2024 Results

Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition 2024:
Winners and Honorable Mentions

February 2025

Dear Writers,

Thank you all for your abundant patience and understanding while waiting for the announcement of our 2024 Winners and Honorable Mentions. You will find these below.

This year our competition received over 600 entries from the United States and around the world. It has been my honor, as always, to read your wonderful stories that are truly unique in the amazing breadth of human experience they encompass. I find that each year there is an ever-broadening sense of humanity in your stories that shines a light on those who are often forgotten: the disabled, the stigmatized, the marginalized among us whose voices need to be heard more strongly. And each of you, in your own individual way, have helped to make these voices resound. Thank you.

I am always humbled by the words with which you entrust me, and that feeling only grows stronger as the years accrue. You have taught me so much about human decency and it’s power to alter the course of a life. The genuine and so often eloquent quality of your writing speaks to your own very personal understanding of both pain and triumph. What an achievement this is!

Please know that if you do not find your story among the winners and honorable mentions it does not mean that it was not read with great care and attention. I consider each story that is submitted an absolute gift. Above all, know that you made a difference in this writer’s life. I took your stories with me deep into the night, and I woke to them in the morning. They have filled my days with enrichment, enlightenment, and love. How could they not? Because when you truly love to write, that love becomes an integral part of each story you create.

Please keep writing! As I have said before, the world needs your words.

Always,

– Lorian

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Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition 2024: Winners and Honorable Mentions

*Please note that Honorable Mentions are listed in no particular order.

Honorable Mentions:
1) Amy H. Peterson
For: “La Vie: fashion and fate”

2) Laura O’Gorman Schwartz
For: “Relevant Person”

3) Angela Chaidez Vincent
Fresno, California
For: “Goddess on Stilts”

4) Susanne LaBrake
Highland, California
For: “Middle Ground”

5) Lior Blum
Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
For: “Peak XV”

6) Joe Dyakowski
Hitchin, United Kingdom
For: “One Will of the People and a Side of Bacon”

7) Lennie Roeber-Tsiongas
Los Angeles, California
For: “A Word for I”

8) Allie Moh
Munich, Germany
For: “Light Keeper”

9) Marley Korzen
Santa Barbara, California
For: “The Upside”

10) Mahala Smith
Denver, Colorado
For: “Just a Ride”

11) Jana Haasbroek
Australia
For: “Meeting a Fellow Survivalist”

12) Mina Sharif
Ontario, Canada
For: “Picnic at Purple Hill”

13) Jakob Jehn
Newton, Iowa
For: “Into”

14) Patrick McCusker
Wicklow County, Ireland
For: “A Blue House Among Cedars”

15) Emily Alice Katz
Durham, North Carolina
For: “Molly and Mimi in the Southland”

16) Sarah Khan
Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
For: “Funeral of the Dead”

17) Katie Harms
Chelsea, Michigan
For: “The Circus”

18) Karen Stone
Seattle, Washington
For: “Whiskey Cats”

19) Jim Berg
Appleton, Wisconsin
For: “Cricket”

20) Melissa Wozniak
Brooklyn, New York
For: “Fault Lines”

21: Zachary Ryan
Evansville, Indiana
For: “A Crane Game Countdown”

22) Veronika Dupunt
London, United Kingdom
For: “Echoes”

23) Michael Franich
Milton, Washington
For: “A Walk to the Park”

24) Victorino Lambinicio Jr.
Fredericksburg, Virginia
For: “Ada”

25) Rachel Cook
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
For: “Dirt Mother”

26) Barry Garrett
Chagrin Falls, Ohio
For: “Thick Skin”

27) James Moran
London, United Kingdom
For: “Tempo”

28) Kate Snow
New South Wales
For: “The Voice of a Duckling”

THIRD-PLACE:
Emily Hampson
River Forest, Illinois
For: “Couch Debris”

SECOND-PLACE:
Anna Rumin
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
For: “Talk Radio”

FIRST-PLACE:
Krista Jane May
Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada
For: “Blueberries Ahead”