{"id":1215,"date":"2025-06-25T20:50:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T20:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liberalarts.austincc.edu\/creative-writing\/?page_id=1215"},"modified":"2025-09-18T22:13:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T22:13:53","slug":"balcones-prize-winners","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/liberalarts.austincc.edu\/creative-writing\/balcones-prize-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"Balcones Prize Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1215","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"layouts":[{"acf_fc_layout":"three_columns","heading":"Balcones Prize Winners","column_1":"

Winner of the 2025 Balcones Prize for Fiction<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A Thousand Times Before\u00a0<\/i>by Asha Thanki<\/a><\/h2>\n

Asha Thanki<\/strong>\u00a0is an essayist and fiction writer. Asha\u2019s work has appeared in\u00a0The Southern Review<\/i>,\u00a0Platypus Press<\/i>\u2019 wildness,\u00a0The Common<\/i>,\u00a0Catapult<\/i>,\u00a0Hyphen<\/i>, and more. She is a\u00a0Kundiman fellow and has received support through scholarships and grants from Sewanee Writers Conference, Bread Loaf Writers\u2019 Conference, and the Speculative Literature Foundation. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota.\u00a0A Thousand Times Before\u00a0<\/i>is her debut novel.<\/p>\n

Finalists:
\nYr Dead<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>by Sam Sax
\nCode Noir<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>by Canisia Lubrin
\nMother Doll<\/em><\/a>, by Katya Apekina<\/p>\n","column_2":"

Winner of the 2025 Balcones Prize for Poetry<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ward Toward<\/i>\u00a0<\/em>by Cindy Juyoung Ok<\/a><\/h2>\n

Cindy Juyoung Ok<\/strong>\u00a0is the author of\u00a0Ward Toward<\/em>\u00a0and the translator of\u00a0The Hell of That Star<\/em>\u00a0by Kim Hyesoon. A former high school physics teacher, Ok is now an assistant English professor.<\/p>\n

Finalists:
\n<\/em>Black Bell<\/a>,<\/i>\u00a0by Alison C. Rollins
\nThick with Trouble<\/a>,\u00a0<\/i>by Amber McBride
\nDaughter of Three Gone Kingdoms<\/a>,\u00a0<\/i>by Joan Kwon Glass\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","column_3":"

Winner of the 2025 Balcones Prize for Creative Nonfiction<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pandemonium Logs: Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 2020-2022<\/em>\u00a0by Ben Miller<\/a><\/h2>\n

Ben\u00a0Miller\u00a0<\/b>is an essayist, fiction writer, and the creator of hybrid works that combine visuals and text. His first book\u2014River Bend Chronicle\u00a0(Lookout Books)\u2014was short-listed for the\u00a0William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.\u00a0His writing has been anthologized in\u00a0Best American Essays\u00a0and\u00a0Best American Experimental Writing, and appeared in a wide variety of journals, including\u00a0The Georgia Review,\u00a0The Southern Review,\u00a0New England Review,\u00a0Salmagundi,\u00a0Raritanand One Story. Miller\u2019s awards include fellowships from the NEA and the Radcliffe Institute, and grants from the South Dakota Arts Council and the Schlesinger Library. His partner is the poet Anne Pierson Wiese.<\/p>\n

Finalists:
\nPretty<\/a><\/em>, by KB Brookins
\nMy Fighting Family<\/em><\/a>, by Morgan Campbell
\nThe Story Game<\/em><\/a>, Shze-Hui Tjoa<\/p>\n","background":"Color","background_color":"#FFFFFF","background_gradient":{"gradient_start":"","gradient_end":""},"background_image":false,"text_mode":"dark","id":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"one_column","heading":"Past Winners","column_1":"

The 2024 winners<\/strong>\u00a0of the Balcones Prizes were Gerardo S\u00e1mano C\u00f3rdova for\u00a0Monstrilio\u00a0<\/em>(Fiction) and JJJJJerome Ellis for\u00a0Aster of Ceremonies\u00a0<\/em>(Poetry).<\/p>\n

The 2023 winners<\/strong>\u00a0of the Balcones Prizes were Mecca Jamilah Sullivan for\u00a0Big Girl\u00a0<\/em>(Fiction) and No\u02bbu Revilla for\u00a0Ask the Brindled (Poetry).<\/em><\/p>\n

The 2022 winners<\/strong>\u00a0of the Balcones Prizes were Jocelyn Nicole Johnson for\u00a0My Monticello\u00a0<\/em>(Fiction) and Michael Kleber-Diggs for\u00a0Worldly Things\u00a0<\/em>(Poetry).<\/p>\n

The 2021 winners<\/strong>\u00a0of the Balcones Prizes were\u00a0Fowzia Karimi for\u00a0Above Us the Milky Way\u00a0<\/i>(Fiction) and Heid E. Erdrich for Little Big Bully (Poetry).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2020 winners<\/strong>\u00a0of the Balcones Prizes were Max Porter for\u00a0Lanny\u00a0<\/i>(Fiction) and Maya Phillips for\u00a0Erou\u00a0<\/i>(Poetry).<\/p>\n

The 2019 winners<\/strong>\u00a0of the Balcones Prizes were Shena McAuliffe for\u00a0The Good Echo\u00a0<\/i>(Fiction) and Margaree Little for\u00a0Rest<\/em>\u00a0(Poetry).<\/p>\n

Previous winners of the Balcones Prizes include\u00a0Natalie<\/span>\u00a0Diaz<\/span>, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Reginald Gibbons, Mark Jarmon, Michael McGriffe, Douglas Trevor, Tara Laskowski, and many others.<\/p>\n","background":"Color","background_color":"#FFFFFF","background_gradient":{"gradient_start":"","gradient_end":""},"background_image":false,"text_mode":"dark","id":""}],"hero_content":false,"sidekick":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberalarts.austincc.edu\/creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberalarts.austincc.edu\/creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberalarts.austincc.edu\/creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberalarts.austincc.edu\/creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberalarts.austincc.edu\/creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/liberalarts.austincc.edu\/creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberalarts.austincc.edu\/creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}