2023 Contests Judges Announced

Fiction Judge

Dr. Dionne Irving hails from Toronto, Ontario, and is the author of Quint (7.13 Books, 2021) and The Islands (Catapult, 2022). Her work has appeared in journals and magazines such as The Rumpus, LitHub, The Missouri Review, New Delta Review, and many others. Dionne currently teaches at the University of Notre Dame in the Creative Writing Program and the Initiative on Race and Resilience.

Poetry Judge

Megan Baxter is the author of Farm Girl: A Memoir (Green Writers Press, 2021), The Coolest Monster (Terrene, 2017), and the winner of the 2019 Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published in The Best American Essays, Colorado Review, Hotel Amerika, The Florida Review, and others. Megan, who earned her MFA from Vermont College of the Fine Arts, currently resides in New Hampshire where she runs her own organic farm and mentors young writers with innovative pedagogy.

Nonfiction Judge

Anthony Moll is the author of the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize-winning collection, You Cannot Save Here (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2022), and the memoir, Out of Step, which earned them the 2019 Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Nonfiction. Their work has also appeared in Voicemail Poems, Hobart, Poet Lore, and The Baltimore Sun, among others. Anthony, who holds an MFA in creative writing & publishing arts and is completing a PhD in English, currently serves as an assistant professor of English at a Maryland community college.