2015 Thomas Morton Winners Revealed!

Dear Friends, We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2015 Thomas Morton Memorial Prize in Literary Excellence, judged by Miriam Toews (short fiction) and Ian Williams (poetry). Selecting winning entries was an especially difficult task for all involved, considering both the stunningly high quality of submissions received as well as their sheer magnitude. Only two winners could be selected by our judges: an unfortunate statistic that breaks even our (puritanical) hearts. Nevertheless, we have two incredibly deserving winners, who can now be read as part of Issue 31: Fall 2015. We’d like to once again take this opportunity to thank everyone who submitted—this is a still-burgeoning competition, and we could not grow nor develop without the generous support of hundreds of writers. POETRY WINNER: Katie Fewster-Yan, for “PR” “As a lesson in technique, Katie Fewster-Yan models the right positioning of the self in poetry, neither invisible nor exposed. On first reading, ‘PR’ is like an inconsolable, wailing baby. It pierces your attention and ransacks your composure right to its oddly arrogant and uncertain last line. And it gets better on subsequent readings. You leave it and come back and it’s crying even more loudly, but musically like an opera singer and somewhat more recognizably like your own baby suffering.” —Ian Williams, Thomas Morton Memorial Prize Judge, 2015 Katie Fewster-Yan grew up in Toronto. She is currently living, writing, and studying in Fredericton. SHORT FICTION WINNER: Lowry Pressly, “Lisa Hall Smiles” “Lowry Pressly’s “Lisa Hall Smiles” grabbed me off the top and held me in its fierce grip until the very end. I’m still jangly from the experience of reading it. What a beautifully written, graceful, ever-searching, haunting and absolutely mesmerizing story. The details, the language, the relentless momentum, the mystery, the horror, the tenderness and the humour ... what can I say? Congratulations on a spectacular achievement.” —Miriam Toews, Thomas Morton Memorial Prize Judge, 2015 Lowry Pressly is a writer of fiction, essays, and criticism. His work has appeared, among other places, in The Point, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Jurist. He recently completed a novel, Nachtmusik. Lowry is from Statesville, North Carolina, though he currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.