The Balcones Prize for Fiction: Gerardo Sámano Córdova reading will take place at ACC’s Highland Campus in room HLC2 2560 on Tuesday, March 4 from 7-8:30pm. The event will also be livestreamed. Click HERE for more details!
The Balcones Prize for Poetry: JJJJJerome Ellis reading will take place on Tuesday, April 1 from 7-8:30pm via Zoom. Click HERE for more details!
Winner of the 2024 Balcones Prize for Fiction
Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
Gerardo Sámano Córdova is a writer and artist from Mexico City living in Brooklyn. He is the author of Monstrilio, winner of the Balcones Fiction Prize, finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and named a Book of the Year by NPR, Elle, Goodreads and others. He holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Michigan and is the current Writer in Residence at Fordham University. Gerardo has also been known to draw little creatures.
Winner of the 2024 Balcones Prize for Poetry
Aster of Ceremonies by JJJJJerome Ellis
JJJJJerome Ellis (any pronoun) is a disabled Grenadian-Jamaican-American artist, surfer, and person who stutters. The artist works across music, performance, writing, video, and photography. JJJJJerome has the great privilege of being married to poet-ecologist Luísa Black Ellis. They live in a monastery on a creek in traditional Chesapeake and Nansemond territory. JJJJJerome dreams of building a sonic bath house!
• • •
The 2023 winners of the Balcones Prizes were Mecca Jamilah Sullivan for Big Girl (Fiction) and Noʻu Revilla for Ask the Brindled (Poetry).
The 2022 winners of the Balcones Prizes were Jocelyn Nicole Johnson for My Monticello (Fiction) and Michael Kleber-Diggs for Worldly Things (Poetry).
The 2021 winners of the Balcones Prizes were Fowzia Karimi for Above Us the Milky Way (Fiction) and Heid E. Erdrich for Little Big Bully (Poetry).
The 2020 winners of the Balcones Prizes were Max Porter for Lanny (Fiction) and Maya Phillips for Erou (Poetry).
The 2019 winners of the Balcones Prizes were Shena McAuliffe for The Good Echo (Fiction) and Margaree Little for Rest (Poetry).
Previous winners of the Balcones Prizes include Natalie Diaz, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Reginald Gibbons, Mark Jarmon, Michael McGriffe, Douglas Trevor, Tara Laskowski, and many others.