The Vincent Brothers Review editors are pleased to announce the ten shortlist place winners from our 2022 Annual Short Story Contest, themed “Portals.” The Shortlist Ten—in alphabetical order—are:
“It Just Goes Down There” by Richard Ballou
“Echolocation (Easter 1959)” by Gary Bolick
“The Ice House” by Michael Loyd Gray
“A Touch of Harlem Gold” by Hunter Liguore
“Not Real” by Addie Lovell
“Anomalies” by Robert McGee
“They’d Ravaged Her, and They Now Camped” by Rebecca Pyle
“Welcome to Alcatraz” by PG Smith
“The Nines, The Fates, and the Endless Dripping of Blood” by Erica Simone Turnipseed
“Superstition Mountains” by Meredith Wadley
The ten finalists are now in the hands of Rafael Alvarez, the contest’s final judge for the first-, second-, and two honorable-mention places. The FINAL FOUR short stories will be announced by early April, and they will appear in the PRINT version of TVBR Issue #28. The other contest finalists will appear in the print or on-line versions of Issue #28. We’ll make final format decisions by the end of April.
We received more than 200 well-written stories, and whittling down entries to a shortlist was difficult. Many of the fiction entries were centered on the idea of music as a portal, which makes sense when you think of how transportive music can be.
The remaining nonfiction and poetry selections for Issue #28 will be announced on this website at the end of April 2023.
As always, TVBR editors are impressed by the professional quality of writing out there, and we receive far many more deserving stories than we have room and budget to publish. Keep up the great work!
