With the AWP conference freshly behind us, we take a look back to 2015 and the AWP Grace Palley Prize winner for Short Fiction. The annual prize is presented by AWP with a guest judge selecting each year’s winner. From the 2015 judge, Nahid Rachlin:
This well-crafted collection focuses on American-born characters—underclass, poor drifters. Strewn, along with images of bums, cripples, addicts, gutted houses, trash-covered streets, and wrecked farms, are images of startling beauty. The depiction of the physically and psychologically injured characters achieves lightness because of the enchanting writing style, the fact that they usually deal with their situations stoically, and most of all the strain of humor running through the stories. The prose is sparse, but the universe the author creates is deep and full of underlying reverberations of questions and sometimes answers, as the characters move through their days that are filled with obstacles and tragedies.
Check out this full reveiw of Wild Horse here.