Crab Creek Review's Fiction Contest Winner Announced!

Contest judge, Kim Barnes has chosen "The Tenant" by Roger Sheffer as the winner of Crab Creek Review's 2011 Fiction Contest. About her decision to choose "The Tenant", Kim Barnes writes, "The best fiction takes us to that strange place where we have never been but instantly recognize as familiar, and Roger Sheffer's "The Tenant" is just that kind of story: peculiar, fascinating, and, finally, heartbreaking in its portrayal of our need to control the chaos of emotion and vulnerability when what we desire most of all is the courage to belong."

Roger Sheffer has been teaching writing at Minnesota State Mankato since 1980. His most recent book publication is the story collection Music of the Inner Lakes (New Rivers). His stories have appeared in The Missouri Review, Northwest Review, Third Coast, Fugue, Harpur Palate, and many other magazines. His interests, beyond writing, include hiking, rowboats, composing music, and choir singing. About his winning fiction piece, Roger writes, "I was interested in how the power differential between two characters could change, during the course of a story. That it began with a cough and ended with an eviction seemed predestined; hopefully, not too predictable."

Thank you to contest judge, Kim Barnes and to our fiction editors, Jen Betterley and Nancy Canyon. Congratulations, Roger!

Look for "The Tenant" in Crab Creek Review 2012 v. 1, available in spring.

Crab Creek Review's Annual Poetry Contest (2012): March 1st - May 31st

Enter Crab Creek Review's 2012 Poetry Contest! This year's submission period is March 1st - May 31st. Our guest judge is award winning poet, Susan Rich.

• Submit up to 3 previously unpublished poems
• $200 prize and publication in Crab Creek Review
• $10 entry fee
• All entries considered for publication
• Email submissions only

For complete guidelines, please visit: http://www.crabcreekreview.org/contest.htm

Susan Rich (guest contest judge) is the author of three collections of poetry, The Alchemist’s Kitchen (2010) which was named a finalist for the Foreword Prize and the Washington State Book Award, Cures Include Travel (2006), and The Cartographer’s Tongue / Poems of the World (2000) which won the PEN West Award for Poetry. She has received awards from The Times Literary Supplement of London, Peace Corps Writers and the Fulbright Foundation. Her featured appearances include the Cuirt Literary Festival in Galway, Ireland and the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. Recent poems have been published in the Antioch Review, Harvard Review, Gettysburg Review, Poetry International, Poetry Ireland, The Southern Review, New England Review, and The Women’s Review of Books. Born and educated in Boston, Massachusetts, Susan now makes her home in Seattle, WA. This summer she will be returning to Ireland to teach at Anam Cara Writers Retreat. For more information on Susan see her at website (http://www.susanrich.net/) or at her blog, The Alchemist’s Kitchen http://thealchemistskitchen.blogspot.com/