We are pleased to announce that Lacy M. Johnson has selected a winner and runner-up from a slate of finalists and semi-finalists. See the full list below. All entrants will receive a copy of the Fall 2022 issue of the North American Review in which the winner and runner-up appear. A big thank you to everyone who submitted an essay for the prize. We had 345 entries, and it was a pleasure to read such an abundance of fine nonfiction.
FIRST PLACE
Christine Grace Adams, “Pleaser”
RUNNER-UP
Jay Eddy, “Pear, Or: My Body Feels Like Drag”
FINALISTS
Esinam Bediako, “Body/Mind Braid”
Wendy Chen, “Madness: A Reader’s Companion”
Lisa Fay Coutley, “Why to Crochet”
E.G. Cunningham, “Remains in Progress”
Ren Cedar Fuller, “I Am the Dippy Bird”
Douglas Haynes, “The Secret”
Robyn Thomas, “Not All Here”
SEMIFINALISTS
Chad Hanson, “Gray Gold: Striking Solace on a Slow Quest to Find Burros in the Wild”
Lynda Rushing, “Poison”
Amy Shea, “The Goose is Loose”
Barbara Cameron, “Things Change, Said My Sperm Donor”
Sienna Zeilinger, “Two Wolves”
Kate Tooley, “i disremember pain”
Kaitlin Stone, “My Mother Was a River”
Jasmin Roberts, “In Which a Black Pedestrian Redefines Violence”
Sarah Myers, “They Don’t Tell You”
Paul Arenson, “We Weren't Wearing Underpants: Homoeroticism and the Far Right from Antiquity to the Capitol Invasion”
Lacy M. Johnson is a Houston-based professor, curator, activist, and author of the essay collection The Reckonings, the widely acclaimed memoir The Other Side, and Trespasses.
Header image by Etienne Giardet