TQ6 Prose Open Contest


 
Joanna Howard
 
 
The Editors of Tupelo Quarterly are thrilled to announce that our judge, Joanna Howard (at left), has selected “South” by Duffy Taylor as the winner of the Prose Open Contest. Finalists were also selected and appear in our latest issue. Many, many thanks to all who submitted their work for consideration and made this Prose Open Contest possible.

Read what Howard has to say about “South” below and more about Howard’s own work here.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Winner

South by Duffie Taylor

“This simple title suits well for a collection of reminiscences that constitutes a region. What is region beyond disjointed scraps of voice, era jargons, place-names, and the recognizable markers of terrain? “South” with its extremely elegant flatness and gapped narrative movements, also has a sharp eye for incisive period detail and lingo, and the patchwork of voices speaks to details within a scene, rather than to broadly sweeping together scenery. “South” allows for the ephemeral and fragmented in regional representation: a refreshing and satisfying onslaught against more tired forms of regionalism which still cling to those folksy generalizations and visceral stereotypes moving linearly and bleakly across a barely recognizable terrain.” – Joanna Howard
 
 
 

Finalists

 

Counting the Lovelies by Emma Bolden

 

Stump Winter, Indian Summer by Emily Choate

 

31 Favors by Denise Duhamel & Julie Marie Wade

 

A Swath of Poppies by Spring Ulmer

 

Hammer and Nail by Siamak Vossoughi

 

Field Guide to Alma Avenue & Frew Drive by Sarah Ann Winn

 

Omega by Alex Wilson