“The Lovers Set down Their Spoons”
They weave through the tables – their rain coats billowing out behind them like the kites you and I flew on that terrible day that began our love. Your kite kept wrapping around mine, and at first I thought it was sweet, but eventually mine nosedived into the sand.
In 2014, the Iowa Short Fiction Award was given to Heather A Slomski for The Lovers Who Set Down Their Spoons, a collection of 15 short stories that are thought-provoking, captivating, and haunting. Themes of love, loss and regret are heavily emphasized with symbolism and metaphors used to convey the message in the narratives that vary in length from 2-29 pages. Read more 
“Safe As Houses”
Safe As Houses is a collection of short stories written by Marie-Helene Bertino and winner of The Iowa Short Fiction Award (2012). The title of the book – Safe As Houses – signifies what most of us believe a home should be: a haven from the outside world where families celebrate holidays and display refrigerator art and framed photographs, but Bertino shows the reader that home can also be a house that is wiped away in an instant, a place we flee from, or a prison in which we lock the world out. Despite the general belief that people are safe in their homes, the truth can be entirely different because what makes a house a home is its inhabitants, not the brick and mortar – and people can be dangerous. Read more
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