2025 Zona Gale Award for Short Fiction
The Zona Gale Award for Short Fiction goes to the best piece of short fiction (<10,000 words) published by a Wisconsin writer in the contest year. See full contest guidelines.
- First Place: $500 award and five-day stay at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, WI ($895 value)
- Honorable Mention: $50 and a five-day stay at Ernest Hüpeden's Painted Forest in Valton, WI ($800 value)
Judge: Suzanne Rivecca
Winner: "Complications from a Fall," Wisconsin People & Ideas, Linda Falkenstein, Madison
Honorable Mention: "Rat & Python: Carla's Story," Main Street Rag, Margaret Benbow
History
Zona Gale (1874-1938), born in Portage, was a novelist, playwright, and short story writer whose work was inspired by her hometown. Her contemporary stories—often set in the fictional town of Friendship Village—focused on local color and descriptions of ordinary Midwestern people. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, she worked as a journalist in Milwaukee and New York before returning to Portage to concentrate on her writing. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama for the adaptation of her novel Miss Lulu Bett. She was active in progressive and feminist causes, including the National Women’s Party.
Previous Winners:
2024
"The Goddess of Illicit Choices," Susanna Daniels, Madison
"Mending Ruth," Bob Wake, Madison
2023
“Robber’s Lake (The Kenyon Review), Emma Binder (Oakland, CA, formerly Whitefish Bay and Madison)
Honorable Mention: “Bank Shot Requiem” (Bards and Sages Quarterly), R.J. Novotney (Madison)
2022
Steve Fox, Hudson, “Sometimes Creek,” New Ohio Review
Honorable Mention: Jennifer Morales, Viroqua, “Beantown,” Acentos Review
2021
"The Doorman," Jennifer Morales, Viroqua
History of Short Fiction Winners from 1967 to 2000
Return to the Wisconsin Writers Awards main page