First Annual Midwest Short Fiction Contest

Judge: E.J. Levy

Winner: “The Lost Episodes”

Author: Bryan Furuness

From the judge’s statement: This is a wonderful story; laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, and wise, it is among the most engaging pieces of short fiction that I’ve read in ages, displaying true wit, great tenderness, and an all-American voice that seems both authentic and guileless, even as it subtly skewers that peculiar made-in-America brand of religious fervor. From the off-hand poetry of its prose to the hilarious dialogue, to the weirdly credible illogic of an aspiring young prophet, “The Lost Episodes” reveals the dangerous psychology undergirding that terribly American longing to be exceptional and salvific.

Runner Up: “Our Time in Norrmalmstorg”

Author: Christopher Merkner

From the judge’s statement: This is a riveting story with scalpel sharp scenes and impressive insights into the increasing banality of violence; it put me in mind of the early work of film directors Jane Campion and Alan Ball with their off-kilter portraits of domesticity gone awry. At once eerie and uncannily familiar, “Our Time in Norrmalmstorg” brilliantly explores the violence that simmers just beneath the surface of our comfortable lives and the inadequacy of ordinary decency and decorum to face it down. A powerful critique of contemporary American culture and the dangerous fashion for para-military politics at the start of the 21st century.

 About the 2011 Contest Judge

E.J. Levy is a fiction and nonfiction writer whose essays, articles and stories have appeared in many places, including Best American Essays 2005, The 2007 Pushcart Prize  Anthology, The Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative  Nonfiction; The New York Times, The Nation, Utne Reader,  Salmagundi, Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, Paris  Review, Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review and North American  Review. Two of her stories have been recognized in  Best American Short Stories. She has received a number of national awards for her fiction and nonfiction, including the Chicago Literary Award, a Loft-McKnight Fellowship, a Goldfarb Family Fellowship, a Michener Fellowship, the Nelson Algren Prize, the Margaret Bridgman Scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and a Lambda Literary Award for her anthology, Tasting Life Twice: Literary Lesbian Fiction by New  American Writers. A collection of short stories, My Life in Theory, was selected for the Flannery O’Connor Award; the book will be published by University of Georgia Press in 2012. She earned an M.F.A. from Ohio State  University in 2002 and a B.A. in history from Yale.

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