Posted on January 3, 2024
We're excited to announce that Melissa DaCosta Brown is the winner of our 2023 Fiction Contest and $2000 prize! Her story "Husbands" will be featured in the upcoming Winter issue of The Fiddlehead (FH298).
Melissa DaCosta Brown is a graduate of Duke University and has a masters in Journalism from Northwestern University. She worked for MSNBC and ABC News affiliates. Her short stories have been published in Waccamaw, Subnivean, Ponder Review. Her work has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and the Lascaux Prize.
"What struck me most about “Husbands” was its powerful sense of immediacy. The feeling that the story’s voice, sensibility, and reality were all leaping off the page. Forcefully. Palpably. With humour, intelligence, and daring, the author plumbs the mysteries and terrors of female adolescence, replete with confusion and subterranean feelings. I have two adolescent daughters, and this story reminded me that the metamorphoses they are undergoing can be painful, baffling, and cruel — but also tender, surprising, and miraculous."
— Jack Wang, 2023 Fiction Contest Judge
Thank you to all who entered the fiction contest and congratulations to the fifteen finalists. And thanks again to our judge, Jack Wang!
