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
Charles Norman, “How Should I Look?”
Second Place
Christopher Myers, “Tell Me the Story Again About the Frogs, and the Seeds”
Third Place
Frederic Bertoff, “Chessman’s Lunch”
Dawson Prize
Brian M. Batchelor, “The Destitute”
Honorable Mentions
Randy Gometz, “Kite to Kierkegaard”
James Chris Hubbard, “What She Knows”
Donald Lee Swackhammer, “Pirouette”
FICTION
First Place
Scott Gutches, “Siddhartha’s Loop”
Second Place
Third Place
Dawson Prize
Denis Martinez, “Catching the Setting Sun”
Honorable Mentions
Ezekiel Caligiuri, “The Purple Horizon: A Short Story about Dying”
Michael Romero, “A Day in the Life of a Prisoner”
MEMOIR
First Place
Ezekiel Caligiuri, “The Last Visit from the Girl in the Willow Tree”
Second Place
Third Place
Terrence Sampson, “Planted in Concrete”
Honorable Mentions
Jason Cooper, “Bringer of Fire”
Burl N. Corbett, “My Father’s Violin”
Leonard Scovens, “How I Became My Father”
ESSAY
First Place
Atif Rafay, “Bleak Housing and Black Americans”
Second Place
Greg Goodman, “Seven Thousand Yesterdays”
Third Place
Dawson Prize
Julian Conception, “Beauty”
Honorable Mentions
John Adams, “Commissary Day”
Joseph Dole, “Illinois Abolishes Death Penalty”
William Steed Kelley, “The Stew of Discontent”
Drama
First Place
Robert Weaver, “Somewhere Between”
Second Place
Third Place
Dawson Prize
Christopher Myers, “The Marvel of the World”
Honorable Mentions
Keith Sanders, “Little Sunshine”