Short Nonfiction Contest Past Winners

The Kenyon Review Short Nonfiction Contest Winners

April 4, 2024 – Jessica Petrow-Cohen Wins 2024 KR Short Nonfiction Contest

We’re pleased to announce the winner of the Kenyon Review 2024 Short Nonfiction Contest. Judge Melissa Febos selected “On Molting” by Jessica Petrow-Cohen as the winner.

“At once taut and discursive,” writes Febos, “‘On Molting’ draws an outline of grief by sketching the contours of a life unmoored by loss but kept aloft by humor and the pleasures of memory and the mundane.”

“On Molting” will be published in the Winter 2025 issue of the Kenyon Review, and Jessica Petrow-Cohen will receive a scholarship to the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops. Congratulations, Jessica!

Honorable Mentions:

April 4, 2023 – Carrie Cogan Wins 2023 KR Short Nonfiction Contest

We’re pleased to announce the winner of the Kenyon Review 2023 Short Nonfiction Contest. Judge Leslie Jamison selected “Lowest of the Low on a High Red Hill” by Carrie Cogan as the winner.

“The voice of this essay move[s] like wind through hollowed-out bone, to borrow one of its countless haunted images,” writes Jamison. “There’s an electric and infinitely compelling relationship dramatized here between various dimensions of the self — past and present, person and pathology — and pivots of mind and heart, moments of insight and feeling, that I will never forget.”

“Lowest of the Low on a High Red Hill” will be published in an upcoming issue of the Kenyon Review, and Carrie Cogan will receive a scholarship to the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops. Congratulations, Carrie!

Honorable Mentions:

April 4, 2022 – Karen Kao Wins 2022 KR Short Nonfiction Contest

We’re pleased to announce the winner of the Kenyon Review 2022 Short Nonfiction Contest. Judge Maggie Nelson selected “Fish Tales” by Karen Kao.

Maggie Nelson says: “‘Fish Tales’ has great rhythm and propulsion. It’s pretty then gross then sad then worrying then exciting. It slips in and out of weird synecdoche, swerves with grace between divergent forms of address. It treads on cultural fault lines, familial discord, sensory experience, the move from childhood to adulthood, without wasting time explaining. I’d read a book of it.”

“Fish Tales” will be published in an upcoming issue of the Kenyon Review, and Karen Kao will receive a scholarship to the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops. Congratulations, Karen!

Honorable Mentions:

“Roses” by Leah Alter

Maggie Nelson says: “‘Roses’ takes many swerves within its 2.5 pages—is it really just 2.5 pages? Yes, it is—what a whirlwind of images and proper nouns, from a severed pig’s head to stinky pastrami to Seroquel to dirty fingernails to Keats to damp receptive earth. I respect its speed and pain.”

“When You Jump Off The Brooklyn Bridge” by Sam Berman

Maggie Nelson says: “‘When You Jump Off The Brooklyn Bridge’ is a bewildering read, but it’s a good kind of bewilderment, wherein I understand more each time I read it—it’s not hiding anything. It’s complex because it’s about a subjectivity that’s all swirled up and interpenetrated by another, someone who is now dead and missed. It pays homage to that person’s keen, idiosyncratic powers of observation, by offering up the writer’s own.”

April 6, 2021 — Brigitte Leschhorn Arrocha Wins 2021 KR Short Nonfiction Contest

We are pleased and excited to announce the winners of the third annual Kenyon Review Short Nonfiction Contest.

• First Prize: Brigitte Leschhorn Arrocha: “And We Inherit Everything”
• Runner-up: Christian Butterfield, “Blue Whale Challenge”
• Runner-up: dm armstrong, “Translating”
• Honorable Mention: Sandrine Tunezerwe, “Ndagukunda” and Madeline Horan, “The Quiet Limit of the World”

Judge Roxane Gay writes:

Winner: “And We Inherit Everything”

Every line in “And We Inherit Everything,” is lush, exquisite. “We live at the mouth of grief,” the essay begins and from there, we are taken on a lyrical journey about grief, yes, but also the wounds of family, and the myths of the people to whom we belong. 

