( a Press 53 Online Publication)
Welcome to Issue 233 of Prime Number Magazine, our first tri-annual issue of 2023! With this issue we begin our new schedule of bringing you new poetry and short fiction three times a year instead of four. This will give our guest editors a little more time to carefully read and consider the hundreds of submissions we receive for each issue. Submissions will be open the first two months of each quadrimester (Jan-Feb; May-Jun; Sept-Oct). As always, each issue will feature new guest editors for poetry and short fiction. Please send us your best work.
In this issue you will find the winners of our free, monthly 53-Word Story Contest for October, November, and December 2022, our Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2022, new poetry selected by Joseph Mills, new short fiction selected by Stephanie Carpenter, and an introduction of our guest editors for Issue 241, September-December 2023.
A note for our new readers: Prime Number Magazine has been publishing distinctive poetry and short fiction (with every issue number being a prime number) beginning with Issue 2 on July 17, 2010.
We hope you enjoy every word of this issue and that you will share our link with your friends. To begin your reading journey, scroll down and click on the author photos or the links (light blue type). Your escape has arrived!
But first, a quick message
Now Open for Entries!
2023 Prime Number Magazine Award for Poetry & Short Fiction
$1,000 First Prize in each category
Publication in Prime Number Magazine, Issue 241, Sept-Dec 2023
Deadline: March 31, 2023
Congratulations to Our Nominees
for the 2023 Pushcart Prize!
Each year, small presses can nominate up to six pieces they published that year (2022) for a Pushcart Prize. Please join us in celebrating our 2023 nominees.
Short Fiction: “Nocturne” by John Fulton (Issue 223, April-June 2022)
53-Word Story Contest
A free, monthly writing competition. Join our email list to get your prompt on the first day of each month.
Write a 53-word story about (prompt)
Then send your story by the fifteenth (15th) day of the month to 53wordstory@gmail.com
October (potential): “Sourdough” by Jordan Hua
November (a tree): “He Never Asked Me What I Wanted” by Madeleine McDonald
December (nonsense): “Ineptias Verba” by Sheri Holden-Peck
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 and their selections for Issue 229, October-December 2022.
GUEST EDITOR FOR POETRY
Joseph Mills
Joseph Mills has published seven collections of poetry with Press 53, most recently, Bodies in Motion, poems about dancing. His collection, This Miraculous Turning, was awarded the North Carolina Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry for its exploration of race and family. He is on the faculty of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where he holds an endowed chair, the Susan Burress Wall Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities. Joseph says he made it through the first part of the pandemic by having Friday night dance parties with his family in their garage.
GUEST EDITOR FOR Short Fiction
Stephanie Carpenter
Stephanie Carpenter is the author of Missing Persons, winner of the 2017 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. A native of northern Michigan, Stephanie holds an MFA from Syracuse University and a PhD in Creative Writing and American Literature from the University of Missouri. Her prose has appeared in Witness, Nimrod, The Cossack Review, Big Fiction, The Crab Orchard Review and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing and literature at Michigan Tech University, in the northernmost reaches of the Upper Peninsula.
Meet Our Guest Editors for Issue 241,
September-December 2023
(Submissions are open now through February 28 at Submittable)
Guest Poetry Editor
Lindsey Royce’s poems have been published in many journals, including Aeolian Harp #8, #7 and #5; Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts; The Hampden-Sydney Review; The New York Quarterly; Poet Lore, and Washington Square Review. Her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Royce’s first poetry collection was Bare Hands (Word Tech, 2016), and her second collection, Play Me a Revolution (Press 53, 2019), won second prize in the Independent Publishers Book Awards. The Book of John (Press 53, 2023), her third collection, is dedicated to her husband, John Kevin Bouldin, who died young from stomach cancer. It is Royce’s tribute to him and to those we all love.
Visit Lindsey’s Press 53 author page and read a poem from The Book of John and Play Me a Revolution.
Guest Short Fiction Editor
Steve Mitchell, a writer and journalist, has published in CRAFT Literary, entropy, december magazine, Southeast Review, among others. His novel, Cloud Diary, is published by C&R Press. His book of short stories is The Naming of Ghosts from Press 53. He is a winner of the Curt Johnson Prose Prize and the Lorian Hemingway International Short Story Prize. He has a deep belief in the primacy of doubt and an abiding conviction that great wisdom informs very bad movies. He’s co-owner of Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Editor at Scuppernong Editions. Find him at: www.clouddiary.org
Visit Steve’s Press 53 author page and read a story from The Naming of Ghosts.
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 continuing with all issues in prime numbers