The Bridge Eight Fiction Prize is an annual contest for full-length fiction manuscripts, whether they be a novel, a collection of stories, or multiple novellas. The winner receives $1,000 and publication in Spring of 2022.
Congratulations to Our Winner
Ghosts Caught On Film by Barrett Bowlin
We had to add an extra week of deliberation time this year. The submissions were not only great, they were plentiful, and narrowing our finalists down to five was hard work.
Now imagine what it took to then choose one winner.
But that just speaks to the way Ghosts Caught on Film stuck with us. These stories feel as if they were commissioned for Bridge Eight. From the scientist sister who is hoping to transform gummy bears into embryos to the sleepwalking father who poses a threat to his young son, Barrett Bowlin has written a collection we couldn’t afford not to publish, which is generally how we know we have a winner.
Thanks again to our finalists, to all those who submitted, and to our readers for supporting a scrappy, small press like ours.
As our winner, Ghosts Caught on Film will be published in Spring of 2022, and Barrett Bowlin will receive $1,000!
About Barrett Bowlin
BARRETT BOWLIN’S stories and essays appear widely, in places like Ninth Letter, The Rumpus, The Saturday Evening Post, Salt Hill, Waxwing, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Bayou, which awarded him the James Knudsen Prize in Fiction. He lives somewhere in the Bridgewater Triangle of Massachusetts, which is believed by the locals to be a paranormal vortex but is really just a swamp where nothing ever happens.
About Our Other Finalists
The River Whales of Sub-Sub-Utopian Pittsburgh by Naomi Rhema Edwards
NAOMI RHEMA EDWARDS graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008 and earned an MFA in Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh in 2011. Her work has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly and Cathexis Northwest Press, among others. She lives and works in Pittsburgh.
True Fiction by Sohrab Homi Fracis
SOHRAB HOMI FRACIS is the first Asian American author to win the Iowa Short Fiction Award, juried by the legendary Iowa Writers’ Workshop and described by the New York Times Book Review as “among the most prestigious literary prizes America offers.” He won it for his first book, Ticket to Minto: Stories of India and America (University of Iowa Press, 2001). Publishers Weekly called it “A reminder of how satisfying the short story form can be…the work of an impressive new talent.” India Currents pronounced it “Stunning in its breadth and scope of language and description.” It was translated into German and also released in India. Fracis’s novel, Go Home (Knut House Press, 2016) was shortlisted worldwide by Stanford University Libraries for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Folio Weekly’s cover story called it “a quest tale of the highest order…. Fracis is both a deft realist and master mesmerist.” Singapore Poetry described it as “newly poignant and even heartbreaking.” Fracis taught literature and creative writing at University of North Florida, where he’d received his M.A. in English / Creative Writing. He was Visiting Writer in Residence at Augsburg College, Artist in Residence at Escape to Create, and Artist in Residence at Yaddo. He received the Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature/Fiction and the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in Fiction. The international South Asian Literary Association bestowed on him its Distinguished Achievement Award for Creative Writing.
Poor Girl: Stories by Morgan Locandro
MORGAN LOCANDRO is a fiction writer, earning her MFA from Sierra Nevada University in 2019. Currently, she enjoys working with her composition students at Truckee Meadows Community College, spending plenty of time outdoors in her native eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, and pursuing the earthly pleasures of oenology and gastronomy. Previously, she completed her BA at University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2014, traveled on four continents, became a certified yoga teacher in Peru, then lived and worked on the island Corsica for three years.
Please Don’t Feed the Philosophers: Stories by Andrew Gretes
ANDREW GRETES is the author of the novel How to Dispose of Dead Elephants (Sandstone Press, 2014). His fiction has appeared in New England Review, Willow Springs, Witness, Sycamore Review, and other journals. His website is http://andrewgretes.com/
