2026 Prose Chapbook Contest Winner: Aimee Newsom!
We are thrilled to announce that Aimee Newsom has won our 2026 Prose Chapbook Contest for her manuscript, Front Seat Country.
About Newsom's winning manuscript, our readers said, "We love Front Seat Country. It is wonderfully atmospheric through its vivid setting descriptions, tone, sensory details, and thematic unity. We love how the shadow of hopelessness in each story does not drown out the relationships--the voices are so strong, the characters fresh and appealing. They interact with one another in a way that shows how they survive life with dignity and love, however, that love may manifest itself. We also admire the way childhood is explored throughout this chapbook, when the younger characters find themselves constantly in an adult world, which they cannot fully understand. Overall, we were so impressed with this chapbook's style, craft, and control, and we would love to share it with our readers."
On the origin of her book, Newsom wrote, "Front Seat Country began with a desire to write about my own experiences growing up in rural Maine. But then, I listened to my sister, Ginny, struggling to tell her daughter (my inquisitive, sensitive niece) about some injustice in the world. Ginny seesawed between protective mom and I-will-always-tell-you-the-whole-truth mom. What to leave in, what to leave out. The flash fiction piece, also named 'Front Seat Country,' was born, and it established the connective tissue between all four stories: the idea that children live in a world within a world. Every day, they are mired in adult concepts that are so foreign to them and the way kids think that it’s kind of like visiting a different country—a front-seat country. The four stories span the seasons, beginning in spring and ending with the longest story, which takes place in winter. All but one story takes place in Maine, which is kind of like its own country. A wild place with weather that can break you."
Aimee Newsom lives in Maine. Her writing has appeared in Raleigh Review, West Trade Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Bar Bar Literary Magazine, and other publications. Her work was recognized at the 2023 Maine Literary Awards, and the opening chapter of her novel-in-progress was a finalist for the Gutsy Great Novelist Chapter One Prize. She is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program.
Congratulations, Aimee, and congratulations also to our semi-finalists and finalists, whose work we found admirable and moving:
Semi-Finalists
Laila Amado, The Deathless Tremble of a Butterfly: Sex, Zombies, and Other Problems
Iver Arnegard, On the Divide
Patricia Q. Bidar, Vesuvio
Sam Cha, Bystander: A Ghost Story
Jaime Gill, Obedience (and Other Mistakes)
Ben Hoffman, Nosedive
Prasida Clare Newman, West Texas Panorama
Claude Clayton Smith, Helping Colleagues Die
Katherine Tunning, Attachment
Finalists
Beatriz Brenes Mora, Make-Believe
Veith Coleman, Rabbit Box
Emily Macdonald, Peter and the Storks
Marco Patitucci, Dive
Morgan Rose-Marie, Villianess/Villainous
Renee Thompson, The Big Gone
Nicole Walker, Nina Simone and Paul Simon on the Colorado River
Talia Weisz, Changelings
Front Seat Country will be published as its own manuscript this fall. You can find out more about our chapbook competition and purchase Newsom's and previous winning chapbooks on our Chapbook page.
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