2025 BLR Prize Winners
We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2025 BLR Literary Prizes.
Our deepest thanks to our judges, Wayétu Moore, Esmé Weijun Wang, and Leila Mottley, and to the many writers whose work we had the privilege of reviewing.
We can’t wait to share these incredible writings with you in our Spring 2025 issue. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so here, and you won’t miss an issue!
Goldenberg Prize for Fiction
Judged by Wayétu Moore
Winner: “The Veil Thins” by Fiona Ennis
Honorable Mention: “Bushmeat” by Chinaecherem Obor
Fiona Ennis has won the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award and was one of the winners of the 2021 Fish Short Story Prize. She was awarded second place in the 2022 LA-based Screencraft Cinematic Short Story Competition. Her work has been highly commended in the Manchester Fiction Prize. Her fiction has also been shortlisted for other international awards, including the Bristol Short Story Prize, the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and the Aurora Prize for Writing. Her work has been published in anthologies and journals. She is the recipient of an Artlinks Literature Bursary and also an Agility Award from the Irish Arts Council. She holds an MA from National University of Ireland, Galway and a PhD from University College Cork. She lectures in Literature and Philosophy in South East Technological University, Waterford, Ireland.
“The Veil is Thinning Out” was chosen for its narrative strength and vivid detail. The exploration of faith and personal freedom was both resonant and lingering.
Wayétu Moore
Chinaecherem Obor is an Igbo writer from Nigeria. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Mizna and Prufrock, and anthologized in Selves: An Afro Anthology of Creative Nonfiction. His writing has received support from the Vermont Studio Arts Center. He has been awarded a Don F. Hendrie prize in fiction by the University of Alabama’s Creative Writing program, shortlisted in the 2024 Bridport Short Story Prize, and named a finalist in the 2023 Ninth Letter Regeneration Contest. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Black Warrior Review where he previously served as Fiction Editor.
“Bushmeat” is a stunning portrayal of the bewilderment that accompanies one’s negotiation of identity. Raw & beautiful.
Wayétu Moore
Felice Buckvar Prize for Nonfiction
Judged by Esmé Weijun Wang
Winner: “Every Day Anew” by Pia Jee-Hae Baur
Honorable Mention: “Caged” by Liesel Hamilton
Pia Jee-Hae Baur is a writer born to German and Korean parents and raised in the United States. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana in Missoula. She lives and works in the Pacific Northwest.
I selected “Every Day Anew” as the winning essay because it strikes a perfect balance between sentimentality and restraint, presenting a health condition that deeply affects the narrator in a variety of ways beyond the epilepsy itself. By the end, I felt a profound sympathy for both the writer and the father, despite his actions—a remarkable achievement.
Esmé Weijun Wang
Liesel Hamilton is the author of a forthcoming collection of lyric essays from the University of Florida Press. She is also the co-author of Wild South Carolina (Hub City Press, 2016) and has been published in Audubon, Catapult, and The Normal School, among other publications. She has an MFA in creative nonfiction from George Mason University and a PhD in creative writing and ecocriticism from Florida State University. She currently teaches at the University of Florida.
I chose “Caged” as the runner-up because it approaches the subject of anxiety and mental illness in unexpected ways, capturing both the challenge of living with a condition and the intricate tenderness of loving someone who shares it. The essay’s integration of bird lore and the unusual locale of Nancy Forrester’s Secret Garden gave the piece an unexpected sense of wonder, turning it into an exploration of mental health that moved me with the writer’s unique approach.
Esmé Weijun Wang
John & Eileen Allman Prize for Poetry
Judged by Leila Mottley
Winner: “Cleaver” by Sandra Dolores Gómez Amador
Honorable Mention: “Hard to Face the Day” by Cedric Rudolph
Sandra Dolores Gómez Amador (she/ella) is a poet, editor, and interpreter-translator born and raised in México. She is an MFA student in Creative Writing and Teaching Associate at The University of Tennessee. Sandra Dolores is the co-founder of the University Network of Women Writers. She is a Tin House, Community of Writers, British Centre for Literary Translation, and Letras Latinas fellow. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Punto de Partida, FlowerSong Press, The McNeese Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She is working on her first poetry collection and is the nonfiction editor for Grist Journal.
“Cleaver” is cutting in its brevity, slicing right to the heart of a poem that contends with the intimacy of violence, power, and family. I felt it in my bones.
Leila Mottley
Cedric Rudolph is a Black, gay writer living in Pittsburgh, PA. He works as a Visiting Lecturer for the University of Pittsburgh’s Writing Department. He has also taught for the Institute for Anti-Racist Education and led workshops in Allegheny County Jail. His publications include Christianity and Literature Journal, The Laurel Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook, and The Coal Hill Review. Most recently, Eavesdrop Magazine awarded him third place in their Queer Joy Contest.
“Hard to Face the Day” channels the very rhythm it speaks about and creates a symphony of life in its contemplation on religion and belonging.
Leila Mottley
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