(A Press 53 Online Publication)
Issue 263, September-December 2024
Welcome to Issue 263 of Prime Number Magazine! In this, our third and final issue of the year, we offer you our winners of the 2024 Press 53 Award for Poetry and Short Fiction, the winners of our free, monthly 53-Word Story Contest, the winners of our free, annual Prime 53 Poem Summer Challenge, plus poetry selected by guest poetry editor Michael Beadle and short fiction selected by guest short fiction editor, and co-founder of Prime Number Magazine, Clifford Garstang. We are also now open for submissions for Issue 271 with guest poetry editor Howard Faerstein, and guest short fiction editor Dennis McFadden. They are waiting to read your work. Submission close on October 31 at midnight Eastern.
Prime Number Magazine has been publishing distinctive poetry and short fiction, beginning with Issue 2 on July 17, 2010 (every issue is a prime number).
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
The 2025 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction is now open for entries
We’re looking for an outstanding, unpublished collection of short stories. Judged by Claire V. Foxx, Press 53 Short Fiction Editor
First Prize: Publication, $1,000 advance, 53 copies
Deadline: December 31
Winners of the
2024 Prime Number Magazine Awards
for Poetry & Short Fiction
This competition runs yearly, January-March
Our Judges
Poetry: Maya J. Sorini, author of The Boneheap in the Lion’s Den, winner of the 2023 Press 53 Award for Poetry
Short Fiction: Dennis McFadden, author of Jimtown Road: A Novel in Stories, winner of the 2016 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction
Our 2024 Winners
Winners of our FREE, monthly
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)
Send your story by the fifteenth (15th) day of the month to 53wordstory@gmail.com
Winners of the
2024 Prime 53 Poem
Summer Challenge
A free, annual contest for writers around the world for a new poetry form that contains eleven lines, a rhyme pattern, and 53 syllables, judged by co-inventor and Press 53 poetry editor Christopher Forrest
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 263, September-December 2024.
GUEST EDITOR FOR POETRY
Michael Beadle
Michael Beadle is a poet, author and writer-in-residence living in Raleigh, North Carolina. For the past twenty-five years, he’s taught poetry and creative writing workshops across the state, and performed poetry at schools, churches and festivals. He’s the author of several poetry collections, including Beasts of Eden (Press 53). His poems have appeared in journals such as Kakalak, River Heron Review, and the Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol. VII: North Carolina.
GUEST EDITOR FOR Short Fiction
Clifford Garstang
Clifford Garstang is the co-founder and former managing editor of Prime Number Magazine. He is the author of the Press 53 story collections House of the Ancients and Other Stories; In an Uncharted Country; and What the Zhang Boys Know: A Novel in Stories, winner of the Library of Virginia Award for Fiction. He is also the editor of the three-volume anthology series from Press 53, Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, and the author of the novels, The Shaman of Turtle Valley (Braddock Avenue Books) and Oliver’s Travels (Regal House Publishing).
Meet Our Guest Editors for Issue 271, May-Aug 2025
GUEST EDITOR FOR POETRY
Howard Faerstein’s debut poetry collection, Dreaming of the Rain in Brooklyn, was published by Press 53 in 2013 as part of their Silver Concho Poetry Series, edited by Pamela Uschuk and William Pitt Root. In 2018, his second collection, Googootz and Other Poems was published. His work can be found in numerous journals including Great River Review, Nimrod, CutThroat: A Journal of the Arts, Off the Coast, Rattle, upstreet, Mudfish, Gris-Gris, Peacock Journal, and Connotation.
Visit Howie’s Press 53 author page to sample a poem from Dreaming of the Rain in Brooklyn
Guest Editor for Short Fiction
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. Over a hundred of his stories have appeared in 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 of the Year 2021.
Visit Dennis’s Press 53 author page to sample a 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 online 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