2025 TWFest Very Short Fiction Contest Finalists

 

Congratulations to our 2025 Very Short Fiction Contest Winner, Runners-up, and Finalists.

Thanks to our very short fiction judge, Annell López, and our contest coordinator, Morgan Hufstader.

Pictured above from the top, left to right, our finalists are:

Glenn Bering is the product of twelve years of Catholic school in southwest Detroit. He earned a music degree from Eastern Michigan University, and a Masters in Music Composition from the University of Michigan. He believes this training in counterpoint and aural flow informs his style of fiction. As a former cartoonist, Glenn learned that brevity is truly the soul of wit, and that pruning words to eliminate the superfluous is most important in writing. Shooting Rats in Detroit is completely autobiographical and a departure from his usual satirical fiction. 

RUNNER UP: Born in Vietnam, Catherine Darden moved as a child to St. Louis, where she lost her native language but began a lifetime of reading, with weekly trips to the library interspersed with reading the back of cereal boxes. She and her family moved to the New Orleans area when she was twelve. While her family dispersed to other states, she remained and started her own family. Their scattered stories inspire her writing.

Seth Gannon lives in Portland, OR. His stories and essays have appeared with Slate, The Paris Review Daily, and a number of literary journals. Much of his writing and photography can be found at sgannon.com.

Michele Lent Hirsch is a genderqueer writer, editor, and educator. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Third Coast, Rattle, Room, the Bellevue Literary Review, and The Atlantic. Her first book — a blend of memoir and journalism — came out from Beacon Press, with a Korean edition from Mati Books. She’s taught writing and editing at the 92nd Street Y and elsewhere. Most recently, she was longlisted for the Disquiet Prize in poetry. 

Shanley Kearney received her BA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. Her fiction has been published and awarded in Phoebe Journal, Flash 500, 3rd Wednesday, with work forthcoming in Pulp Literature. She has worked for four high-profile tech startups and co-founded her own in 2023, serving as its CEO. She is currently looking for a literary agent to represent her debut novel. She can be found on her YouTube channel @shanleyjanekearney and on Twitter @shanleykearney.

Jeffrey Lipack is a high school English teacher in Monroe, NC. He received an MFA from George Mason University and has been previously published in the Savannah Anthology. His inspiration comes from authors who explore beautyless realities with beautiful language like Claudia Rankine and Dennis Johnson.

RUNNER UP: Pennie A. Nichols, a Louisiana-based author, writes literary fiction that explores the intersections of identity, community, and connection. Her work digs deep into fear, vulnerability, and authenticity, weaving humor into emotionally complex narratives. Her characters navigate personal growth and cultural shifts as they face their biases and obstacles. Pennie creates narratives that challenge readers to find empathy and meaning in diverse experiences. Drawing on decades of creative exploration, her fiction reflects the messy, beautiful journey of discovering one’s voice and embracing the complexities of life.

Mario René Padilla’s poems and stories have appeared in North American Review, The Antioch Review, New Letters, Alligator Juniper, The Antioch Review, The Ledge, Americas Review, Tulip Tree Review, Chiron Review, Windward, among others. His most recent collection of poetry, Blue Plums & Weeds appeared in 2023. Two of his stories, “Scales” and “Le Château Possonniere,” recently won first prize in Tulip Tree Publishing’s annual fiction contests and were published in their anthology Stories That Need to Be Told. Padilla won a Fulbright Award for collecting Borges’s juvenilia for his most recent critical study: Young Ultraísta: the early writing of Jorge Luis Borges (2024). He teaches Creative Writing, English and Latin American Literature at Santa Monica College in California. 

WINNER: Kate Tooley (she/they) is a queer writer originally from the Atlanta area, currently living in Brooklyn. They write about the sticky corners of gender and sexuality; complicated families; and the myriad ways in which we become haunted. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and are an Associate Editor at Uncharted Magazine. You can find their writing in journals including Passages North, Wigleaf, and Barren Magazine.

Helen Valenta is a Chicago playwright whose work has appeared in many small theatres around the city. Her radio play, We Are All Foreigners Here, was on the BBC’s Commended list. Her play, Beautiful Man, was a finalist for the Arch and Bruce Brown Award, which recognizes work on notable gay figures. She has an MA in writing.