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I must complain every year that we have too many excellent works to narrow down to just six entries. But after much suffering and agonizing, these are the six works we are nominating for the Pushcart Prize:
- Alixa Brobbey‘s “At Bethany” (19.1)
- Gregory Brooks‘s “Beseeching the God of Mood Disorders” (19.1)
- Elizabeth Cranford Garcia‘s “While you’re getting your degree to be a mother” (forthcoming in 19.4)
- James Goldberg‘s “Song of the Salt Sea” (19.3)
- Steven L. Peck‘s “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?” (19.3)
- Darlene Young‘s “A Plan of Salvation” (forthcoming in 19.4)
The first round of choosing what we will nominate is purely what we consider to be most excellent. Then we must subtract works from that initial list and we do that by eliminating similar works, works we feel may be too insularly Mormon (although, as you can tell from our six, insular Mormonness is not inherently disqualifying), and, finally, panic when we’re down to nine and still have to subtract three more.
In part because we had two poetry-only issues this year, we are nominating entirely poetry. I prefer to nominate a mix of writing types—but not this year!
You’ll note four titans of today’s Mormon-letters scene and two newbies, which is a balance I can accept.
In the end, no doubt we could have selected six entirely different pieces, but we are happy with what we have chosen and have now put them in the mail.
Happy Pushcart Season, everybody!
—– Theric Jepson —–