Winners of The 2026 Orison Prizes in Poetry & Fiction
Orison Books is pleased to announce the results of The 2026 Orison Prizes in Poetry & Fiction.
POETRY RESULTS
Leila Chatti has selected "not ghost but man" by Thomas Dooley as the poetry winner from a pool of anonymous finalist manuscripts. Dooley will receive $1,500 and publication by Orison Books.
We'd like to recognize the following finalists and semi-finalists.
POETRY FINALISTS
"tremblework" by Daniel Biegelson
"Noli Me Tangere" by R. C. Bruner
"This Is All I Have and Am" by Joemario Umana
"Scrap, Feather, Bone" by Anne Yarbrough
[1 finalist manuscript withdrawn by author]
POETRY SEMI-FINALISTS
"Become a Better Brother" by Pearl Abraham
"That Chekhovian Feeling of Living in the Provinces" by Emma Aprile
"Geometry of the Altar" by Chase Cate
"Pilgrimages in the Mysterium" by Jeffrey Collins
"Anteros Untethered" by Vikki C.
"Rizal Walks Along the Foxgloves" by Eugene Gloria
"Bury Me With the Sensualists" by Mary Beth Hines
"Secretary of the Invisible Thing" by Lance Larsen
"Not Eden" by Steve McDonald
"Tangle With Regret and Other Poems" by Dan Overgaard
"KAMA'ĀINA" by Lana Reeves
"Psalm for the Nameless" by Barbara Schwartz
"Woman, Counting" by Marcela Sulak
ABOUT "not ghost but man"
About the winning manuscript, Leila Chatti, author of Wildness Before Something Sublime, writes: "not ghost but man is a collection charged with quiet, electric passion for both the beloved and the divine. Through exquisite lyric poems that merge gay eroticism and the vocabularies of Catholicism, Thomas Dooley reveals the tender intimacies and intensities of the private life and interior self. 'I'll surrender pleasure for blessing,' Dooley writes. A powerful collection, pulsing with desire—desire of the body, of the spirit, in its original sense of waiting for what the heavens may bring."
ABOUT THE WINNER
Thomas Dooley is the author of the National Poetry Series-winning collection Trespass. As poet in residence, he directs health humanities programs at hospitals and teaches at UCSD’s Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion.
FICTION RESULTS
Margot Livesey has selected "The Ground Rules: Stories" by Eunice Scarfe as the fiction winner from a pool of anonymous finalist manuscripts. Scarfe will receive $1,500 and publication by Orison Books.
We'd like to recognize the following finalists and semi-finalists.
FICTION FINALISTS
"The Oblivion Prayer" by Michael Keen
"The Last Man (This Thing Time Which So Divides Us)" by Matthew Raymond
"The Light of the Bartender's Daughter" by Thea Swanson
FICTION SEMI-FINALISTS
"The Deep Feeling" by Jeff Markowski
"Oblation" by Kaitlin Murphy-Knudsen
"Cold Spring Road" by Pam Parker
"NAZRAT" by Claudia Smith
ABOUT "THE GROUND RULES"
About the winning manuscript, Margot Livesey, author of The Road from Belhaven, writes: "From the opening story, I was engrossed in The Ground Rules. The stories in this wonderful collection take place in many different worlds—wartime Scandinavia, a religious community in America, rural England, to name a few—but they share their author’s eloquent voice, and a sense of suspense and mystery. The mysteries are many, some of fact, some of feeling (no, no, that is not my father), and the stakes are always high. These characters are in the grip of their lives, trying not to peer into the abyss. In the best way, I forgot that I was reading as I turned the pages of this beautiful and moving collection."
ABOUT THE WINNER
Eunice Scarfe grew up in Seattle and now lives in western Canada, where she designed the first Women’s Writing Institute at the University of Alberta Faculty of Extension and taught a version of "Li(v)es of Girls and Women" there for the next 20 years. She was recognized for Excellence in Innovation and Design for Lifelong Learning. Through her company, Saga Seminars, she facilitates her distinctive Blank Page workshop across North America. As an invited guest, she’s attended residencies at The Chateau de Lavigny and The Banff Center. Her stories have won awards from PRISM International, Explorations, and Descant, and have also appeared in Malahat Review and Best Stories in Canada, among others. Her writing has been supported by grants from Canada Council and The Alberta Foundation for the Literary Arts.
THE 2027 ORISON PRIZES
The 2027 Orison Prizes in Poetry & Fiction will be open for submissions from December 1, 2026 – April 1, 2027. Kwame Dawes will judge in poetry and Elizabeth McKenzie will judge in fiction.
