Award Nominations



Best of the Net 2025

When You Sell Mom’s Teeth by Arlaina Tibensky

Sometimes when I’m driving I get a call by Pat Foran

Hey My Son by Anthony Neil Smith

Purebred Hustle by Evan Morgan Williams


Best Small Fictions 2024

Amen: The End of Men by Owolusi Lucky

Clarity by James Callan

Imagining the Woman Known Only as Wife On this Eroded Tombstone in the Old Butler Cemetery off Route 194 by Janice Leadingham

Melanin and the Pink Tube by Sudha Subramanian

You Lament The Lack Of Asian Actors In American Cinema by Eliot Li


Best Microfiction 2024

Road Trip in A Place Where a Different You Once Lived by Sumitra Singam


Pushcart Prize 2024

BlackHawk Blues by Damon McKinney

Hey My Son by Anthony Neil Smith

Somewhere, Something, Something by Archer Sullivan

The Color of Bones by Paul J. Garth

When You Get Her Pregnant by Kate Arden McMullen

Where All the Heat Is by Hannah Hollifield


Best of the Net 2024

I Wrestle, I Rant But Writing Has Agency And Completes What I Can’t by Camille U. Adams

TEXT ME BACK by Sara Gerot

How I Cured My Depression by Bethany Browning

You Lament the Lack of Asian American Actors in American Cinema by Eliot Li


Derringer Awards 2023

“Back the Blue” by Anthony Neil Smith

“Jackalope Kings” by Libby Cudmore

“The Ghost of Buxahatchee Creek” by Bobby Mathews


Best Small Fictions 2023

“Codependency (Animals Included)” by Anna Schachner

“Every Which Way, the Wind” by Pat Foran

“Exodus” by Jamie Etheridge

“Extraction” by Beth Gilstrap

“Refinished” by Brian McVety


Best Microfiction 2023

“Cleaning House” by Kim Steutermann Rogers

“If a tree starts crying for help…” by Kirsten Reneau

“Orphans” by Jamy Bond

“Somewhere in the middle of nowhere…” by Barbara Byar

“When your mom is a wind up doll” by Brittany Terwilliger


Pushcart Prize 2023

“Dumpster Cats” by Kyle Seibel

“Crows in the Barleyfield” by C.W. Blackwell

“Mama Bear, Protect the Herd” by Annie Frazier

“Ten Steps to Getting Rid of the Ghost in Your House” by Maureen O’Leary

“The Ghost of Buxahatchee Creek” by Bobby Mathews

“Today, Your Secrets are Safe with Me” by Cheryl Skory Suma


Best of the Net 2023

Every Which Way, the Wind by Pat Foran

If It Plays in Peoria: A Glossary of Midwestern Survival by Megan Cannella

Lampyridae by Erin Calabria

Throwing Pennies by Cassie Mannes Murray


Derringer Awards 2022

The Ghost of Green Valley by William R. Soldan

Balaclava by Matthew Fiander

Dance the Night Away by Bobby Mathews


Best Small Fictions 2021

“An Imaginary Friend is a Conjured Ghost” by Victoria Buitron

“Birds of Prey” by Kelle Shillaci Clarke

“Casual Savior” by Amy Barnes

“Chamomile Tea, Undrunk” by Jo Varnish

“Family Portrait” by Michael Bettendorf


Best Microfiction 2022

“Deer” by Nick Gardner

“Eight Seconds” by Sabrina Hicks

“Ghost Heron” by Jack B. Bedell

“Porcellanidae” by Mandira Pattnaik

“Ruth” by Dan Crawley

“Stallions” by John Brantingham


Pushcart Prize 2022

“Birds of Prey” by Kelle Schillaci Clarke

“The Finch Hunter” by Barlow Adams

“The Ghost of Green Valley” by William R. Soldan

“The Screech Owl” by Chris McGinley

“The Theseus Paradox for Exhausted Parents” by Shannon Frost Greenstein

“Through the Trees, On a River” by Scott Gates


Best of the Net 2022

“Eight Seconds” by Sabrina Hicks

“Polish” by Meredith McCarroll

“The Finch Hunter” by Barlow Adams

“The Hottest and the Longest Lasting Fire” by Michaella A. Thornton