Can you feel the pride beaming from this blog post? This is perhaps my favorite news item to share each year—and also one of the hardest decisions we make.
The Pushcart Prize, as you may know, is one of the most coveted honors in literary publishing. And it all starts with a story, submitted to a magazine like ours. A Pushcart win is huge deal, but a nomination is a worthy accomplishment for emerging or established writers, too. Each year, Pushcart invites small press editors to nominate only a half-dozen stories, published within current year, to the annual contest. Pushcart publisher Bill Henderson and his team of editors will read through thousands of submissions and select the best of the best. The winning stories are published in the next annual edition of Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses.
In 2015, Hippocampus published about 150 pieces of creative nonfiction in its 12 issues. With input from our staff (through an internal nomination process), I narrowed down these hundred-plus stories to these six (listed in alphabetical order by writer’s last name):
- “Things in the Shape of Trailers” by John Yu Branscum (June)
- “Mapping the Body” by Jeanne Lyet Gassman (May)
- “Sand Dollars” by Wendy Fontaine (March)
- “The Sound of Ice” by Tyler Lacoma (November)
- “Until We Have Loved” by Jeanine Pfeiffer (November)
- “Object Lessons” by Carol Smith (November)
Please join me in congratulating John, Jeanne, Wendy, Tyler, Jeanine, and Carol. We’re honored that these fine writers submitted their moving, meaningful pieces to us, and we wish them the best of luck as our big manila envelope travels to the Pushcart headquarters, where its contents will be emptied, sorted and read.
-Donna Talarico
Founder/Publisher
