As a service to those who appear in the Lowestoft Chronicle, we try to honor some of these exceptional writers by nominating work for the many prestigious awards that surface around this time of year. There is usually a specific limit to the number of works an editor is allowed to nominate. There is also a money and time requirement, dictating that magazine editors up and down America must sacrifice their afternoon at the bar lining up shots to stand in line at the post office and spend the bar tab mailing nominations to a PO Box. An editor’s sobriety is usually rewarded with stony silence from those with the keys to these tiny PO Boxes crammed with thousands of envelopes that if read and acknowledged would take years to get through. Once in a blue moon, a new face joins the usual suspects. That’s the hope, anyway.
Early this month, we made the following selections for the Pushcart Prize XLVIIII: Best of the Small Presses 2025 Edition. Only six pieces can be chosen.
Pushcart Prize nominations:
— Seniors on the Move, by WILLIAM DORESKI.
— An Englishman in Constantinople, by JAMES GALLANT.
— Whigging Out, by MARK JACOBS.
— Light in Mexico, by GEORGE MOORE.
— War, All the Time, by JON WESICK.
— foreclosure, by LEE CLARK ZUMPE.
We also nominated the following for The Best Mystery Stories of the Year, an annual collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction published by Mysterious Press.
The Mysterious Bookshop Presents: The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024 Nominations:
— P.C.T. – Please Call Them, DAVID HAGERTY.
— The Road to Agadez, MARK JACOBS.