2026 Award Winners

This year’s categories were Prose Poetry, Poetry, and Non-fiction/Essay/Memoir. Each piece was graded on quality/caliber, emotion, style/imagery, capture attention/surprise, and uniqueness/memorability. Judges read each piece without knowing the author or who any of the other judges were, to keep it as unbiased as possible. Without further ado, Raw Earth Ink, the editors, and judges are proud to present the 2026 winners to you.

Prose Poetry

• 1st Place – The Cicada Girl Recounts Her Ribs by Amanda Trout
• 2nd Place – Inheritance of Weather by ckSlack
• 3rd Place – Sometimes on Shower Day by Sarah Cummins Small
• 4th Place – Go by Stephen Gao
• Top Ten – Stonecoal Creek by Skyler Lambert
• Top Ten – The Monologue of Clair de Lune by Demi Michelle Schwartz
• Top Ten – Every Shade of Forever by Braeden Michaels
• Top Ten – Between the Bands of Jupiter by Theresa C. Gaynord
• Top Ten – The Email I Save In My Drafts To Send Out Periodically by Shoshauna Shy
• Top Ten – In the Limbo of Maybe by Shoshauna Shy
• Top Ten – The Living Walls by Theresa C. Gaynord
• Top Ten – The Jackal of My Calling by Nnadi Samuel
• Top Ten – Turns by Carlos Andrés Gómez
• Top Ten – Fogfather by ckSlack
• Honorable Mention – Oral Prosthetics Mounted After a Failed War by Nnadi Samuel
• Honorable Mention – Voyage of the Bascart by Ken Long
• Honorable Mention – Vibramax for the Doldrums by James Milici
• Honorable Mention – What Survives an Obituary by Loralee Clark
• Honorable Mention – The Day the Sky Fell by Rachael Ikins
• Honorable Mention – Drowning by Carlene M. Gadapee

Poetry

• 1st Place – Untidy Pantoum by K Roberts
• 2nd Place – University Ave by Torrey Francis Malek
• 3rd Place – The Year the Fence Started Forgetting by David Anson Lee
• 4th Place – Biography of a Goldfish by Amanda Trout
• Top Ten – Portrait of an Apricot by Anne Elise Teeling
• Top Ten – Carried Away by Cecelia Hagen
• Top Ten – Ghost Peppers by Brittany Micka-Foos
• Top Ten – Ritual by Cathy Watness
• Top Ten – Old Snow by Lucia Lemieux
• Top Ten – A Prayer for the Living by Caroline Wellman
• Top Ten – Muse, or The Fish & Chips Joint’s OPEN Sign Over the Intersection by Kait Quinn
• Top Ten – An Earlier Generation by Zoe Ward
• Top Ten – Rabbit’s Dream Serum by Elle Estérre
• Top Ten – Conversation with a Possum Near Key Largo by Randy Lee Gross
• Honorable Mention – A Closet Artist by Carolyn Donnell
• Honorable Mention – Rats by Liz DeGregorio
• Honorable Mention – The Ballast of Dragons by Cassondra Windwalker
• Honorable Mention – a dream we have by Michelle Pan
• Honorable Mention – Behind the Bushes at Spring Hill Camp by Zoe Ward
• Honorable Mention – The Year is a Wheel by Melissa McNair
• Honorable Mention – if you came back by Gloria g. Murray
• Honorable Mention – Pantoum after Today’s Mass Shooting by Carlos Andrés Gómez
• Honorable Mention – Ode to the Carolina Wren by Oluwademilade Seyi-Idowu
• Honorable Mention – Sometimes by Brooke Barry
• Honorable Mention – Monadnock by Kelly DuMar
• Honorable Mention – Arctic Hare’s Lesson: Big Ears are a Blessing by Sandra Rippetoe

Non-fiction

• 1st Place – Monsieur Dupont by Angela Townsend
• 2nd Place – Memory: Grief’s Grace by Pat Murphy McClelland
• 3rd Place – My Surprise In Getting Married At 49 by Eric Green
• 4th Place – A Reflection About Bathing in the Forest of Old Mission State Park: A Perspective in the Shadows of Trees by Harry Vann Phillips
• Top Ten – Dialects of Fruit by Angela Luo
• Top Ten – Honoring and Honored at the Rosebud Wacipi by S. G. Benson
• Top Ten – The Space Before by Jazzmine Alexandria Subido
• Top Ten – Middleagery by Maria Odessky Rosen
• Top Ten – “You’re the Tenth Caller!” Radio Contests From a Bygone Era by Mary Da Prato
• Top Ten – The Healer by Angela Townsend
• Top Ten – Hooves on Asphalt: Carriage Horses in Urban America by Caroline Walsh
• Top Ten – The Paradox of Music Labels: How Greed Kills the Artist and Their Music by Judith Elesh
• Top Ten – A Fool in the Woods by Chris Riley
• Top Ten – Getting Squirrely at Illinois: The Story of Our Eastern Grays by Camellia Paul
• Honorable Mention – The Young and Old Have Same Train of Thought by Eric Green
• Honorable Mention – One Red Light by Robert J. Richey
• Honorable Mention – Man in a River by Madison Sheldrake Jones
• Honorable Mention – Freckles by Keti Shea
• Honorable Mention – The Great Bathroom Debacle by Laine Cooper

The 2026 Northwind Treasury will be available in paperback at Lulu, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon, as well as eBook on Kindle. Goodreads. Coming in winter, 2026.