Each year, descant offers four awards:
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- the $500 Frank O’Connor Award for fiction (for the best short story in an issue)
- the $250 Gary Wilson Award (for an outstanding story in an issue)
- the $500 Betsy Colquitt Award for poetry (for the best poem or series of poems by a single author in an issue)
- the $250 Baskerville Publishers Award (for an outstanding poem or poems by a single author in an issue
There is no application process or reading fee. All published submissions are eligible for prize consideration. Simply submit your work.
2022 Contest Winners
Guest Judge, Bryn Chancellor
Bryn Chancellor is the author of the novel Sycamore (Harper/HarperCollins), which was a Southwest Book of the Year, an Indie Next and LibraryReads pick, an Amazon Editors’ Best Book of 2017, and among Bustle’s Best Debuts of 2017; and of the story col- lection When Are You Coming Home? (University of Nebraska Press), winner of the Raz/ Schumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in The Southern Review, Brevity, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere. A native of California raised in Arizona and transplanted to the South, she is a grateful recipient of fellowships from the Arizona, Alabama, and North Carolina arts councils and the Poets and Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award in fiction. A graduate of Vanderbilt University’s M.F.A. program, she makes her home in Charlotte, NC, with artist Timothy Winkler and teaches at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction ($500)
Winner: “A New Life” by Linda Woolford
Citation: This story has such a rich, tough, beautiful, off-kilter sensibility, as well as such memorable creatures both human and animal (hello, ant farm!). The language and imagery weave a spell, elevating the already complex characterization and tense situa- tion. A wonderful evocation of working-class single motherhood and womanhood.
Gary Wilson Short Fiction Award ($250)
Winner: “The Dying of the Light” by Patrick J. Murphy
Citation: Such a delightful, unexpected historical reimagining. I didn’t expect to be so riveted—and moved—by immersing in Thomas Edison’s inner world, but I found myself quite transported. A lovely quiet, introspective piece.
Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award ($500)
Winner: “A Boy ago” by Nnadi Samuel
Citation: I found this poem electrifying both linguistically and imagistically but also in its subject. The sense of longing, love, and memory pulsates through each line. Such a fabulous final stanza—really sticks the landing.
Baskerville Publishers Poetry Award ($250)
Winner: “Place for Winter” by Satoshi Iwai
Citation: An evocative poem full of silence, space, and surreality. A testament to the complexity found within restraint. That translucent bus haunts me still.
2021 Contest Winners
Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction ($500)
“That Could Be Us Someday” by Sean Littlefield Chumley
Gary Wilson Short Fiction Award ($250)
“Acting the Fool” by Jacqueline Guidry
Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award ($500)
“My Wife Never Ate Asparagus” by Sean Thomas Dougherty
Baskerville Publishers Poetry Award ($250)
“Waiting for Water” by Warren Woessner
2020 Contest Winners
Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction ($500)
“Griswold” by Patricia Horvath
Gary Wilson Short Fiction Award ($250)
“Down from the Mountain” by Heath Dollar
Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award ($500)
“Meltwater” by Claire Wahmanholm
Baskerville Publishers Poetry Award ($250)
“In the Nave of the New World” by Elton Glaser
2019 Contest Winners
Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction ($500):
Midge Raymond for “[Indistinct Conversation]”
Gary Wilson Short Story Award ($250):
Patty Houston for “Corporation Alley”
Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award ($500):
Crystal Yeung for “My Mother in a Sea Captain Outfit by a Lake with a Girl in a Dress, Taishan, 1984”
Baskerville Publishers Poetry Award ($250):
Nathan Stabenfeldt for “Redshift”
2018 Contest Winners
Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction ($500):
Gregory Wolos for “Balance”
Gary Wilson Short Story Award ($250):
Dan Pope for “Cape Cod, 1979”
Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award ($500):
Ken Haas for “The Path of Totality”
Baskerville Publishers Poetry Award ($250):
Todd Copeland for “Crabbing”
2017 Contest Winners
Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction ($500):
“The Aquarium” by Brad Eddy
Gary Wilson Short Fiction Award ($250):
“Ever After” by Toni Jensen
Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award ($500):
“Anniversary” by Kelly Nelson
Baskerville Publishers Poetry Award ($250):
“For You (when you find your hair on my floor)” by Alexis Trevino
2016 Contest Winners
Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction ($500):
Tom Bennitt for “Nor’easter”
Gary Wilson Short Story Award ($250):
Kim Magowan for “Like Salt”
Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award ($500):
Christopher Davis for “Against Pride”
Baskerville Publishers Poetry Award ($250):
Adam Day for “Nothing’s Branch”
2015 Contest Winners
Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction ($500):
Ann Glaviano for “New Hampshire”
Gary Wilson Short Story Award ($250):
Hasanthika Sirisena for “Treble Seven, Double Naught”
Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award ($500):
Sean Thomas Dougherty for “You Are Beautiful as the Absence of Air”
Baskerville Publishers Poetry Award ($250):
Nancy Reddy for “Little, Red”
2014 Contest Winners
Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction ($500):
Tyrone Jaeger for “To Thy Speed Add Wings”
Gary Wilson Short Story Award ($250):
Jennifer Moffett for “A Peculiar Apocalypse Behind the Gates”
Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award ($500):
Ada Limón for “Day of Song, Day of Silence”
Baskerville Publishers Poetry Award ($250):
Henry Israeli for “The Great Soviet Space Dog Experiment”