Danahy Fiction Prize

Jay McKenzie Wins 2024 Danahy Prize

The Tampa Review editorial team is excited to announce that our guest judge, Ayana Mathis, acclaimed author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie and The Unsettled, has selected a winner for the Danahy Prize for short fiction.

This year’s winning story is “Milk Bottle Churches” by Jay McKenzie. McKenzie’s work appears in adda, Maudlin House, The Hooghly Review, Fahmidan Journal, Fictive Dream, and others. She recently won the Fish Short Story Prize, was runner up in the Tom Grass Literary Award, and has won, placed, or shortlisted in competitions including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Her novel How to Lose the Lottery will be published by Harper Fiction in March 2026.

image of Jay McKenzie

Of the winning story, Ayana Mathis says:

Heartbreaking. Lyrically and beautifully written. This writer shows a deep facility with storytelling and knows when to reveal and when to withhold. The characters were well-rendered. The story’s use of figurative language was gorgeous, and more importantly, this writer understands that such language can be used to evoke the mood of the story as a whole, not merely the sentence or clause in which it appears: “On the sepia-tinted west bank of the Ex . . .” or  “. . . a dress that looks like a week-old bruise . . .” Time is also handled incredibly well; though the story’s current action takes place years after that fateful summer, those events haunt this story. The writer cleverly shows us how much the present is beholden to the past. I can’t think of a better macro-metaphor than the titular milk bottles thrown into the sea so long ago: one still carrying its message, the other smashed on a shore thousands of miles away.

Please join us in congratulating Jay, and we hope you’ll keep us in mind when submissions open once again in the fall!

Thank you all for sending us your work.

Louise Marburg Wins Danahy Fiction Prize

The Tampa Review editorial team is excited to announce that our guest judge, Kirstin Valdez Quade, acclaimed author of Night at the Fiestas and The Five Wounds, has selected a winner for the Danahy Prize for short fiction.

This year’s winning story is “Memory Unit” by Louise Marburg. Marburg is the author of three collections of stories, The Truth About Me, No Diving Allowed, and You Have Reached Your Destination. She lives in New York City with her husband, the artist Charles Marburg.

Louise Marburg

Of the winning story, Kirstin Valdez Quade says, “‘Memory Unit’ is witty and surefooted and beautifully attentive to character. The incisive observations, prickly humor, and tenderness make this large-hearted wedding romp a delight.”

Valdez Quade also selected the following finalists:

“Chiaroscuro” by J. Pinaire

“The Scale of Things” by Allison Grace Myers

Please join us in congratulating Louise, and we hope you’ll keep us in mind when submissions open once again in the fall.

Thank you all for sending us your work.

Best wishes,

Tampa Review Editors

Announcing the Winner of the 2023 Danahy Fiction Prize

The Tampa Review editorial team is excited to announce that our guest judge, Evan James, has selected a winner for the Danahy Prize for short fiction.

Image of a side profile drawing of Shayla Bruin, glancing towards the artist.

This year’s winning story is “Security” by Shayla Bruin. Bruin is a writer living in Chicago, Illinois. This is her first published work.

Of the winning story, our judge, Evan James, says, “’Security’ unfolds with subtle, sophisticated narrative artistry. When a couple in the suburbs opens their door to a pair of “new neighbors,” a breathtakingly swift series of dramatic reversals and ambiguous power shifts takes place, ultimately driving them to a profound sense of uncertainty about both the world and themselves. Fully realized and written with exhilarating skill and control, its final moments resonate with potent mystery–the once-familiar stripped bare and left standing in its own undeniable strangeness.”

James also selected the following finalists:

“Kentucky Unicorn” by Thomas M. Atkinson

“Brooklyn Bridge” by Grace Shuyi Liew


Please join us in congratulating Shayla, and we hope you’ll keep us in mind when submissions open once again in the fall.