TGLR 2025 Honeybee Prize Winners
July 8, 2025
Hello friends. June has come and gone and just like snap, we’re barreling straight for the sweltering heart of summer here in the heartland.
For landlocked Nebraska that means hot days, muggy nights, loads of weeding and watering the gardens, and, for us at TGLR, it means celebrating results of our annual contest, the Honeybee Prize.
Friends, this is the 5th year we’ve run the contest and for those who don’t know, 100% of the funds received from submission fees are used to pay contributing writers and artists, which is central to our vision, so we owe a debt of gratitude to all who participated!!
And though we are a few weeks behind schedule, we’re delighted to officially announce the winners selected by this year’s judges and other finalists selected by our team to receive editor’s choice accolades. ↓↓↓
Winner selected by Julia Kolchinsky:
Autobiography of a Violin by Cassie Burkhardt
Editor’s Choice:
Red and Yellow Light over the Top of Houses by Dolapo Demuren
The Year I Carried You by Sara Shea
Arouse Yourself by Yin Cheng
True Apothecary by Ellie Gold Laabs
The Widower Writes from the Shipwreck by Ellie Gold Laabs
Winner selected by Tom Paine:
While Making Out the Lineup for Tomorrow’s 12U Softball Championship Game by Jim Parisi
Editor’s Choice:
The Summer He Left by Alison Sanders
Solitary Creatures by Charlie Rogers & Jaime Gill
Winner selected by Kristine Langley Mahler:
I Conjure My Great-Grandmother and Ask for Her Life Story. She Visits My Dreams and Gives Me a Lesson on Revision by Alayna Powell
Editor’s Choice:
The Leftovers by Michelle La Vone
Winner selected by Michael Czyzniejewski:
When Mr. Boppo Joined the Cohort by Sharon Lee Snow
Editor’s Choice:
Take Me Through the Finish by Tom Ziemer
Winner selected by Brenna Womer :
The Laundry Hangs at Noon by Ginger Tolman
Editor’s Choice:
36 Hours in Lecce by Anne Schuchman
Our congratulations goes out to these fine folks for their amazing writing and to the winners for snagging those beautiful jars of honey!
We’re not done yet, though!! The best is yet to come as most of these award winning pieces will appear in Issue #20 ~ Summer 2025, the Honeybee Prize Edition. It’s gonna be so, so good… we can’t wait to share it with you (very soon).
Cheers,
~The Good Life Review Team
PS. We’re open for our Autumn issue including our first-ever call for spoken-word pieces, for which submissions are free. The window closes on July 20th. ⭐ We’re also on the hunt for artwork for our autumn issue. ⭐
As a reminder, we nominate for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions and… YES we are a paying market! ($60 per piece published in the seasonal issue, $25 per piece published in Micro Monday, $50 for cover art).
Your work will be handled with care and read by at least two (typically three or more) members of our editorial team.
