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Vitreous by David Ray Vance "Part 1934 medical text, part Keatsian reflection, this is the logical offspring of the long-awaited meeting of science and art.
- Mary Jo Bang Read More...




The Midlife Crisis of
Dick and Jane
by Nin Andrews



Best of Diagram #2 by Ander Monson A wide array of never-before-seen schematics chosen for their strangeness and beauty. This is a bizarre, sometimes funny, profound and always intense collection. Read More...

Poppy by Austin Hummell "Taut with the voice of many close-held wisdoms, Austin Hummell's POPPY is laced with a brilliant restraint and an odd humility. He traps the feral, injured thing and tames it just enough to examine the damage, then sets it back again, free. Hummell is a master of extremity, and of beauty too.
-- Lucie Brock-Broido Read More...

All I Can Truly Deliver by Matt Vadnais "There is the world and then there is the world. In his 'Cover Stories,' Vadnais uncovers the paradox of 'realistic' fiction. One need not go out and bring 'em back alive when one has the more inventive terrain of the library."
- Michael Martone Read More...







The 2009 Robert Olen Butler Prize is now open.
Postmark deadline: December 31, 2008.
>> Complete guidelines . . .





Del Sol Press Is delighted to announce the results of the 2008 Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize.

Winner

Kimberly Willardson, Carrboro, NC
"Winter Memories of the Summer Bear"

Kimberly WillardsonKimberly Willardson lives in Carrboro, North Carolina, where she’s working on her first novel and finishing a collection of short stories. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Literal Latté, American Short Fiction, Ohioana Quarterly, and Rosebud, among other publications. She has received grant fellowships in fiction writing from the Ohio Arts Council and the Montgomery County (Ohio) Arts and Cultural District.

In addition to her roles as mother, dog trainer, freelance editor, teacher, and landscaper, Ms. Willardson is currently raising funds for The Vincent Brothers Review, which she founded in 1987 and hopes to revive after a five-year hiatus.

Finalists

  • Jacob M. Appel, New York, NY: "Animal Control"
  • Miriam Gershow, Eugene, OR: "Carker"
  • Nick Healy, Mankato, MN: "Joyless Men"
  • Brodie Smith, Richardson, TX: "Watch Him Burn"
  • Erin Soros: "The chorus"
  • Naomi Williams, Davis, CA: "The Report"
  • Mark Wisniewski, Lake Peekskill, NY: "Stricken"
  • Christina Yu, South Bend, IN: "Christmas in the Neighborhood"





Winner

Valerie Hurley
"Jasmine, Washing the Hair of Pearsa"

Valerie Hurley's fiction and essays have been published in The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, New Letters, Indiana Review, Boston Review, The Missouri Review, and other magazines and anthologies. Four of her essays have been awarded “Most Notable” status in Best American Essays. Her first novel, St. Ursula’s Girls Against the Atomic Bomb, was published by MacAdam/Cage in 2003 and by Plume Books (in paperback) in 2004. She has enjoyed residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Millay Colony, and the Vermont Studio Center. She lives in northern Vermont with her husband, John Kern, and feels very fortunate to be represented by literary agent Betsy Lerner of Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

Finalists

  • Jacob M. Appel: "Enoch Arden’s One Night Stands"
  • Stephenie Brown: "The Wheel Wright"
  • Lauren Cobb: "No Place"
  • Greg Hrbek: "Bereavement"
  • LaTanya McQueen: "Once"
  • Jamie Pearlberg: "A Wedding Tale"
  • Matthew Pitt: "The Mean"
  • Scott Winokur: "Hideous Thing"
  • Mark Wisniewski: "Prisoners of War"





Winner

Matthew J. Sullivan
"Unfound"

Matthew J. Sullivan received his M.F.A. from the University of Idaho and B.A. from the University of San Francisco. He has been a resident at the Yaddo Colony, and his work has been published in The Florida Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, 580-Split, The Evansville Review, Fugue, and The Bloomsbury Review. He teaches writing at Big Bend Community College in central Washington, and is currently at work on a literary mystery set in a rural zoology museum.

Finalists

  • Cheryl Alu: "Girl"
  • Jacob M. Appel: "Shell Game with Organs"
  • Kerry Dolan: "Falling Off the George Washington Bridge"
  • Alicia Gifford: "Gorgeous World"
  • Alison Lee Kinney: "Term"
  • Phil LaMarche: "In the Tradition of My Family"
  • Cris Mazza: "Our Time Is Up"
  • Jeff Parker: "The Taste of Penny"
  • Bill Pettitt: "This Is Not About Me"
  • Peter Paul Smith: "Kleebe"
  • Alia Yunis: "A Nearly Blonde Christmas"





Winner

E. R. Catalano
"News from My Father"

E. R. Catalano grew up in Astoria, Queens, where this story is set. "News from My Father" is loosely based on a family story about the author’s great-grandmother. She received an MFA from Emerson College in 1997. Her play, Sestina, has received several staged readings and a production at Heller Theatre in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She lives with her husband, also a writer, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. This is her first published story.

Finalists

  • Thomas P. Balazs: "Omicron Ceti III"
  • Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis: "Sundress"
  • Roy Kesey: "Invunche y voladora"
  • Gloria DeVidas Kirchheimer: "Malika"
  • Karen Kovacik: "My Polish Widower"
  • Dylan Landis: "Jazz"
  • Kelly Magee: "Not People, Not This"
  • Lynn Veach Sadler: "Miss Spam Maps of Vegas"
  • Marianne Taylor: "Who Is the Hardware"
  • Charles Yu: "My Last Days as Me"



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