We are pleased to announce that our 2023 judge Brian Evenson has selected a winner and runner-up as well as three honorable mentions from a slate of finalists and semi-finalists for North American Review's 2023 Kurt Vonnegut Prize in Speculative Literature. A big thank you to everyone who submitted a story for the prize. We had 326 entries this year, and we thoroughly enjoyed reading such an abundance of excellent fiction. The winner and runner-up will appear in the Summer 2023 issue of North American Review, and all entrants will receive a copy.
First Place
“The Jeanines of Summer” — Dashka Slater
Runner-Up
“The Registry of Forgotten Objects” — Miles Harvey
Honorable Mentions
“The Fathers” — Alexandra Wuest
“Wild Wild Wolves” — Emily Greenberg
“Geese and Foxes” — Elizabeth Ziemska
Finalists
“Our bodies are in the clouds above their cities” — Danny Thiemann Venegas
“Leviathan” — Saskia Nislow
“Lonnie Rotting” — Randolph Uniack
“Moko Jumbie” — Lyndon Nicholas
Semifinalists
“Unidentified Black Male” — Nathan Dixon
“Anomalies” — Kent Nelson
“The Farewell Foxtrot” — Richard Squires
“Birds Aren't Real” — Rachel Luria
“A Death of a Moth” — Abigail Allen
“The New System” — Robert McBrearty
“A Love Story” — Kevin Sandefur
“Little Cat People” — Belicia Rhea
“Terrafir” — Robert Walikis
“The Boot Factory” — Sam Paradise
About the Judge
BRIAN EVENSON is the author of a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection A Collapse of Horses (Coffee House Press 2016) and the novella The Warren (Tor.com 2016). He has also recently published Windeye (Coffee House Press 2012) and Immobility (Tor 2012), both of which were finalists for a Shirley Jackson Award. His novel Last Days won the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel of 2009. His novel The Open Curtain (Coffee House Press) was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. Other books include The Wavering Knife (which won the IHG Award for best story collection), Dark Property, and Altmann's Tongue. He has translated work by Christian Gailly, Jean Frémon, Claro, Jacques Jouet, Eric Chevillard, Antoine Volodine, Manuela Draeger, and David B. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes as well as an NEA fellowship. His work has been translated into Czech, French, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Persian, Russia, Spanish, Slovenian, and Turkish. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the Critical Studies Program at CalArts.