Current Winners
DANA AWARD WINNERS 2008
Our thanks to all who entered; it
was a privilege to read each and every entry.
This short list of winners and finalists in no way does justice to
the hundreds of excellent manuscripts we received.
We hope you all will consider entering our competition again next
year.
DANA AWARD IN THE NOVEL: Rebecca Berg, Denver, CO, for Julio’s Ghost.
First Honorable Mention: Steve Mitchell, Winston-Salem, NC.
Second Honorable Mention: Waimea Williams, Kaneohe, HI.
Other finalists: Barbara Delacuesta, Island Heights, NJ; Sandra Fontana and Lindy MacDonald (double author), Vero Beach, FL; Sara Fraser, Belmont, MA; Agustin Maes, Berkeley, CA; Karen L. Simpson, Ann Arbor, MI; Kathryn Wilder, Ha’iku, Maui, HI; Waimea Williams, Kaneohe, HI (for a 2d novel).
DANA AWARD IN SHORT
FICTION: Patricia Brieschke,
Waccabuc, NY, for Prop Master.
First Honorable Mention: Robert Morgan Fisher, Woodland Hills, CA.
Second Honorable Mention: Fred McGavran, Cincinnati,
OH.
Other finalists: Jacob M. Appel, New York, NY (for 2 short stories); Jim Bainbridge, Los Angeles, CA; Cary Groner, Tucson, AZ; Li Miao Lovett, San Francisco, CA; Lynn L. Sloan, Evanston, IL; Lynn M. Stegner, Point Reyes Station, CA.
DANA AWARD IN POETRY:
Allen Braden, Lakewood, WA, for a 5-poem cycle entitled Taboo
against the Word Beauty….
First Honorable Mention: Willa Granger, Mamaroneck, NY.
Second Honorable Mention: Sassy Ross, Brooklyn, NY.
Other finalists: Ellen Bass, Santa Cruz, CA; Ewa Chrusciel, New London, NH; Dina Elenbogen, Evanston, IL; Christina Hutchins, Albany, CA; Jacquelyn Merrill, Los Angeles, CA; Allison Smythe, Rocheport, MO; Kathleen Spivack, Watertown, MA.
ABOUT OUR WINNERS 2008
REBECCA BERG
was born into a family of musicians in 1962. For the first thirty years of
her life, she was a compulsive reader, and earned a doctorate in English
literature from Cornell University. Then she began writing novels about
musicians. To support the writing habit, she teaches for the Lighthouse
Writers Workshop in Denver, works as staff reporter for the Journal of
Environmental Health, and does freelance editing.
In 2000, her first novel, Sarah's Memoir, was a finalist in the James Jones First Novel Fellowship Contest. An excerpt appeared in 2001 in the Five Fingers Review under the title "A History of Song." Another excerpt appeared in Word Riot in 2009. An excerpt from her second novel, Filigree, took third prize in the F-Magazine 2005 Novel-in-Progress Contest. A previous draft of Julio's Ghost placed on the "Short List for Finalists" in the 2007 William Faulkner–William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition.
PATRICIA BRIESCHKE told us: “When I was eight, I wrote a series of poems for my best friend for her birthday. She said, ‘You didn't write these; you copied them from a book.’ That was the high point of my writing career, and maybe its beginning. Ever since, every submission is followed by that months-long pause while I wait to hear the words: ‘This is good. We want it.’ Sometimes it comes; more often it's a movie ticket-sized rejection [slip], or a quick, easy no-thank-you e-mail. But I hear the words now and know that I'm doing something right.
When I taught writing for 10 years, I struggled right along with my students to master the craft of story. It took forever to trust my imagination. The breakthrough came when I finally realized that sticking with what you know does not necessarily serve the story. Finding my voice, away from the falsetto that wants to impress, along with developing compassion for my sometimes ugly characters, has guided my writing from the naive and amateurish toward some crooked road to maturity. With each new story, I take a risk or two and get stronger. If only life were this satisfying.”
ALLEN BRADEN’s first book A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood is forthcoming in 2010 from the VQR Poetry Series/University of Georgia Press. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and from Artist Trust of Washington State as well as the Emerging Writers Prize from Witness magazine, the Grolier Poetry Prize and other honors. Recently, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lives and writes in Lakewood, Washington.
FOR QUESTIONS ONLY, E-MAIL AT THIS ADDRESS danaawards@pipeline.com