I thought I'd post this update with news about the
Flyway contest for which I recently judged poetry entries.
Here's the link & a condensed version of the material you'll find at the page, announced by
Flyway staff who are also grad students in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University. Thanks!
https://flyway.org/blog/
"Out of a competitive field of short fiction, guest judge Daniel Wallace chose
Rachel Richardson’s poignant story 'What’s It Like Outside' as winner, and
John Yunker’s dystopian 'Free Range' as runner-up.
[
For more on the fiction winners' fine work, please visit the link ~NB]
Meanwhile, poetry judge Ned Balbo chose
Mark Jay Brewin Jr.’s 'The Weems Storm Glass Mysterious Weather Predictor' as winner and
Lesley Wheeler’s 'A Million Violins' as runner-up.
...
Brewin’s winning poem [is about] a weather prediction device used by Admiral Robert FitzRoy on his 1831 voyage to the Galapagos Islands aboard the HMS Beagle with a young Charles Darwin. Balbo wrote, 'A perceptive, witty exploration of science and mysticism through a device that predicts the weather—sudden shifts not only of climate but in time’s passage and history’s whims. We are all ‘wayfarers’ who seek connection to the cosmos, and we accept guidance wherever we find it—even if what we thought was the magic of belief turns out to be only ‘seawater and cloud-smoke.’ Richly inventive and resonant.'
Meanwhile, Balbo described
Wheeler’s piece as 'a powerful poem that intertwines the grief of sisters facing decisions about a father’s terminal illness. Through a cell phone call that connects them across the miles—from the faraway concert one has left temporarily, to the back deck of a home where the other takes the dreaded call—the poem convincingly examines the complexity of farewells we hope to never make.'
...
Look for the winning stories and poems in the fall edition of
Flyway."