Runners-up: “Blue Whale Challenge,” and “Translating”

“Blue Whale Challenge” is innovative not only in form but in function. The narrative builds slowly, inexorably, and it is beautifully, rendered, haunting at times, but always remarkable. 

When we teach, it can be easy to forget that our students often lead complicated lives beyond our classrooms. “Translating” is a moving remembrance of a student suffering from chronic illness, the impact they had on a teacher, and how some experiences are beyond translation.

The winner and runners-up will be published in the Nov/Dec 2021 issue of the Kenyon Review and will appear concurrently on KROnline in November 2021.

April 6, 2020 — Miriam Grossman Wins 2020 KR Short Nonfiction Contest

We are pleased and excited to announce the winners of the second annual Kenyon Review Short Nonfiction Contest.

• First Prize: Miriam Grossman: “2004”
• Runner-up: Mary O. Parker, “Currents and Eddies”
• Runner-up: Stella Li, “Mouthwater”

Judge Ira Sukrungruang writes:

Winner: “2004”

It is the little moments that make “2004” an astounding essay—the quiet tension marked by fruit, the unspoken struggle between mother and daughter, between daughter and body, between body and its sense of visibility. Here, Grossman writes about the reflection seen in the mirror of mothers and daughters; but like most mirrors, in time, they begin to crack.

Runners-up: “Currents and Eddies,” and “Mouthwater”

“Currents and Eddies” haunts. It sticks with you. Envelops you as a river would. It harkens to those moments when youth comes roaring back. With it: guilt, confusion, joy, and the thought we all once had—that would last forever, that danger could never happen to us until it does.

Secrets. Body. Family. “Mouthwater” is an essay that side steps with lyrical grace the conflict no ones wants to address.This is the true tension of this piece—what is not said, what sits silently in the psyche until one begins to suffocate.  

The winner and runners-up will be published in the Mar/Apr 2021 issue of the Kenyon Review and will appear concurrently on KROnline in March 2021.

April 8, 2019 — Anna Hartford Wins 2019 KR Short Nonfiction Contest

We are pleased and excited to announce the winners of the inaugural Kenyon Review Short Nonfiction Contest.

• First Prize: Anna Hartford: “Hello Fridge”
• Runner-up: KT Sparks, “Saving Luna”
• Runner-up: Benjamin Garcia, “The Great Glass Closet”
• Honorable Mention: My Tran, “The Black Cake”; and Dasom Yang, “Memory Collage 1”

Judge Geeta Kothari writes:

Winner: “Hello Fridge”

Elegiac and compelling, “Hello Fridge” surprised me with its scope and depth. It’s an essay about a refrigerator, but it’s really an essay about the beginning and end of a relationship. The fridge, a Defy D210, features “adjustable leveling feet, variable thermostat, sealed crisper. Small: human-height, or thereabouts.” The lover has neither a name nor a body and exists largely in email communications. And yet, in the end, the reader feels the narrator’s deep sense of regret. I loved the completeness of the essay, and Anna Hartford’s skillful use of a single, everyday object to tell a story about love and loss.

Runners-up: “Saving Luna,” and “The Great Glass Closet”

In “Saving Luna,” KT Sparks uses the life and death of a lamb to frame her meditation on farm life. Line-by-line, the writing is gorgeous and unsentimental. I was also impressed by the pacing and the completeness of the piece, always a challenge in short prose.

Because I love an essay that plays with form and language, an essay that in itself defies easy categorization, I was drawn to the “The Great Glass Closet.” Benjamin Garcia relies on fragments, repetition and wordplay to illustrate the fluidity of language—and identity. It’s a layered, complicated piece that demands the full attention of the reader.

This year, we are delighted to name two essays that have earned an Honorable Mention in the Kenyon Review Short Nonfiction Contest: “The Black Cake” by My Tran and “Memory Collage 1” by Dasom Yang.

The winner and runners-up will be published in the Mar/Apr 2020 issue of the Kenyon Review and will appear concurrently on KROnline in March 2020.

Back to Short Nonfiction Contest Submission Guidelines Page.