CutBank Announces New Contests — CutBank Literary Magazine

Announcing our 2024 Genre Contest Winners:

April 23, 2024

We are excited to announce the winners and finalists of the 2024 CutBank Genre Contests, judged by Christine Byl, Toni Jensen, and Christina Olson. We appreciate every submission we get — thank you for the opportunity to read your work. The winning stories will be published in CutBank 101 this summer.

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Winner, Montana Prize in Nonfiction: “Kansas Tries to Say Goodbye” by Ruby Hansen Murray

Judged by Toni Jensen

Praise for “Kansas Tries to Say Goodbye” from Toni Jensen: “In “Kansas Tries to Say Goodbye,” Ruby Hansen Murray centers Osage language reclamation and community building in its rightful home on the South Plains. This essay shows the importance of language and land while also telling the compelling story of the language teachers, their histories and processes and deep commitment. The essay’s images and language carry the beauty and motion of the place and people with grace and love. It’s a beautiful portrait of connection.”

Ruby Hansen Murray is a columnist for the Osage News and a MacDowell and Hedgebrook fellow. Find her in Cascadia: A Field Guide, Ecotone, Pleiades, Moss, World Literature Today, the Massachusetts Review, The Rumpus, and Colorlines. She’s a citizen of the Osage and Cherokee Nations with West Indian roots living along the Columbia River.

Winner, Montana Prize in Fiction: “Joining the Pack” by E. Klein

Judged by Christine Byl

Praise for “Joining the Pack” from Christine Byl: “I have always been fascinated by the lives of dogs, and believe them to be kin to humans, yet it’s the rare story that can inhabit an animal’s consciousness without raising my hackles. E. Klein’s “Joining the Pack” is a rare story—inventive but unselfconscious, empathetic but not sentimental, and weird in the best possible way. With choices of diction, syntax and rhythm, the story creates its own logic, making for a nimble, imaginative romp that grabs a reader by the scruff and licks our sorrows into belonging.”

E. William Klein is from Ketchikan, Alaska, and worked in the commercial fishing industry there for 8 years. He received his MFA in Fiction from the Helen Zell Writer's program at the University of Michigan in 2016. His writing was awarded Honorable Mention in Bellevue Literary Review's 2024 Goldberg Prize for Fiction and has otherwise appeared in Carve and MQR.

Winner, Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry: “Sometimes when I am traveling alone I think of having a drink again in an airport bar” by Caitlin Scarano

Judged by Christina Olson

Praise for “Sometimes when I am traveling alone I think of having a drink again in an airport bar” by Christina Olson: "I love a good narrative poem, and "Sometimes when I am traveling alone I think of having a drink again in an airport bar" isn't a good narrative poem, it's a great one. We're in the airport with our speaker, wrestling with the dilemma to break seven years of sobriety, and then here comes the father, singing and cooing to his rotten liver. The airport is littered with men, their suitcase wheels making noise, and the father, not in the airport but riding on the shoulders of the speaker, and the estranged family, and the limitations of the body. Our speaker weaves all this trauma into a brief, shining story of abuse and heartbreak and--most essentially--survival. Sometimes we sit next to strangers at airport bars to hear stories; sober or not, you don't need to make friends over a $17 Heineken when you have this poem, which is better than any story a businessman connecting through DFW could tell you anyway.”

Caitlin Scarano is a writer based in Bellingham, Washington. Her second full length collection of poems,* The Necessity of Wildfire*, was a finalist for the WA State Book Award. Find her at caitlinscarano.com.

CutBank is pleased to announce the Montana Prize in Fiction, the Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction, and the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry.

We are honored to have three talented judges participating in the inaugural year of these contests. The Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry will be judged by Michele Glazer. Aimee Bender will select the winner of the Montana Prize in Fiction. The winner of the Montana Prize in Creative Nonfiction will be selected by Suzanne Paola. Click here to read their bios.

Deadline for submissions is February 29. Winners receive $500 and publication in CutBank 69. All submissions will be considered for publication in CutBank.

The contests' $13 entry fee includes a one-year, two-issue subscription to CutBank, beginning with the prize issue, CutBank 69.

Please send only your best work. With all three of these awards, we are seeking to highlight work that showcases an authentic voice, a boldness of form, and a rejection of functional fixedness.

FULL GUIDELINES:

Submissions postmarked earlier than December 1, 2007 or later than February 29, 2008 will be returned unread (along with payment).

Submissions are accepted via postal mail only. Please include SASE for reply and prepare your manuscript according to CutBank's conventional submission guidelines. The contest entry must be noted on the envelope and cover letter, i.e.:

The Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry

CutBank

English Dept, LA 133
University of Montana

Missoula, MT 59812

A $13 contest entry fee includes a one-year subscription to CutBank. The entry fee covers the reading of a single submission in a single genre. Prose writers, please send only a single work of no greater than 40 printed pages. Poets may submit up to five poems. Submissions that exceed these guidelines will be returned unread, along with payment. Please submit only once within in a genre, although writers are permitted to submit in multiple genres.

Please include a short cover letter that mentions your address, phone number, and email address, as well as the title of your work. Please include the author's name on the manuscript—names will be removed from the pool of submissions that goes before our contest judges.

Current subscribers may submit for the same $13 fee—subscriptions will be extended by one year.

Please submit entry fee by personal or cashier's check. Checks can be made out to CutBank Literary Magazine.

Entrants will be notified of their submission status no later than May 15, 2008. One winner in each genre, as chosen by our guest judges, will receive a $500 award and publication in CutBank 69, our summer 2008 issue. Winners will be required to complete a W-9 form to receive payment. All manuscripts are considered for publication in CutBank. All rights to selected manuscripts revert to the author upon publication. The author grants their permission to have their work electronically archived as part of CutBank 69 in EBSCO International's subscription-based research database.

Current University of Montana students and faculty and former CutBank staff are not eligible for the awards.

Announcing our 2024 Genre Contest Winners:

Winner, Montana Prize in Nonfiction: “Kansas Tries to Say Goodbye” by Ruby Hansen Murray

Judged by Toni Jensen

2024 Nonfiction Contest Finalists:

Winner, Montana Prize in Fiction: “Joining the Pack” by E. Klein

Judged by Christine Byl

2024 Fiction Contest Finalists:

Winner, Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry: “Sometimes when I am traveling alone I think of having a drink again in an airport bar” by Caitlin Scarano

Judged by Christina Olson

2024 Patricia Goedicke Contest Runner-Up:

2024 Patricia Goedicke Contest Finalists:

Announcing our 2023-2024 Big Sky, Small Prose Winners:

**All three of these finalists will be published in issue 100 of CutBank, our winter/spring issue. Stay tuned in 2024 for details!**