Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln has announced the winners of its annual Raz-Shumaker Book Prizes. The winners were chosen from more than 1,000 submissions from around the world.
The winner of the 2022 Raz-Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry is Jared Harél for “Let Our Bodies Change the Subject,” chosen by guest judges Hilda Raz and Major Jackson with Kwame Dawes, editor-in-chief of Prairie Schooner. He will receive a $3,000 award and publication by the University of Nebraska Press.
Major Jackson praised Harél’s poetry, writing, “self-portraiture in this volume becomes a device by which to explore held memories of compelling and vivid detail… the speaker is equally at awe with the world and humbled in his suffering.”
Harél is the author of the debut poetry collection, “Go Because I Love You” (Diode Editions, 2018). He’s been awarded the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from American Poetry Review, and the William Matthews Poetry Prize from Asheville Poetry Review. Harél’s poems have recently appeared in such journals as 32 Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal, Harvard Review Online, and Ploughshares. He teaches at The Writers Circle, plays drums for the NYC-based rock band Flyin’ J and The Ghostrobber, and lives in Westchester, New York, with his wife and two children.
This year’s finalist manuscript for poetry is “Answer with Hunger” by Stacey Boe Miller.
The winner of the 2022 Raz-Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction is Gen Del Raye for his manuscript “Boundless Deep and Other Stores,” chosen by Dawes and guest judges, Cristina García and Cate Kennedy. He will receive a $3,000 award and publication by the University of Nebraska Press.
García describes “Boundless Deep and Other Stories” as, “a multi-faceted collection of stories set both in the U.S. and Japan that explore bi-culturality through a wide range of exquisitely detailed experiences.” And, Kennedy praised Del Raye’s “deep connections and undercurrents, rendered with delicacy and precision.”
Del Raye is a writer and translator based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was born and raised in Kyoto, Japan, and received a Master of Fine Arts from Hamline University. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Gettysburg Review, Poetry Northwest, Best Small Fictions, and Best New Poets. He has been the winner of the Force Majeure Flash Contest, Up North Poetry Prize, and Great Midwest Poetry Contest, and is the recipient of a Loft Mentor Series Fellowship.
This year’s finalist manuscripts in fiction are “Notes for an Ending” by Kyoko Uchida and “It Will Be Beautiful Again” by Mubanga Kalimamukwento.
The competition runs from Jan. 15 to March 15 annually. Submission details are available online.
Previous winning books are available through the University of Nebraska Press, here for fiction, and here for poetry.
Founded in 1926, Prairie Schooner is a national literary quarterly published with the support of the English Department at University of Nebraska–Lincoln. It publishes fiction, poetry, essays and reviews by beginning, mid-career, and established writers.
