Best of Zodiac – Announced February 1, 2023
Top 20 works of short fiction
published in The Zodiac Review 2011-2023
Welcome to the Best of Zodiac. Here we announce the winners of
the first vote held among all Zodiac staff, the all-volunteer group that has
worked diligently for 12 years to keep the literary magazine flourishing.
All honored pieces were selected collaboratively
by Zodiac publisher Dan VanTassel and editorial staff.
These winning works represent the top 1% of the approximately 2,000 submissions received, and the top 8% of the 242 stories published.
(The magazine is currently on hiatus, re-opening date TBD, during which time
it will continue to be published and available for everyone's reading pleasure.)
Podium
1st Place: What I Live For, by Robert Boucheron (Fall '12; mainstream lit.)
2nd Place: How Mac Got Promoted, by Gale Turner (Winter '12; satire)
3rd Place: Shooting at Diamonds, by Rebecca Clay Haynes (Winter '12; main. lit.)
4th Place: Dead Folks, by William Alton (Winter '21; mainstream literary)
5th Place: Aliens, by James Bates (Fall '20; satire)
Honorable Mention
(All mainstream literary fiction except as noted)
(Click on each title to link)
Flash Fiction (listed in reverse chron order)
> On The Move, by Anita Haas (Summer/Fall '22)
> Wise Man, by Charles Rammelkamp (Summer/Fall '22)
> Waiting Room, by Anita Haas (Summer '20)
> Crane Collapses, No Fatalities, by Gabriel Schenk (Fall '17; fantasy)
> Coal Tipple, by Charles Hayes (Summer '17)
> Locker Room Banter, by Charles Rammelkamp (Summer '17)
> Poverty, by Charles Hayes (Winter/Spring '16)
> God's Dog, by Gale Turner (Winter '14; satire)
> A Snifter of Absynthe, by Stephen V. Ramey (Spring '13)
> In From the Rain, by Kevin Hall (Spring '13)
> Conversations With Zip, by Will Dixon (Summer '12; satire)
> The End of Spring, by Michael Shrimper (Spring '12)
> Aunt Gwen Sneaks, by Kenneth Pobo (Winter '12)
Prose Poetry
> Stars, Crossing, by Phiip Kobylarz (Winter, '22-'23)
> The Street Sweeper, by Charles Hayes (Summer/Fall '15)
