-->

Order Now

Issue 58

Issue 58 has arrived!

Bayou Magazine

Bayou Magazine is thrilled to announce our 2012 contest winners and finalists. Congratulations to all!

Winner of the 2012 James Knudsen Prize in Fiction selected by Judge Michael Knight: Ari Braverman's "Even Though He's Still Alive."

Of the winning piece, Judge Michael Knight says, "Even though He's Still Alive" is one of those stories that does almost everything right while hardly seeming to tell a story at all. Driven by the unvarnished, loop-the-loop narration of a young woman who knows instinctively that there must be beauty in the world; she just can't seem to find much of it in her own life. Her honesty, sexual and otherwise, is startling, all the more so because she directs her perception inward, often as not, without seeming to navel gaze. There's real darkness here, real heat. This is not to mention the overarching conceit—Young Mick Jagger as a spirit guide. Sounds nutty but it works, and it works because the writer commits to it, ingrains the premise in her characterization and threads it through every section of the story, our narrator peppering an imaginary 27 year old Mick with questions, researching his old girlfriends, wasting hours gazing at his image on the internet. Mick Jagger, the narrator tells us, wears "living like a mantle, loose and heavy, completely secure." That's what the narrator wants, too, and through the ordinary, seemingly disjointed events of her life she finds her way to a kind of happy ending, not perfect, not too tidy, but thoroughly earned and oh so rare in contemporary fiction.

Finalists (in alphabetical order by author's name):

"The Boy Who Had A Peach Tree Growing Out of his Head" by Hal Ackerman
"The Glitter and the Roar" by Seth Borgen
"Giant" by David Burtt
"Apocrypha" by Gabriel Houck
"Pull a Titus" by Ashley Shelby

 

Winner of the 2012 Kay Murphy Prize in Poetry selected by Judge Dawn Lundy Martin: Benjamin Sutton's "Then, the Unabridged."

Of the winning poem, Judge Dawn Lundy Martin says, "Then, the Unabridged" sings a song of occupied landscape, workers, and fractured bodies. This poem approaches saying with precision and invention, thus reckoning with the ways that language inevitably butts up against experience. How, the poem seems to ask, can we sing into "less the forests" and "less town"? "Then, the Unabridged" is wonderful, incantatory piece that envisages and critiques our contemporary moment.

Finalists (in alphabetical order by author's name):

"I Expect to Make a Complete Recovery" by Rachel Bennett
"If from a Great Nature, Our Own Abyss" by Andrew Ruzkowski

 

---

 

Bayou Magazine's mission is to present exceptional, original writing by both established and emerging writers. While we are always looking for new voices, we are proud to have featured work from such writers as Marcia Aldrich, Jacob M. Appel, Mark Doty, Marilyn Hacker, Timothy Liu, D.A. Powell, Eric Trethewey, Tom Whalen, and Christy Wise. Writing that first appeared in Bayou Magazine has been short-listed for the Pushcart Prize and named in the notable essays list in Best American Essays.

Bayou Magazine is a publication of the University of New Orleans and is made possible through support of the English Department and the College of Liberal Arts.