Neutrino Short-Short Prize winner selected!

Passages North is pleased to announce the results of our first Neutrino Short-Short Prize. Final judge Connie Voisine has selected Sean Webb’s “Pigworks” as the winner and Jennifer Tseng’s “Seaside Resort in Wartime” for honorable mention. Both stories will be published in Issue 36 Passages North, due out in January 2015.

Connie Voisine, on why she selected “Pigworks”: Sean Webb dissolves the boundaries between the pigs who will be consumed and those consumed by their work. Set in the cold and wet afterworld of a pork processing plant, the disposable body is the subject of "Pigworks." "Can I fall into their mass, obliterate myself in the collective million of swine?" asks the speaker, whose own scars and pain remind him daily of his complicity. What forgiveness is there for him? When does his body, marked by this brutal labor, get to forget? Reading this, I am reminded what the short form can do—stun us with a vivid image, enter into a conflict, and leave us with wonderings that we might not have entertained before. At times blunt, operatic, and dirty, "Pigworks" risks much, makes me uncomfortable. Good work.

Congratulations to Sean and to Jennifer, and many thanks to everybody who submitted! Keep an eye out for an announcement to come about the winner of the Waasnode Fiction Prize.