DISQUIET International is happy to announce the winners of our 2015 Disquiet Literary Prize (in partnership with Guernica, NinthLetter.com, and Fence, and our largest contest to date), our fellowships for North American writers of Luso descent (in partnership with the Luso-American Development Foundation), and the results of our second Short Play Contest!

2015 DISQUIET Literary Prize Winners

POETRY WINNER: “In the Year of No Sleep” by Corey Van Landingham (will receive free airfare, accommodation, and tuition for the 2015 Disquiet Program, as well as publication in Fence Magazine)

Corey Van Landingham is a Wallace Stegner Poetry Fellow at Stanford University, and the author of Antidote, winner of the 2012 Ohio State University Press/The Journal Award in Poetry. She is the recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award, as well as multiple scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2014, Best New Poets 2012, Kenyon Review, Narrative, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.

FICTION WINNER: “A Bunch of Savages” by Sofia Stambolieva (will receive free airfare, accommodation, and tuition for the 2015 Disquiet Program, as well as publication in Guernica)

Sofi Stambo has a MFA in Literature from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Bulgaria. She had been published by Promethean, Ep;phany, Plamuk, The Kenyon Review Online and The Broadkill Review. Four of her stories are pending publication by New Letters, Stand, The MacGuffin and Fourteen Hills. She lives in New York City.

NON-FICTION WINNER: “Invisible Nails” by Samuel Autman (will receive free airfare, accommodation, and tuition for the 2015 Disquiet Program, as well as publication on NinthLetter.com)

Samuel Autman is an assistant professor of creative writing at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana where he specializes in the personal essay and journalism. His essay “A Dash of Pepper in the Snow” appears in The Chalk Circle: Prizewinning Intercultural Essays anthology.​ His essays have been printed in Under the Gum Tree, Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction, Postcard Memoirs, I’m Black and I Travel, The Huffington Post and The Good Men Project. He is currently at work on Sanctified: A Memoir.

GRAYWOLF PRIZE WINNER: An excerpt from “Chinese Bible” by Ling Ma (will receive free tuition for the 2015 Disquiet Program, as well as publication in on the Graywolf website)

Ling Ma is an MFA candidate at Cornell University. In her previous life, she was a journalist and editor. Her writings have appeared in Playboy, Chicago Reader, Ninth Letter, ACM, Unstuck and elsewhere. Though she’s lived many places in the U.S., she considers Chicago her hometown. Find her at lingma.tumblr.com.

SLS-DISQUIET LITERARY PRIZE FINALISTS

Poetry: Esther Lee, Alexis Pope, Diane Seuss, Yuki Tanaka

Fiction: Amina Gautier, Annabel Graham, Anna Marschalk-Burns, Ploy Pirapokin, Melissa R. Sipin

Non-Fiction: Ming Lauren Holden, Will McGrath, Jami Nakamura, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Marco Wilkinson

2015 DISQUIET Short Play Contest

We are pleased to announce the results of our 2nd annual DISQUIET Short Play Contest. Special thanks to Stephanie Timm, our guest judge and 2015 playwriting faculty, for selecting this year’s winner.

WINNER: “Reticence” by Carolyn Kras (will receive free airfare, accommodation, and tuition for the 2015 Disquiet Program, as well as a staged reading of the winning play in Lisbon)

Carolyn Kras received the Visionary Playwright Award and Commission from Theater Masters and has been a writer-in-residence at Ucross Foundation, Ragdale Foundation, and Anderson Center. Her plays have been produced or developed at Chicago Dramatists, Stage Left Theatre, Centenary Stage Company, Live Girls! Theater, The Looking Glass Theatre, Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre, 20% Theatre Company Chicago, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Chicago New Work Festival, ATHE New Play Development Workshop, Pittsburgh New Works Festival, and Theater Masters.

DISQUIET SHORT PLAY CONTEST FINALISTS: Aravind Adyanthaya, Stephanie Del Rosso, Julianne Jigour, MJ Kaufman, John Yunker

Luso-American FLAD Scholarship Winners:

With special thanks to our partner Fundação Luso-Americana, Disquiet is pleased to announce the winners of the fifth annual Luso-American Scholarship contest. All winners will receive free airfare, accommodation, and tuition for the 2015 Disquiet program in Lisbon.

Carla Costa

Carla Costa is an arts administrator and facilitator who works on fiction and film with a community of writers, artists, and scientists in Northampton, MA. She’s previously written about arts and culture for indie mags like Kitchen Sink and Punk Planet. Her short stories are forthcoming.

Corina M. Fadel

Corina M. Fadel is a Detroit-based, Boston-bred queer writer, dancer, and bodyworker who is fascinated with the idea of home, and consistently seeks to complicate her understanding of both life and death. She respects the power of questions, lives her life in the spirit of “both;and” and believes in the realm of magical possibility. Corina writes often and has done so passionately and privately for most of her life.

Arturo Soria

Arturo Soria began his career in Chicago where he received a BFA in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. In 2012, he was recognized in The New Yorker for his portrayal of Tano in the world premiere of Hit the Wall, produced by The Inconvenience and Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. As a writer, Arturo has been developing his self-written solo show You Don’t Know My Life, NI MI MADRE since he was nestled in his mother’s womb. Arturo has performed NI MI MADRE at several theatre festivals around Chicago and most recently off-Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre. For more information please visit ArturoSoria.org.

Congratulations to all our fellowship winners, contest winners and finalists! And thank you for the opportunity to read your work.