“This was a tremendously difficult process. The best lingered with me for days—such raw truth, such emotion. A perfect display of what creative nonfiction can do.”
— Jay Varner, one of our three judges, on selecting a winner
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Hippocampus Magazine’s 2016 Remember in November Contest for Creative Nonfiction drew a record number of submissions, and, after months of reading, narrowing down, and tallying final scores from our guest judges, we’re pleased to share the contest results.
“Stunning.”
“Breathtaking.”
“Poetic.”
“Elegant.”
“Astonishing.”
Those were words mentioned in notes from reading panel members as they read the winning story for the first time.
Congratulations to Dina Honour, winner of this year’s contest for her essay “1001 Nights,” a story that truly stuck with us. We hope you, dear reader, enjoy it as much as we did.
Dina is an American writer living with her husband and two sons in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her work has appeared in Hippocampus, Paste, and Puchnel’s as well as on popular parenting and expatriate media sites.
Runner-up:
We’d like to congratulate Robert Rubino; his essay “Spinning Shame Into Nostalgia” is this year’s runner-up. One of our reading panel members called it “a powerhouse piece” and another called it “brave and unusual.”
Robert is a fiction and memoir writer who lives in Sebastopol, California. His short fiction appeared in Elysian Fields Quarterly from 2001-09. For more than 30 years he was an editor and columnist at daily newspapers
Finalists/Honorable Mentions:
We’d also like to recognize the following four writers; these stories touched us all.
- Elizabeth Miki Brina, “Arizabesu”
- Naomi Cohn, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bird”
- Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, “Advanced Placement”
- Robert Weinberger, “Enough”
Shortlisted Stories:
- A. Lyn Carol, “Glazed”
- Chelsey Clammer, “Re: Collection”
- Michael Fischer, “When Gloves Come Off”
- Amanda Fletcher, “California”
- Madhushree Ghosh, “When Indira Died”
- Eileen O’Connor, “The Fortuneteller”
- Shelby Meyerhoff, “Beneath the Floor”
- Gina Mulligan, “Becoming Jewish in Auschwitz”
- Jocelyn Pihlaja, “Twenty-Five”
- Catherine Raven, “On Plan!”
- Rachel Reed, “Rx: 60615”
- Allie Rowbottom, “Running Dance”
- Travis Truax, “Like a Riverbank”
Gratitude:
Running a contest like this could not be possible without a dedicated team of readers; so many members of our reading panel kick it up a notch during the contest period. A big thank you to our reading staff and copy editors for all of their hard work.
We’d like to especially thank our panel of guest judges this year: Jay Varner, Kathleen Frazier, and Carol Smith. We’re so grateful for the careful consideration you gave to our finalist stories.
To our readers, thank you for always being there for you. We hope you enjoy this contest issue as much as we do.
Congratulations to all of our finalists!
All the best,
Donna Talarico, founder and publisher, on behalf of the Hippocampus team
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