In early 2020, my short story “With Mercy to the Stars” was selected as winner of the Lamar York Prize for Fiction.

The judge had this to say:

“A wonderful and surprising coming-of-age story about two Greek teenage girls, an unwanted pregnancy, and a dancing bear named Callisto. I was totally drawn in from the first page, happy to be in the company of a young narrator who is just starting to glimpse the limitations of the adulthood that awaits her, as confining as the cage that houses her father’s prized bear. The story forces the narrator to make a choice that will have ramifications for her, her best friend, and her family—and fully initiate her into the world of choice and consequence. A powerful story that is a pleasure to read from the opening sentence to the harrowing last line.”

—Anthony Varallo

The story begins:

“It is something to live with a bear that doesn’t like you. Callisto was a cub when my father brought her home after the earthquake in ’78, the same quake that took my mother, and because I was six years old—or maybe because the bear’s eyes were a familiar shade of brown—I was convinced that Callisto was my mother, her spirit somehow fused with this cub. In her call, a sweet note like someone testing a harmonica, I heard a welcome, maybe even love. Of course, my father warned me and my younger brother Stelios to stay away from her cage. He’d say, “Step near her, and Cronus will eat you in your sleep.” His warning worked for a while, but eventually I knew his threat was blank as a cloud. I couldn’t help myself; I had to touch her. Early one morning, I got about a yard away—I could even smell her, wet and musky—but she turned, swung her arm at me, and growled for the first time with such volume that it woke my father. You can guess the smacking I got. After that, anytime I came near she clacked her teeth and let loose sharp, bursting grunts of air. I realized quickly that two things can be true at once: you can love and fear the same thing.”

Unfortunately, this is another print-only journal, available here.