Prime Number Magazine will showcase four authors from our publisher, Press 53. Our intent is to introduce our readers to more great writing, and to help our publisher find more readers for these writers and their books. We hope you enjoy this new feature and will give these authors a few moments of your time.
Featured Writers for Issue 197
Meet Our Guest Editors for Issue 211,
January-March 2022
(Submissions are open now through August 31 at Submittable)
LaWanda Walters
Guest Editor for Poetry
Michael Beadle
Guest Editor for Short Fiction
Get to know our guest editors!
Read a poem from LaWanda and a story from Michael, and then read their bios.
prime number
: any integer other than 0 or ± 1 that is not divisible without remainder by any other integers except ± 1 and ± the integer itself (Merriam-Webster's Dictionary)
In literature: poetry and prose that is distinctive and unique (Prime Number Magazine)
Prime Number Magazine is a Press 53 publication, founded by Clifford Garstang and Kevin Morgan Watson on July 17, 2010, beginning with Issue 2, and following with all issues in prime numbers