Publications & Awards

Fiction

From the Ashes

Copper Nickel
Winner of the Editors’ Prize in Prose

Two Celias Cross Paths

Pithead Chapel

What Lies in Sapient Lake

New Millennium Writings
Winner of the 2024 Fear Award

what i know about space by melissa bowers

Hive Mind

The Forge Magazine
2021 flash fiction competition finalist
Pen Parentis Fellowship runner-up
*selected for the 2023 Wigleaf Top 50*

What I Know About Space

The Cincinnati Review
longlisted for the 2022 Wigleaf Top 50

Undergrowth

SmokeLong Quarterly
Winner of the 2021 Grand Micro Contest
*selected for Best Small Fictions 2022*

Seven Ways to Get Blindsided in a Restaurant

New Ohio Review

Every Invisible Threat

New Flash Fiction Review
shortlisted for the 2021 flash fiction prize

All the Broken Things

Janus Literary
shortlisted for the 2021 Janus Literary Prize
“Dark, Wild Sea” Anthology

Sometimes a Guardrail is Missing

Barren Magazine
shortlisted for the 2019 Flash Fiction Prize

Everything Slippery and Gone

Atticus Review
selected for the 2021 Wigleaf Top 50

Masquerade

SmokeLong Quarterly

Animal Behavior

CHEAP POP
nominated for Best Small Fictions 2021

The Acquittal

Breakwater Review
Winner of the 2020 Breakwater Fiction Prize, chosen by Susanna Kaysen

A Collection of Cells

Pithead Chapel
2019 Larry Brown Short Story Award, 2nd place

Queen of Hearts

Pithead Chapel
2019 Larry Brown Short Story Award, 3rd place

Nonfiction

Sign Language Connects My Children to Their Grandmother

The Boston Globe Magazine

Balancing Blocks

The Writer
Winner of the 2017 Personal Essay Contest

Heart Height

River Teeth

Only In Print

“Where She Keeps His Handprints” – f(r)iction Arcana issue, Winner of the Flash Fiction Award
“The Specific Length of Scars” – And If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing: Parenting Stories Gone Speculative anthology
“Fine Lines” & “Survival Guide” – Snow Crow, Bath Flash Fiction Anthology Vol. 6 (both shortlisted)
“The Weeping Woman” – The Writer, September 2021, Top 10 in the 100-Word Contest
“A Matter of Chemistry” – The Greensboro Review, Issue 109, Spring 2021
“Small Glass Jars” – Restore to Factory Settings, Bath Flash Fiction Anthology Vol. 5 (longlisted)

Finalist / Semi-Finalist:

2023 Bridport Flash Fiction Prize (shortlisted)
2021 Bridport Flash Fiction Prize (shortlisted)
2021-2022 Pen Parentis Fellowship runner-up
2021 River Styx Microfiction Contest
2021 Anton Chekhov Award for Flash Fiction, LitMag (longlisted)
2020 Nonfiction Contest for Emerging Writers, Boulevard
2020 Bridport Flash Fiction Prize (shortlisted)
2020 Contest for Creative Nonfiction, Hippocampus Magazine (longlisted)
2020 Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction, New Letters
2020 Anton Chekhov Prize for Very Short Fiction, New Flash Fiction Review
2020 Beacon Street Prize for fiction, Redivider
2020 Lamar York Short Fiction Prize, Chattahoochee Review
2020 New Millennium Flash Fiction Award #50
2020 New Millennium Flash Fiction Award #49
2020 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award
2019 Gabriele Rico Challenge for Creative Nonfiction, Reed Magazine
2019 Barry Lopez Nonfiction Contest, Cutthroat

Honorable Mention:

2020 – Writer’s Digest 89th Annual Writing Competition, Mainstream/Literary category