2025 Results

Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition 2025:
Winners and Honorable Mentions

Dear Writers,

Your immense patience while waiting for the results of our 2025 competition has been so greatly appreciated. Many of you have checked in now and then to see how things were moving along, and if we were all holding up okay. Thank you! Your kindness has been a blessing as we read and reread the highest number of entries we have received in the last decade.

Our 2025 competition received over 900 entries from all over the globe: Romania, Ukraine, Sweden, France, Kenya, South Korea, New Zealand, Ireland, Italy, Norway, and China, to name just a few. I was stunned by the number of countries represented this year and by the regional variety of voices that, no matter the nationality, spoke as they always do to the raw humanity of life in times of sorrow, grief, love, loss, transformation, joy and immense vulnerability.

Through your own vulnerability and trust you offered these stories to us in confidence and with the hope that we would treat them with the respect they so rightly deserve. I can assure you that we did. If you do not find your name on the list please know that this does not mean your story doesn’t deserve to be there. This is the hardest part of the competition for me: to have to make final choices that will disappoint so many, and it has not grown any easier with the 45 years that have passed since its inception. Please know there is a unique value and deeply human truth in all of your individual voices that move me on so many levels: I cry, I laugh, I bite my lip, wring my hands in anticipation, and then take your stories with me deep into the night, remembering the feeling and the rhythm of your words, and so often the deep sense of place with which you imbue your narratives. Each story is a purely unique gift, and is celebrated as such by both me and everyone associated with our competition. We love your writing!

The world needs your words. I write this often in my annual letter, but it always bears repeating because there is no replacement ever for the resonance of a truly human voice that finds expression through trauma, pain and triumph. Words are indeed golden, indelible, and once again you have shown me how invaluable they are not only for the survival of the spirit, but for its dazzling ability to thrive.

Thank you so very much, each of you. You are the best!

– Lorian

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Below please find our 2025 Winners and Honorable mentions:

Honorable Mentions (listed in no particular order)

1) Michael Diaz
Bristol, UK
For: “Billy Birch”

2) Talina Hurzeler
London, UK
For: “The Fishbowl”

3) Jaime Gill
Brighton, UK
For: “Obedience”

4) John Doble
New York, New York
For: “Tatyana and the Cable Man”

5) Aimee LaBrie
Cranbury, New Jersey
For: “Willful”

6) Nicholas Watts
Devon, UK
For: “The Last Train Out”

7) Sean Lindsay
Ontario, Canada
For: “Searching for Sarah”

8) Victoria Manda
For: “The Female Menagerie”

9) Char Caratti
For: “Wasp Honey”

10) Babette Gallard
For: “Feeling Sound”

11) Krista Jane May
Ladysmith, BC Canada
For: “River Road”

12). Diane Botnick
For: “Mornings are Hell”

13) Eugene Nicholas
New York, New York
For: “Grandma in Upstate NY

14) Vanessa Kee
Ontario, Canada
For: “A Penny for a Fortune”

15) Sean Feng
Shanghai, China
For: “Memory Stick”

16) Ashley Berry
Cranston, Rhode Island
For: “Goodwill”

17) Louisa Ferguson
Saskatchewan, Canada
For: “The Endless Journey”

18) Tom Dolan
Great Falls, Virginia
For: “Canon of the Stars”

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

20) Brandis Belt
Raritan, New Jersey
For: “Mrs. Frank Cooper”

21) Ava Sedgwick
Cork, Ireland
For: “Tomorrow”

22) Lisa A. Mahoney
St. Augustine, Florida
For: “The First Last Request of Kay Hawthorn”

23) Amy H. Peterson
For: “Sparks Like Fallen Stars”

24) Sridhar Narayanan
For: “Gurudev”

25) Candy G. Barnhisel
Safety Harbor, Florida
For: “Crowned from Chaos”

26) Robert Daseler
For: “Laura”

27) Bernard Santana
West Stockbridge, Massachusetts
For: “Smiles and Stamps”

28) Naomi Stenberg
Seattle, Washington
For: “Forgetting and Remembering”

29) Nicholas Watts
Devon, UK
For: “Mr. Wheelie Clocks Out”

30) Michael Franich
Milton, Washington
For: “Where the Road Ends”

THIRD-PLACE:
Margaret Ndegwa
Nakuru, Kenya
For: “For Amora”

SECOND-PLACE:
Brian Patrick Heston
United States
For: “Practice”

FIRST-PLACE:
Pam Morrison
Dunedin, New Zealand
For: “One Small Bird”