The Tampa Review editorial team is excited to announce that our guest judge, Kristen Arnett, acclaimed author of the novels Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One, With Teeth, and Mostly Dead Things has selected a winner for the Danahy Prize for short fiction.
This year’s winning story is “The Body Electric” by Dana Baylous. Baylous is a Black lesbian writer from Houston, Texas, whose work explores memory, identity, intimacy, and the haunted landscapes of the American South through literary, speculative, and Southern Gothic fiction. She was recently longlisted for the Stockholm Writers Festival First Pages Prize and named a finalist for the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sinister Wisdom, Our Bold Voices, Wellspringwords, Bridge Journal, and Block Print. She is currently at work on several novels set within an interconnected fictional Texas universe.
Of the winning story, Kristen Arnett says:
“Lightning in a bottle seems a little too on the nose for this, but truly, what a powerhouse of a story! I loved the romance here, the beauty in the landscape, the ache of the separation between the two women. The work felt imbued with a kind of looming hum; one that made me sit up and pay attention. Love that lasts beyond the grave, wrapped up in the daily occurrence of wiring in a shared home. Hands touching, placing, holding on. I thought this was gorgeous.”
Please join us in congratulating Dana, and we hope you’ll keep us in mind when submissions open once again in the fall.