Many thanks to all who entered the 2016 Zoetrope All-Story Short Fiction Contest. We appreciate the opportunity to read your work.

From more than two thousand submissions, guest judge Anthony Marra honored the following stories.

First Prize:

“Seeing Diane Arbus” by Lindsay Zibach (Los Angeles, CA)

This story brought to mind the last lines of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son: “All these weirdos, and me getting a little better every day right in the midst of them. I had never known, never even imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us.” Not unlike Johnson, Diane Arbus chronicled those exiled from mainstream American culture. “Seeing Diane Arbus” flips the camera and allows the reader to see the photographer through the lens of her subject. It is concerned with how we make ourselves visible and how the act of seeing can confer benedictory power. There is nothing emerging about this author’s talent. It’s all there, and it’s radiant.

—Anthony Marra

Second Prize:

“Permaculture” by Shay Azoulay (Tel Aviv, Israel)

Third Prize:

“We Servants” by S. Kennedy Sobol (Toronto, ON)

Honorable Mentions:

“The Lobster Boys” by Anne Killheffer (Branford, CT)

“The Tragedy of a Ring” by Maggie Mull (Los Angeles, CA)

“Yaiza” by Brenda Peynado (Russellville, AR)

“Imagine How God Feels” by Sarah Rosenblum (Chicago, IL)

“A Family, With Death Snakes” by Manuel Sanz (Denver, CO)

“What My College Admissions Essay Didn’t Say” by L. J. Sysko (Wilmington, DE)

“Colossi” by C. Pam Zhang (San Francisco, CA)

First prize is $1,000; second prize, $500; and third prize, $250. The prizewinners and honorable mentions will be considered for representation by William Morris Endeavor, ICM, the Wylie Agency, Regal Literary, the Elaine Markson Literary Agency, Inkwell Management, Sterling Lord Literistic, Aitken Alexander Associates, Barer Literary, the Gernert Company, and the Georges Borchardt Literary Agency.

The winning story, “Seeing Diane Arbus” by Lindsay Zibach, will be published at the magazine's website as a special online supplement to the Winter 2016/2017 issue.

The 2017 Short Fiction Contest opens July 1; for details, please visit the website this summer.

First Prize

Second Prize

Third Prize

Honorable Mentions