Mark Krieger Wins Sixth Annual Danahy Fiction Prize

Mark Krieger of West Bend, Wisconsin, has been selected as winner of the sixth annual Danahy Fiction Prize by the editors of Tampa Review. He will receive a cash award of $1,000 and his winning short story, “Scar,” will be published in Tampa Review 43/44, forthcoming in summer 2012.

Krieger's fiction has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Tampa Review, Shambhala Sun (nonfiction), KNOCK, and THEMA. Other works have been finalists for the 2010 Narrative Winter Story Contest and the 2009 Danahy Prize.

His education in writing is informal: simply, the countless hours, months, and years he has spent with a pen and his imagination working on the craft, getting feedback from friends, and studying admired works on his own.

“I've never cared much for formal education,” Krieger says. ”I've always been too much of a Huck Finn, a loner, and a bit stubborn. From a very young age, I've always preferred doing things my own way and relying heavily on my instincts. It’s the hardest path, but the best I think.”

He finds it hard to explain the origins of ”Scar.”

“I don't know where the story came from, outside of the research I've done involving hard scrabble street kids and crime in general, ” he says. “It is the darkest story I've ever written. Each time I'd returned to it after letting it sit, I had to fight the moralistic urge to change matters. In short, I wanted to change the ending. But when push came to shove, I found myself emptying office garbage cans and futzing around with the arrangement of my rock collection on my desk. In other words, what is commonly known as writer’s block, I've found to be old trusty instinct letting me know (semi-sarcastically), through immense un-inspiration, to drop the pen and back away from the story. It's done.”

Krieger goes on to say, “Good storytelling, for me, is like dreaming or meditating. It can't be forced. You have to get out of your own way, letting go of agendas and desires and just let the dream come of its own. If you come to the dream and try to push it along lines it doesn't naturally want to follow you'll lose the power of its message.”

This year the judges also named five finalists:
“Fire” by Alex Russell of Davis, California;
“The Gardener” by David Hopes of Asheville, North Carolina;
 “Aguanilé” by Amina Gautier of Chicago, Illinois;
“The Hills Will Melt Like Wax” by Daniel Wallace of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and
“Sukinshippu” by Jim Bainbridge of Los Angeles, California.

The Danahy Fiction Prize was established by Paul and Georgia Danahy as an annual award for a previously unpublished work of short fiction judged by the editors of Tampa Review, the faculty-edited literary journal of the University of Tampa, published twice yearly in a distinctive hardback format. Subscriptions are $22 annually, and those received before June will begin with the issue featuring Krieger’s prize-winning story.

The Danahy Fiction Prize is open to both new and widely published writers, with an annual postmark deadline of November 1. The $20 entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Tampa Review, and all entries submitted are considered for publication.

Complete guidelines are available on the Web at http://tampareview.ut.edu or by sending a self-addressed, stamped envelope to The Danahy Fiction Prize, University of Tampa Press, 401 West Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, FL 33606.