Crab Creek Review Announces Fiction Contest Winner: Hal Ackerman

Western Washington University professor and author, Kathryn Trueblood, has chosen "The Dancer Horse" by Hal Ackerman as the winner of Crab Creek Review's Annual Fiction Contest.

Hal Ackerman has been on the faculty of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television since 1985 and is currently co-area head of the screenwriting program.  His book, Write Screenplays That Sell…The Ackerman Way, is in its third printing, and is the text of choice in a growing number of screenwriting programs around the country. He has had numerous short stories published in literary journals over the past two years, including North Dakota Review, New Millennium Writings, Southeast Review, The Pinch, Storyglossia, Passages and The Yalobusha Review. His short Story, “Roof Garden” won the Warren Adler 2008 award for fiction and is published by Kindle. “Alfalfa,” was included in the anthology, I Wanna Be Sedated…30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers. Among the twenty-nine “other writers” were Louise Erdrich, Dave Barry, Anna Quindlen, Roz Chast, and Barbara Kingsolver. “Walk Through” is among Southeast Review’s World’s Best Short Shorts of 2010. Ackerman's non-fiction baseball memoir, “Talk To The Stars” appears in the 15th anniversary issue of Sports Literate. His play, TESTOSTERONE: How Prostate Cancer Made A Man of Me, won the William Saroyan Centennial Prize for drama and enjoyed a successful run in Los Angeles and has been performed nationwide for Prostate support groups. Ackerman's first novel, STEIN, STONED (www.tyrusbooks.com) was published in July 2010. STEIN, STUNG is forthcoming in late spring of 2011.

About his winning short story, "The Dancer Horse," Ackerman writes, "The race track is a great place to watch fate unfold. Everyone believes the story and judgment of their lives is playing out in the results of the next race. The best part is watching people watch the TV replay and hoping the result might be different." Fiction Contest Judge, Kathryn Trueblood, writes, "The story ("The Dancer Horse") introduces a richly idiosyncratic voice and the prose is percussive. The rhythm of the race track pervades but there are many kinds of urgency at work here. The story surprises the reader the way our own emotions often do, surfacing suddenly."

Special thanks to our judge, Kathryn Trueblood, Associate Professor of English at Western Washington University and award winning author. And, thank you to Jen Betterley and Nancy Canyon, Crab Creek Review's fiction editors.

Look for "The Dancer Horse" in Crab Creek Review 2011, Vol.1, which will be available at the end of May.

Congratulations, Hal!