The Sky Is a Free Country: The Luminaire Award Anthology, Vol 1, by 23 Authors

The first collected triennial volume of winners and top-five finalists of the Luminaire Awards for Best Prose and Best Poetry for the years 2014 through 2016. Features 13 gut-punching short stories and 15 heart-rending poems by 23 authors, each piece having won out over hundreds of others to be selected as the best work of its respective year through an incognito judging process, conducted by Alternating Current Press editors and external judges. Walk with storytellers through tales of domestic violence, children disappearing on spaceships, a car-parts thief at the scene of an accident, a gravedigger pulling the plug on a childhood nightmare, attending Santa Claus school, telling your secrets to strangers, and a dangerous proposal for fertility. Explore Tennessee, chase bombmakers out of hostage situations, come of age, stand at the Alamo, walk down Birch Street, pick apples, and return to your roots in these stories and poems by some of the independent press’ finest contemporary writers.

Content Warning: coming soon

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Luminaire Poetry Winners

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2014 Luminaire Poetry Award Winners
1st Place: “Low Tide” by Pete M. Wyer
2nd Place: “Miss Valley City, North Dakota” by Charles P. Ries
3rd Place: “William Barret Question Mark” by CEE
4th Place: “Birch Street” by Charles P. Ries
5th Place: “With apologies to Rose Bonne [The Hall of Ives]” by CEE

2015 Luminaire Poetry Award Winners
1st Place: “mob of one” by Normal
2nd Place: “Reign” by Jared A. Carnie
3rd Place: “Sewing” by Noel King
4th Place: “Cause Célèbre” by Andrei Guruianu
5th Place: “After Abandon” by Michael Cooper

2016 Luminaire Poetry Award Winners
1st Place: “Baldwin Apples” by Sarah Ann Winn
2nd Place: “Coralee Robbins Mafficks the Fall of Art” by Amy Wright
3rd Place: “vii. (the leviathan)” by Mary Buchinger
4th Place: “we move as dust” by Mike Bernicchi
5th Place: “the thing is, you see” by Normal

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Luminaire Prose Winners

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2014 Luminaire Prose Award Winners
1st Place: “A Slow Dance in the Afternoon” by Mia Eaker
2nd Place: “Sunrise Special” by John Vicary
3rd Place: “The Spirit of Shackleton” by Gavin Broom
4th Place: “The Elephant in the Bathtub” by J. Lewis Fleming
5th Place: “Stoop” by Alexa Mergen

2015 Luminaire Prose Award Winners
1st Place: “Chindi” by Eric Shonkwiler [not in anthology]
2nd Place: “A Hindershot of Calion” by Schuler Benson [audio version]
3rd Place: “Inheritance” by Stephanie Liden
4th Place: “An American Seeker” by Kevin Catalano
5th Place: “The Poor Man’s Guide to an Affordable, Painless Suicide” by Schuler Benson

2016 Luminaire Prose Award Winners
1st Place: “For the Man after Me” by Eric Shonkwiler
2nd Place: “Kinda Sorta American Dream” by Steve Karas
3rd Place: “What World We Build after All That’s Burned Away” by Justin Lawrence Daugherty [not in anthology]
4th Place: “Sculpting Sand” by Steve Karas
5th Place: “Tennessee” by Constance Sayers

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Authors

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• Schuler Benson
• Mike Bernicchi
• Gavin Broom
• Mary Buchinger
• Jared A. Carnie
• Kevin Catalano
• CEE
• Michael Cooper
• Mia Eaker
• J. Lewis Fleming
• Andrei Guruianu
• Steve Karas
• Noel King
• Stephanie Liden
• Alexa Mergen
• Normal
• Charles P. Ries
• Constance Sayers
• Eric Shonkwiler
• John Vicary
• Sarah Ann Winn
• Amy Wright
• Pete M. Wyer

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Also by Normal

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Also by CEE, Normal, & Charles P. Ries

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Also by Charles P. Ries

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Also by CEE & Charles P. Ries

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Also by Schuler Benson

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Also by Jared A. Carnie, Kevin Catalano, CEE, Andrei Guruianu, Noel King, & Normal

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Also by Eric Shonkwiler

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Also by Mary Buchinger & John Vicary

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Also by Amy Wright

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Also by Michael Cooper

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