Award Spotlights
The Stacy Doris Poetry Memorial Award (SDA) 2026
Las Apariciones (The Apparitions)
poetry by
Cristian Ramirez Rodriguez
"Self-hatred culminates
with the rejection of the self.
Philistines die in shrines
deconstructed to erect churches.
Cenotes function
as burial waters
for both Tlālōc and Dāgōn"
Cristian Ramirez Rodriguez (he/him/él) is a twenty-three-year-old Venezuelan-Canadian poet based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, on the traditional, unceded, and unsurrendered territory of the Wolastoqiyik peoples. He began writing poetry after studying under Brenda Hillman at his alma mater, Saint Mary's College of California. He won the 2026 Quantum Arts prize in Literature from the Canadian Association of Physicists, the 2025 Spanish-language poetry contest from the Oregon Poetry Association, and was the runner-up for the Lorca Latinx poetry prize. He is currently working on his debut poetry manuscript. Connect with him @pray4cristian on Instagram or via https://linktr.ee/cristianramirezrodriguez.
Gina Berriault Award (GBA) 2026
Ash Bone Coal Stone
prose by
Bruce Cheung
"When we were boys, I used to sleep against him when we shared a mat. His shoulders were softer then. I don't know when that changed. "That one there," he says. "Looks like a fish." I don't answer. I don't want to look at it that long."
Bruce Cheung is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He is the son of a Chinese-Vietnamese refugee and grew up between languages and cultures. 'Ash Bone Coal Stone' is his first long-form prose manuscript.
Michael Rubin Work-in-Progress Award (MRA) 2026
Right Intentions
prose by
Antony Fangary
"By the time we got to church, the liturgy was over, as always. I was relieved. I hated going inside that church; it felt so dark, so haunted in there, like there were spirits, ghouls, or something you couldn’t see floating around. All the windows were painted over with images of slain martyrs from the past, and a twenty-foot-tall bloody cadaver hung over the altar, at an upward angle, so it was like Dead-Jesus was going to dive over you like the whale at the end of Free Willy, arms finned out and all. When I was younger, I told Amanda I was afraid of the flying dead man. I said it felt like the bloody eyes were always watching. She said they were watching, and I should be afraid."
Antony Baher Fangary is a writer, editor, and satirist from California. He is the author of sour river (Noemi Press/Outspoken Press, 2027), winner of the 2025 Etel Adnan Prize. He is a Translation and Poetry Editor at Denver Quarterly, and his work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Center for Cultural Innovation. He is the co-director of Litquake’s Elder Writing Project and is a doctoral student in poetry at the University of Denver.