Gival Press is pleased to announce the winner of the 16th annual Gival Press Short Story Award-2019. Efímera by A. J. Rodriguez of Chicago, Illinois was chosen by last year’s winner Joan Goldsmith Gurfield. The author received a cash prize of $1K and the story is published on Gival Press’s website and its online journal, ArLiJo.
About the Author A.J. Rodriguez was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but he currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. In 2018, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University with a dual major in English and Latinx Studies. During his time as an undergraduate, A.J.’s mentor and award-winning author Helena Viramontes helped him discover and develop his distinctly Burqueño voice. As illustrated in Efímera, A.J. articulates his prose through an intersectional Nuevo Mexicana/o/x milieu and aims to investigate how the individual makes sense of simultaneously occurring issues swimming within machismo, race, and family. His short story, Paloma en Fuego, was published in Chapter House Journal’s 2016 Spring Issue and was a finalist in the Epiphany Magazine 2016 short story competition. In 2020, A.J. plans to begin his Master of Fine Arts in fiction with the hope of completing and publishing his debut collection of short stories.
The Finalists Slow Down This Time by Matthew Pitt of Ft. Worth, Texas. A Question of Time by Rachel Hope Crossman of Berkeley, California. Benediction by Margarite Landry of Southborough, Massachusetts. Kuka–The Aztec Mother by Lupe Ruiz-Flores of San Antonio, Texas.