The results are in from our 2023 fiction contest!

First prize ($500) is awarded to Joshua Bell for “A Retired Witch.” Joshua is a poet with two published collections, No Planets Strike and Alamo Theory. His fiction has appeared in Bennington Review, Story, Ninth Letter, The Fabulist, and Black Telephone. His first novel, The Houseboat Veronica, is forthcoming next spring.

First runner-up is Ashley Whitaker for “Naked Man, Billboard, Fort Worth.” Ashley’s fiction has appeared in Tin House. She lives in Austin and is at work on a novel.

Our second runner-up is Jessie Li for “Mouth and Heart.” Jessie was born in Hong Kong. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere.

All of our prize winners will be published in StoryQuarterly 56, which will be out in late spring/early summer of 2024.

Many thanks to Emma Copley Eisenberg for judging. Emma is the author of The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia. Her debut novel, Housemates, will be out in 2024 and her short story collection, Fat Swim, is forthcoming in 2025.