2013 Jiménez-Porter Literary Prize Announcement

The Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House, in coordination with Stylus, is pleased to announce the winners of the 2013 Jiménez-Porter Literary Prize, a writing contest open to all University of Maryland, College Park undergraduate students.

First Place winners receive $200, 2nd Place $150, and 3rd place $100. Thanks to all who submitted work to the contest!

Many submissions were received. The contest was judged in two stages, by off-campus readers and judges, all of whom read the submissions blind (without author’s name attached to the work).

Prose Awards Final Judge: Robert Girardi

Initial Reader: David Max Horowitz

• 1st Place: Norine McKee for “Chivalry” and “Nil Picks a Fight”
• 2nd Place: Stella Donovan for “Squatch”
• 3rd Place: Rhea Ramakrishnan for “Wings”

Finalists in alphabetical order: Molly Morris for “June Floats Away,” and “Gone, Gone, Goodbye;” Laura Pavlo for “The Color of the Sky in the Nighttime,” and “Limbs;” Stephen Rane for “Mothman,” and Rohma Sahibzada for “What He Left Behind.”

Poetry Awards Final Judge: Kyle Dargan

Initial Reader: Henry Mills

• 1st Place: Marlena Chertock for “The Invisible Middle”
• 2nd Place: Dolapo Demuren for “Song for My Mother”
• 3rd Place: Alexandra Leston for “For my Mother, Postpartum”
• Finalist: Tyler Kutner for “Walking,” and “The Vendor.”

JUDGES:

Robert Girardi has published six acclaimed volumes of fiction, including Madeleine's Ghost, A Vaudeville of Devils--7 Moral Tales and Gorgeous East. Foreign language editions have appeared in French, Italian, German, Russian, Estonian and Hebrew. He has also written for film and network television; his journalism has appeared in The Washington Post, The New Republic, Washingtonian Magazine and Landscape Architecture Magazine, among other publications. He has taught film and creative writing at the University of Iowa and was Writer-in-Residence at Goucher College. He lives in Washington D.C. with his three children and pet finch, Carrot.

Kyle G. Dargan is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently LOGORRHEA DEMENTIA (UGA, 2010). His debut, THE LISTENING (UGA 2004), won the 2003 Cave Canem Prize, and his second, BOUQUET OF HUNGERS (UGA 2007), was awarded the 2008 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in poetry. Dargan’s poems and non-fiction have appeared in publications such as Callaloo, Denver Quarterly, Jubilat, The Newark Star-Ledger, Ploughshares, TheRoot.com, and Shenandoah. While a Yusef Komunyakaa fellow at Indiana University, he served as poetry editor for Indiana Review. He is the founding editor of Post No Ills magazine and was most recently the managing editor of Callaloo.

Mark your calendars for the prizewinners’ reading at Litfest, Thursday May 2, 8:00 pm in St. Mary’s Hall. Reading followed by Reception at Dorchester Hall Ground Floor. (The 2013 issue of Stylus will also be unveiled!)