Claudia Ann Seaman
Award-Winning Submissions
Volume 16 | 2020-2021
Poetry
Judge: Tara Betts
WINNER
RUNNERS-UP
Fiction
Judge: Michael Zapata
WINNER
RUNNERS-UP
Creative Nonfiction
Judge: Jonathan Eig
WINNER
RUNNERS-UP
Of aching knots, Rachel Brooks
Christian Heritage School, Trumbull, Connecticut
Swollen Mouths, Sarah Fathima Mohammed
The Harker School, San Jose, California
computer, Caroline Dinh
Richard Montgomery High School, Rockville, Maryland
What the Seagull Saw at Night, Abby Lu
Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, Connecticut
Mother's Doll, Benjamin Choi
The Potomac School, McLean, Virginia
Newspaper Planes, Jonathan Truong
Orange County School of the Arts, San Clemente, California
Bury Me With All the Lights On, Ella A. Harrigan
Interlochen Arts Academy, Charlottesville, Virginia
Snapshot, Divya Merish
The Spence School, New York, New York
Marhaban, Onassa Sun
Arcadia High School, Arcadia, California
How to Become a "Writer", Lara Katz
Pierrepont School, Westport, Connecticut
Claudia Ann Seaman Awards Judges
2020-2021
Tara Betts, Poetry
Tara Betts is the author of the poetry collections Break the Habit, Arc & Hue, and the forthcoming Refuse to Disappear. In addition to her work as a teaching artist and mentor for young poets, she's taught at several universities, including Rutgers University and University of Illinois-Chicago. She also taught poetry workshops at Stateville Prison via Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project. Aside from coediting several anthologies, Tara is Poetry Editor at The Langston Hughes Review and the Lit Editor at Newcity.
Michael Zapata, Fiction
Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the acclaimed novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, and BookPage, among others. He is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for Fiction and the City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program Award. He is on the core faulty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.
Johnathan Eig, Creative Nonfiction
Eig is the author of five books, three of them New York Times bestsellers. He was born in Brooklyn and graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Eig is a former staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, where he remains a contributing writer. Eig has also written for The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Washington Post, among others. Eig's books have been published in 13 languages. His first book, Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, won the Casey Award for best baseball book of the year. Ali: A Life was named winner of PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting and best book of the year by Sports Illustrated.