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Shenandoah Announces Winner of 2013 Bevel Summers Prize in Fiction

The winner of the 2013 Bevel Summers Prize for the Short Short Story is Seth Brady Tucker of Lafayette, Colo., for his narrative “Jigsaw.”

Shenandoah editor R. T. Smith called “Jigsaw” “a swift and riveting account of the routine brutality of the Gulf War and its impact on the language, behavior and values of a squad of American soldiers.”

The Summers Prize contest is always conducted in March, and the winner receives $1,000 and publication at shenandoahliterary.org, the home site of Washington and Lee University’s 63-year-old literary journal.  Any runners-up selected by the judges also are invited to appear in the fall issue of Shenandoah.

Tucker served as an 82nd Airborne paratrooper in the Persian Gulf, and his first book, a collection of poems entitled “Mormon Boy,” received the 2011 Elixir Press Editor’s Prize.  His other work has appeared in “Iowa Review,” “Antioch Review,” “Witness” and other venues.

The runner-up Prize of $100 goes to Amanda Pauley of Elliston, Va., for her story “Hope,” an unsettling but optimistic tale of the chicken processing business.  Honorable mentions go to Q. L. Barrett for “Aphrodite Always Carries Condoms,” Leah Angstman for “Corner to Corner, End to End,” Nick Ripatrazone for “Cribbing Collar” and Elizabeth Oliver for “Flight.”

This year’s contest received over 400 submissions, and next year the fifth annual contest will run from March 15 to March 31, 2014.  Guidelines can be found at shenandoahliterary.org and clicking on the Submissions/Prizes link.

News Contact:
Julie Cline
News Writer
jcline@wlu.edu
540-458-8954