( a Press 53 Online Publication)

Welcome to Prime Number Magazine, Press 53’s online, tri-annual literary journal. In this issue we feature our winners and runners-up of the 2023 Prime Number Magazine Awards for Poetry and Short Fiction; winners of our free 53-Word Story Contest for the months of May, June, July, and August; poetry selections from guest poetry editor Lindsey Royce; story selections from guest short fiction editor Steve Mitchell; and we introduce our guest editors for Issue 257, May-August 2024.

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 links (light blue type) to get started on your reading journey. Your escape has arrived!

But first we’d like to make the following announcement….

The 2024 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction is now open for entries

We’re looking for an outstanding, unpublished collection of short stories, judged by Press 53 short fiction editor Claire V. Foxx

First Prize earns publication, a $1,000 advance, and 53 copies

Complete details on the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction page

Winners of the
2023 Prime Number Magazine Awards
for Poetry & Short Fiction

Poetry Judge

Felicia
Mitchell

Short Fiction
Judge

DENNIS
MCFADDEN

Poetry First Prize ($1,000): “Only in the Poem” by Fred Gallagher

Short Fiction First Prize ($1,000): “Tea with the Queen” by Jasmine Sawers

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

Get your prompt for this month’s contest here

The prompts for our winning stories below are (in parentheses)

July (a combination): “Rice & Ice” by Kane Williams

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 241, September-December 2023.

GUEST EDITOR FOR POETRY

Lindsey Royce

Lindsey Royce’s newest collection of poems is The Book of John, dedicated to her husband, John Kevin Bouldin, who died young from stomach cancer. Lindsey’s poems have been published in many journals, including Aeolian Harp; Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts; The New York Quarterly; Poet Lore; and Washington Square Review. Her poems have been nominated for numerous Pushcart Prizes. Royce’s first poetry collection, Bare Hands, was published in 2016 by Turning Point; Play Me a Revolution, her second collection, was published by Press 53 in 2019 in their Silver Concho Poetry Series, edited by Pamela Uschuk and William Pitt Root.

Guest Editor for Short Fiction

Steve Mitchell

Steve Mitchell, a writer and journalist, has published in CRAFT Literary, entropy, december magazine, and 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 his website.

Meet Our Guest Editors for Issue 257,
May-August 2024

(Submissions are open now through October 31 at Submittable)

Guest Poetry Editor Anna Elkins’ debut poetry collection, Hope of Stones, was published in 2020 by Press 53 in their Immersion Series edited by Christopher Forrest. Hope of Stones won the 2021 Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry (Oregon Book Awards), and was judged by Tyree Daye. Anna is a traveling poet and painter. She earned a BA in English and art and an MFA and Fulbright Fellowship in poetry. She has written, painted, and taught on six continents, publishing her writing and exhibiting her art along the way. She has illustrated books by others and authored several books of her own. Anna also teaches classes in the crossroads of art + word + spirit, and one of her greatest joys is encouraging people to discover and delve into their creativity. (Author photo by Howard Romero)

Visit Anna’s Press 53 author page and sample a poem from Hope of Stones.

Guest Short Fiction Editor Dennis McFadden, a retired project manager, lives and writes in a cedar-shingled cottage called Summerhill in the woods of upstate New York. His collection Jimtown Road: A Novel in Stories, won the 2016 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. His first collection, Hart’s Grove, was published by Colgate University Press in 2010; another collection, Lafferty, Looking for Love, was longlisted for Regal House Publishing’s 2021 W.S. Porter Prize. His novel, Old Grimes Is Dead, earned a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, and was selected by their editors as one of the Best Indie Books of 2022. Over a hundred of his stories have appeared publications such as The Missouri Review (including the winner of the 2023 Perkoff Prize in fiction), New England Review, The Sewanee Review, Crazyhorse, The Antioch Review, Arts & Letters, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, The Best American Mystery Stories, and in the inaugural volume of the new series, The Best Mystery Stories the Year 2021. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he was awarded a Fellowship at the MacDowell Colony in 2018. Visit Dennis’s Press 53 author page and download the title story from Jimtown Road: A Novel in Stories.

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