We are excited to announce the winner and finalists of the 2021 Fiction Prize, judged by Kali Fajardo-Anstine. Many thanks to everyone who submitted their work and made this year’s prize possible!

2021 Fiction Prize Winner

“Seance” by Suphil Lee Park

Kali Fajardo-Anstine says, “Seance is an imaginative gem of a short story that evokes feelings of adolescence while gripping the reader from the very first line: “The dead girl’s indoor slippers got on everyone’s nerves, but no one in the class 7 had the gall to throw them away.” Wholly inventive with characters like The Class Clown, The Poet, and The Thinker, Séance is also filled with nostalgia, those leftover echoes of adolescence and its shared communal spaces of education. This a short story set within its own universe, a world that is as striking as its realistic and lifelike characters. Seance is a warm, inventive, and charming short story.”

Finalists

“Tank” by Jenna Abrams

“Cabin” by K.W. Oxnard

“Faceless Styrofoam Heads” by Holly Pekowsky

“The Precarious Births of Giraffes” by Keya Mitra

“Poochi” by Avrina Prabala-Joslin

The winner will be published in the Winter 2021 issue of Indiana Review.