TIFERET is pleased to announce the 2020 Writing Contest Winners and Finalists!

Thank you to all who entered, and to our editors and judges for reading and selecting submissions.

Poetry Finalists

Winner: “Birkat HaBayit: A Woman is a Bird When” by Jen Karetnick
Honorable Mention: “What Holds” by Jan Presley
Honorable Mention: “morning found the river’s voice” by Nan Becker

Additional Finalists

• “Nomad’s Hymn” by Jed Myers
• “In the Broken Shadows” by Margaret Ingraham
• “Waterways” by Josh Humphrey
• “Birds You Gave Me” by Elizabeth Vrenios
• “Canoe” by Kate Marshall Flaherty
• “The Hawk Casts the Darkest Shadow” by Madelyn Garner
• “All Saint’s Day-An Occasion of Sin” by Priscilla Orr

Fiction Finalists

Winner: “Iris” by Kris Faatz
Honorable Mention: “Roquefixade” by Sallie Bingham

Additional Finalists

• “The Friend Seekers” by Siamak Vossoughi
• “Leo” by Jen Knox
• “Where are you?” by Nandita Ramesh
• “Peculiar Memory” by Nesha Ruther
• “Pianos and Stuff” by Barrett Warner
• “Life List” by Steven Cahill
• “Waiting” by Sarah Rubin

Non-Fiction Finalists

Winner: “The House on 66th Street” by Esther Mizrachi
Honorable Mention: “Rabbis on the Moon” by Sidney Finehirsh
Honorable Mention: “The Royalton Hotel” by Dorsey Salerno

Additional Finalists

• “looking for a god…” by Leah Johnston-Rowbotham
• “The Truth” by Kelly Thompson
• “Silent Bridge” by Robert Manaster
• “Changing Windows” by Beth Walker
• “My Arm Was Steady, My Hand Did Not Shake” by Beth Walker
• “The Calculus of Awe” by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
• “Pishi” by Atash Yaghmaian

The winner in each category will receive a check for $500 and be published in a future issue of TIFERET!

We will make an announcement about the dates for the 2021 Annual Writing Contest as soon as they become available.

Poetry Judge

Ananda Lima’s work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review Online, Colorado Review, Rattle, Jubilat, The Common and elsewhere. She has an MA in Linguistics from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Rutgers University, Newark. She has served as the poetry judge for the AWP Kurt Brown Prize, as staff at the Sewanee Writers Conference and as a mentor in the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Immigrant Artist Program. She has taught at UCLA, Montclair State University and Rutgers University. Her chapbook, Translation (Paper Nautilus, 2019), won the 2018 Vella Chapbook Contest.

Non-Fiction Judge

Dorothy Rice is the author of two published memoirs, GRAY IS THE NEW BLACK (Otis Books, June 2019) and THE RELUCTANT ARTIST (Shanti Arts, 2015). Her personal essays and fiction have been published in dozens of journals and magazines, including The Rumpus, Brain, Child Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Hippocampus and the Brevity blog. An essay about her mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s was awarded second place in the 2018 Kalanithi Awards (honoring Paul Kalanithi, author of When Breath Becomes Air) and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net. After raising five children and retiring from a career managing statewide environmental protection programs, Rice earned an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside, Palm Desert, at 60. She is a certified Amherst Writers & Artists Method creative writing workshop facilitator and works for 916 Ink, a youth literacy nonprofit. You can find Dorothy at dorothyriceauthor.com, and on twitter at @dorothyrowena.

Fiction Judge

R.L. Maizes is the author of the short story collection WE LOVE ANDERSON COOPER (Celadon Books/Macmillan). Her novel, OTHER PEOPLE’S PETS (Celadon Books), is forthcoming July 14, 2020. Her fiction has aired on National Public Radio and has appeared in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Witness, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and has aired on NPR. Find her at RLMaizes.com and on Twitter @RL_Maizes. Photo credit: Adrianne Mathiowetz