Phyllis Grant Zellmer Prize for Fiction 2022
©2022 West Trade Review
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April 18, 2022
West Trade Review is happy to announce the results of the first annual Phyllis Grant Zellmer Prize for Fiction.
GRAND PRIZE ($1000 & publication in the spring 2023 print edition): Maria Alavrez ("Happiness and Other Found Objects")
María Isabel Álvarez is a first-generation Guatemalan-American writer. Her writing is published in Kenyon Review, Black Warrior Review, Sonora Review, and Gulf Coast, among other venues. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from The Elizabeth George Foundation, the Speculative Fiction Foundation, the Colgate Writers Conference, Yaddo, and Hedgebrook. She teaches at Binghamton University, where she is the Associate Director of Creative Writing.
"Mariá Álvarez's "Happiness and Other Found Objects" is sharp, smart, and gorgeous in its storytelling. Álvarez's narrator captivates from the beginning with her voice, her honesty, and her hunger for some kind of life beyond the one she watches play out around her. The lessons that pass between mother and daughter here are complicated, and sometimes flawed, and wholly human, and in the most wonderful of ways the story reminds us how often "more" is a transitory illusion. The fleeting beauty of being alive, knowledge we see passed from generation to generation, is ultimately all we have to offer one another." -Margaret Malone, Contest Judge
Look for Maria's story in the spring 2023 print edition of West Trade Review.
Honorable Mention: Jonathan Lindberg ("The Painter")
Jonathan Lindberg writes from a studio in Memphis. His most recent fiction has appeared in Concho River Review, Whitefish Review and Lakeshore Review, among others. He is an MFA Creative Writing candidate at Bennington College in Vermont.
"Jonathan Lindberg's beauty of a story "The Painter" knocked me out. Invited into the narrator's captivating, creative heart, we witness one man's artistic process seed and bloom before our eyes, and the result is enthralling. The language used to describe color and light built a wave of momentum, and the feeling the story left in its wake will stay with me for a long time to come." -Margaret Malone, Contest Judge
Look for Jonathan's story in the fall 2022 online edition of West Trade Review.
Honorable Mention: Stephenjohn Holgate ("Delroy and the Boys")
Stephenjohn was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica and moved to the UK when he was eight years old. After reading English Literature at Oxford University, he completed an MA in Classical Acting and worked as an actor for a number of years. He is a member of Writing West Midlands Room 204 development scheme and is one of the winners of the Bridport Prize’s first Black Writer’s Residency. He lives just outside of Birmingham and is currently tidying up some short stories and finishing a novel.
"A masterful job is done capturing the physical, emotional, and social tensions at play over the course of a single evening in Stephenjohn Holgate's "Delroy and the Boys." The narrator grabs us from the opening sentence and conveys a deep sense of place, character, tone, music, and mood using a narrative voice that somehow manages to be simultaneously lyrical, humorous, and evocative. Damn impressive storytelling." -Margaret Malone, Contest Judge
Look for Stephenjohn's story in the fall 2022 online edition of West Trade Review.
Margaret Malone is the author of the story collection People Like You, Finalist for the 2016 PEN/Hemingway Award and Winner of the Balcones Fiction Prize. Her work can be found at BOMB, The Missouri Review, The Rumpus, Oregon Humanities, and elsewhere. A co-host of the artist and literary gathering SHARE, Margaret lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband filmmaker Brian Padian and their two children.
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Contest Judge: Margaret Malone
