We are delighted to announce that our brilliant judge, Kristen Arnett, has selected the winners of this year’s The Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize. We consider it our privilege to have spent time with so many terrific submissions—thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your work!
Winner: Anita Lo for “Father Fish”
Of Lo’s story, Arnett writes, “I’m always so impressed by work that’s able to set stories inside itself; inset lore, narratives shared and passed, the kind that often exist in families. ‘Father Fish,’ gorgeously written, slick and supple and shimmery, is an incredible example of this kind of masterful domestic storytelling.”
“Father Fish” will be published in a forthcoming issue of American Short Fiction.
ANITA LO’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Vestal Review, River Teeth, Fractured Literary, and AAWW’s The Margins. She currently lives in New York City.
Runner-up: Hedgie Choi for “Bleed and Bleed”
Of Choi’s story, Arnett writes, “Wry, funny, and extremely engaging, ‘Bleed and Bleed’ banks on a narrator just shy of unreliable and the end result is something wildly unexpected and tremendously enjoyable.”
You can read Choi’s story at ASF Online in the next few months.
HEDGIE CHOI is an MFA candidate in fiction at Johns Hopkins University. She received her MFA in poetry from the Michener Center for Writers.
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Our deepest thanks to Kristen Arnett for judging, to The Burdine Johnson Foundation and the Tasajillo Residency for their generous support of this contest, and to all of you for submitting your stories. And congrats to the winners! Look out for the winning story in the upcoming issue of American Short Fiction!