Every year, hundreds of imprisoned writers from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population. Manuscripts come to the Prison Writing Program in a variety of forms: Some are handwritten, some are typed, some are written in the margins of legal documents. Prizes of $250, $150, $100, $50, and $25 are awarded for first, second, third place, the Dawson Prize, and honorable mentions, respectively, in each of the following categories:

POETRY

First Place

Joe Rickey Knight“Midnight at the Manatee”

Second Place

Ezekiel Caligiuri“People I Know”

Third Place

Jason Mobley“Appeals from the Senseless”

Dawson Prize

Shadale L. Williams, “A Niggas’ Valedictory!”

 

Honorable Mentions

Kenneth Foster, “The Walls”

Bryan Palmer, “The Swing Set to Remember”

Sean White, “The Origins of Modern Sculpture”

 

FICTION

First Place

Robert Weaver, “Of Ash and Bone”

Second Place

William Van Poyck“Death by Dominoes”

Third Place

Marcel Ramon Herrera, “LPs and Girlz”

Dawson Prize

Timothy Burke, “Appalachian Dragons, My Father, and Me”

 

Honorable Mentions

Richard Beebe, “Bigot Inn”

Martin Dawson, “The Golden Hour”

Christopher de Rossitte, “The Mostly Uneventful Life of Pierre Menard”

M.A. Mendoza, “The Fat Man”

 

ESSAY

First Place

Anthony Arteaga, “Solitary Confinement in California” 

Second Place

Joseph Dole“Prison Diary”

Third Place

J. Michael Stanfield, Jr., “Murder is Murder”

Dawson Prize

James L. Karis, “On Doing Time”

 

Honorable Mentions

Larry Bratt, “Filling the Void”

Antonio Howard, “Tough Love”

Christian Weaver, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”

 

MEMOIR

First Place
Burl Corbett, “Painting the Sunset”

Second Place
Arthur Longworth, “The Chain”

Third Place
Christopher Myers, “Letter to My Grandnephew”

 

Honorable Mentions

Edward B. Lyon, Jr., “Right to Passage”

John Purugganan, “Death Without the Possibility of Parole”

John Ruzas, “Tragedy 2 Trial & Beyond”

Aly Tamboura, “Hell’s Chariot”

 

DRAMA

First Place

Derek Trumbo, “Conviction”

Second Place

Christopher Preshfield“The High Desert Sessions”

Third Place

Robert Lombardo“Peers”

Dawson Prize

Dane Toomey, “Free to a Good Home”

 

Honorable Mentions

Christopher Myers, “A Boy Named Water”

William D. Stubblefield, “Moving On”

Robert Weaver, “The Recovery Canticle”