Best of the Net
Poetry
Self-Eating by Gretchen Filart
One Goose Lands by Kate Deimling
Mellowness by Sanjeev Sethi
Van Gogh’s Ear by Jose Hernandez Diaz
Born into Both My Eyes by Ace Boggess
Farewell by Ankur Jyoti Saikia
Fiction
Hit and Run by Shih-Li Kow
Doctor Dungu by Esther Mubawa
Creative Nonfiction
Vibrations by Melissa Nunez
Crash by Irene Gentle
The Pushcart Prize
Poetry
Rules are Rules—Until Necessity Intercedes by Bob King
For My Freedom Fighter Nani by Shikha S. Lamba
Fiction
Unchartered Waters by Aneeta Sundararaj
The Adoption of Odin by Wayne McCray
Funny John, Brave John, Happy John by Shrutidhora P Mohor
Creative Nonfiction
Family Focused by C.E. O’Banion
Best Microfiction
Overnight Success by Chris Cottom
I’m in the Kitchen at My Brother’s Party by Sumitra Singam
When I Told My Cat He Couldn’t Go Outside by Natalie Wolf
Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives by Sahana Ahmed
Ricky’s Funeral is Thursday by Karen Walker
Best Small Fictions
The Joy of San Miguel de Allende by François Bereaud
Empire and Conquest by Victoria Leigh Bennett
This Is Not A Story About Chickens by Judy Darley
Alcoholics Anonymous by Achi Mishra
Dysfunctional Medium by Sara Dobbie
In Conversation with the Nominees
Say the Gods were real — not to question your faith, but say they were real enough to stand before you or you before them, say they were tangible, shared language — would you not, in the end, surrender to your curiosity and ask them of their creations: “Why? How? What next?” But who knows where the Gods are. (Or if they even exist — hey, there is always legroom for all the possible philosophies on this.) So, we found a bunch of writers and poets we published this last year — and this was difficult, by the way — because their work spoke to us in a way that forced us to nominate them for four different awards, and we decided: close enough, we’ll hound these folks instead.
Now, we’re not sure if they enjoyed being hounded by us but they did graciously dive into their depths for us. Through five simple questions, we gained a sincere and candid insight into what drove them to write that poem, story or memoir we couldn’t shake, their creative process and influences, and their writerly dreams.