Neutrino Short-Short Prize winner and finalists announced!
Congratulations to Kelly Gray, the winner of this year’s Neutrino Short-Short Prize for her story, “A Note on Sex and Death on the Beach.”
Final judge jj peña on the winning story: I love flash that makes you feel like you’ve reached into an open mouth & pulled out a whisper. What lingers: the ecstasy of love, the truths we find in nature, the silences in joy, how our bodies are always trashing—a dance that we hope carries beyond us. I haven’t been able to stop hearing the living in this piece & that’s exactly what the story desires, for our remains to be beautiful,to persist, to speak. Truly fantastic.
Kelly Gray (she/her/hers) is the author of Instructions for an Animal Body (Moon Tide Press 2021), My Fingers are Whales and Other Stories of Cetology (Moon Child Press 2021), and Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Knife, Knife (Quarterly Press forthcoming). Recently, she has contributed poetry and story to Northwest Review, Newfound, Pithead Chapel, Harbor Review, Driftwood Press, BULL, Superstition Review, and elsewhere, while being thrilled to be a Best of the Net finalist and nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Gray often writes about parenting, eco-grief, mental health, dead things, monsters, prophetic animals, institutionalization, and rural life. You can read more of her work at writekgray.com or follow her @_west_of_west.
Congratulations as well to our Honorable Mentions:
“when I was fucking a lot of men when I was 19 and 20 (and 18, and 21) I was fully aware that it was partly because I loved sex and partly because—having grown up being told I am unlovable—I craved that feeling of being wanted, even for a few hours” by Paula Harris
“Fade into the Heavy Downpour” by Zuwa Collins
And to our finalists and their stories:
“Remarkable” by Aaron Aceves
“The never changing view” by Shiksha Dheda
“A Girl and Her Ghosts” by Ruth Joffre
“Our Love Story in Three Acts” by Sneha Subramanian Kanta
“Off Krome” by Christopher Notarnicola
“Ruin Gazer” by Charli Spier
“From Up Here” by Eileen Tomarchio
Thanks to everybody who entered. Look for the winning stories in Issue 44 in the spring!
