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
Jack Vian, “I Shake the Sand from My Boots”

Second Place
Malcolm King, “Prisoner”

Third Place
John Byron Yarborough, “Dog Flips Burgers”

Dawson Prize
Joe R. Knight, “In the Infirmary and Outside the Kentucky State Penitentiary”

 

Honorable Mentions

Spoon Jackson, “No Moon”

Gary Hicks, “Banana”

Scott Walt, “Untitled”

 

FICTION

First Place

Gary Don Parks, “All Heaven’s Lights“

Second Place

Mark Smith, “The Last Run”

Third Place

Mario Vincent Perez, “Walls”

Dawson Prize

William Tyler III, “Man, The Island”

 

Honorable Mentions

William Perryman, “At Odds With Nature”

Paul Moran, “The Beast of Soledad Prison”

Joshua Hill (posthumous), “Champeen of the World”

 

MEMOIR

First Place

Micheal Ray Benét, “The Seeds”

Second Place

G. T. Carillo, “In Good Company”

Third Place

Jorge Antonio Renaud, “Mija”

Dawson Prize

Yvette N. Louisell, “The Glove Compartment”

 

Honorable Mentions

James Burns, “A Taste of Honey”

Raymond Simmons, “Tiger”

Keith D. Courville, “A Journey Back”

 

ESSAY

First Place

Steve Champion, “His Spirit Lives On: George E. Marshall, 1940-2001”

Second Place

J. C. Amberchele, “Freedom”

Third Place

Paul A. Moran, “Recycling Humanity”

 

Honorable Mentions

Stephen Fraley, “The Fallacy of Doing Your Bid as if it’s Not your Life”

José Boner, “Prison Poets”

G. Wilford Hathorn, “Trashcan Food and a Concrete Shithouse”

 

DRAMA

First Place
Curtis L. Easley, “Madness”

Second Place
Brendan Cochrane and Joseph Assadourian, “Joey Shakespeare”

Third Place

Kamau Bakari, “The Least Traveled Path”

Dawson Prize

Peter T. Paulson, “Tragedy and Basketball”

 

Honorable Mentions

J. P. Parnell, “One Isolated Day”

Tyrone Wyche, “Jailhouse Law”

Osvaldo Z. Gonzales, “The Price of Freedom”

 

Fielding Dawson Citations

Dawson Citation for a Body of Work

David Wood, “Kaddish”

Dawson Citation for Outstanding Achievement

William Hester, “Hero of the Quotidian”