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 1,200 submissions from around the world.
The winner of the 2021 Raz-Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry is Mónica Gomery for “Might Kindred,” chosen by guest judges Hilda Raz and Aimee Nezhukumatathil with Kwame Dawes, Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner. She will receive a $3,000 award and publication by the University of Nebraska Press.
Gomery is the author of “Here is the Night and the Night on the Road” (Cooper Dillon Books 2018), and the chapbook “Of Darkness and Tumbling” (YesYes Books 2017). Her poetry has won the 2020 Minola Review Poetry Contest, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. Her writing can be found most recently at the Poetry Foundation website as a Poem of The Day and is forthcoming in Waxwing, Black Warrior Review, and The Journal. She was raised by her Venezuelan Jewish family in Boston and Caracas, and now lives on unceded Lenni Lenape land in Philadelphia, where she spends her days in service to her community as a rabbi.
The winner of the 2021 Raz-Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction is Karin Lin-Greenberg for her manuscript “Vanished,” chosen by guest judges Kaylie Jones and Achy Obejas with Dawes. She will receive a $3,000 award and publication by the University of Nebraska Press.
Karin Lin-Greenberg is the author of the story collection “Faulty Predictions” (University of Georgia Press 2014), which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and the novel “You Are Here” (Counterpoint 2023). Her stories have appeared in publications including The Antioch Review, The Southern Review, Story, and the Chicago Tribune, where she was a finalist for the Nelson Algren Award. She is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, and her work will appear in the 2022 anthology. She is an associate professor in the English Department at Siena College, where she teaches creative writing.
Poetry finalists for the prize were “Nocturne in Joy” by Tatiana Johnson-Boria, “Asterism” by Ae Hee Lee, “Portrait of Us Burning” by Sebastián Hasani Páramo, “The Singing River” by Benjamin Morris, “The Cutting Room” by Elizabeth Hoover, and “Cassandra and the Ghost Bees” by Christine Robbins.
Finalists in the fiction category were “What the Birds Do” by Cedric Synnestvedt, “Professional Lola” by E. P. Tuazon, “What Did You Do Today?” by Anthony Varallo, and “In the Shadow of the Architect” by Bradley Bazzel.
The annual competition runs from January 15 to March 15. Submission details are available online at Prairie Schooner’s website. Previous winning books are available through the University of Nebraska Press.
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.
