2025 AWP Intro Journals Project Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 AWP Intro Journals Project! Winners were selected by Uche Okonkwo (fiction), AJ Romriell (creative nonfiction), and jo reyes-boitel (poetry). Keep an eye on our social media channels for more details on which issues include the winning pieces.

See previous winners

2025 Poetry Winners
“Pantoum Where We Must Commit to Dancing with Death”
Jacob R. Benavides
Oklahoma State University
Reed Magazine
“Exile”
Ben Cooper
Salisbury University
Colorado Review
“Abecedarian of things to do while you’re waiting to feel”
Elizabeth Garcia
Georgia State University
Florida Review
“Bullseye”
Camilo Loaiza Bonilla
University of South Florida
Hayden’s Ferry Review
“Unbury my childhood”
Heather Neidlinger
Western Kentucky University
Quarterly West
“I’m writing you an elegy at the edge of the world”
Sophia Saco
University of Central Florida
Tampa Review
“Thoughts & Prayers”
Merrick Sloane
University of Tennessee
Puerto del Sol
“莫生 Only Absence, No Time”
Cela Xie
North Carolina State University
Mid-American Review
 
2025 Poetry Honorable Mentions
“clitoria ternateas”
Ria Adams
Miami University
“Theology”
Chase Cate
Colorado State University
“What the Surgeon Recommended”
Abigail Finch
Point Loma Nazarene University
“Anti-elegy”
Elizabeth Garcia
Georgia State University
“My Mother as Persephone”
Amanda Johnson
Florida International University
“Request to the Bureau of the American Dream: Denied”
Lucas Jorgensen
University of North Texas
“Bird Woman”
Ky McKenna
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
“Nightmare Where No One Can Save Her”
Justine Mercado
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
“For the Indigenous Girl in Fig. 7”
LG Sebayan
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
“Grief Diagnosis”
Sabrina Spence
University of Memphis
2025 Prose Winners
“Greening”
Tyler Balkcom, Creative Nonfiction
University of South Florida
Tampa Review
“Down and Out in Disneyland”
Maya Bernstein-Schalet, Creative Nonfiction
University of Arizona
Colorado Review
“Blue Heaven”
Carter Groves, Fiction
University of Missouri–Kansas City
Quarterly West
“Used Books”
Serena Kerkstra, Fiction
Georgia College & State University
Puerto del Sol
“My Gender in the Epipelagic Zone”
Ari Koontz, Creative Nonfiction
Northern Michigan University
Hayden’s Ferry Review
“Spread”
Katie Rhodes, Creative Nonfiction
University of Southern Mississippi
Florida Review
“To Shoulder the Weight”
Josiah Roberts, Creative Nonfiction
Point Loma Nazarene University
Mid-American Review

“Rhapsodic”
Kelly Ward, Fiction
West Virginia University
Reed Magazine
2025 Prose Honorable Mentions
“Spit-Shine”
Rachel Blume, Fiction
University of Alaska Fairbanks
“Lost Identity or Evolution?”
Alexis Jemal, Creative Nonfiction
Mississippi University for Women
“Hudhud”
Parul Kaushik, Fiction
University of North Texas
“To Have and to Hold”
Frances Ogamba, Fiction
University of Minnesota
“Seven Days’ Remembrance”
Olajide Omojarabi, Fiction
University of South Florida
“Prodigy Training”
Tricia Park, Creative Nonfiction
University of Illinois Chicago
“Yellow Line”
Daniel Reiss, Fiction
Eastern Washington University
“Crybaby, or: Surviving the End of a World”
Violet Robak, Creative Nonfiction
Hamline University
“Apartment 3206”
Veronica Suchodolski, Fiction
Oregon State University
“Bad Fruit”
Alicia Tan, Fiction
Oklahoma State University