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

Parrish Chase, “Longings”

Hal Cobb, “Salsa Meditation”

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

Jeff Conner, “Fault”

Robert Fuentes, “Lessons”

 

Honorable Mentions

Keith Cole, “A Wonderful Thing”

Michael Moore, “Blood Brothers”

Christopher Myers, “Matthew”

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”

Charles P. Norman, “Escape Risk”

Robert Weaver, “The Secret of Sky”