Every year, hundreds of imprisoned writers from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population. Manuscripts come to the Prison Writing Program in a variety of forms: Some are handwritten, some are typed, some are written in the margins of legal documents. Prizes of $250, $150, $100, $50, and $25 are awarded for first, second, third place, the Dawson Prize, and honorable mentions, respectively, in each of the following categories:
Poetry
First Place
Louis Templeman, “Villanelle to Pio”
Second Place
Christian J. Weaver, “Rehabilitation”
Third Place
Sarah Havely Edmondson, “The Apple”
Dawson Prize
Dana P.R. Schultze, “Feather”
Honorable Mentions
Edward Ramirez, “Diary”
B. Smith, “Lines”
Fiction
First Place
Jonathan C. Rosenbloom, “Terremoto”
Second Place
Robert McKown, “The Little Prisoner”
Third Place
John Steven Hallman, “Casine the Joint”
Dawson Prize
Honorable Mentions
Keith Cole, “A Wonderful Thing”
Michael Moore, “Blood Brothers”
Bill Williams, “Brother’s Peeper”
MEMOIR
First Place
Arthur Longworth, “Walla Walla IMU”
Second Place
Robert Hal Brame, “Runaway Justice”
Third Place
Chasity C. West, “Left Behind”
Dawson Prize
Martin Dawson, “As the Creamed Beef Goes…”
Honorable Mentions
Charles Harper, “A Chair Full of Ashes”
Joe Manning, “A Neighborhood Rite of Passage”
Johnny Ruffner, “Boo to a Goose”
ESSAY
First Place
Hal Cobb, “The Pursuit of Character”
Second Place
Markeithia R. Reevez, “Inmate Jane Doe”
Third Place
Robert Molloy, “Kentucky’s Shameful Statistics”
Honorable Mentions
Jermon R. Clark, “Voice of an Unheard Nation”
Samuel M. Daugherty, “Nature for the Nature Deprived”
Robert Garite, “Shimmers of Light”
DRAMA
First Place
Matthew G. Walker, “Not Guilty”
Second Place
Kenneth Milton, “Raw Bones (Live and Encaged!)”
Third Place
Fabian Ontiveros Flores, “Beasts of Autumn”
Dawson Prize
Marjorie Petersen, “10-Minute Shakespeare”
Honorable Mentions
Jeffrey Hamilton Montgomery, “Second Chance”