We are pleased to announce that Ryan Habermeyer is the winner of the sixth annual BOA Short Fiction Prize for his collection, The Science of Lost Futures! The collection was selected by Publisher Peter Conners from 147 submissions. Habermeyer will receive a $1,000 honorarium and book publication by BOA Editions, Ltd. within the American Reader Series in spring 2018.

Of the collection, Peter Conners says: “Ryan Habermeyer is not only a gifted literary writer, but also a yarn spinner of the first order. How else to explain an author who can tell a compelling tale about a foot that mysteriously washes up on shore, '…twice as tall as the nearest water tower, and as wide as a cluster of neighborhood streets.'? Habermeyer mixes the unsettling void of Franz Kafka with the tall-tale skills of Mark Twain, and tosses in a dash of George Saunders’s contemporary satire for good measure. The results are a funny, poignant, and strikingly original story collection—The Science of Lost Futures—that announces the debut of a young fiction writer with imagination to burn.”

A finalist and three runners-up were also selected: The Secret of Mayo by Andrew R. Touhy (finalist); A More Active You by Meagan Cass; I Cover the Rest by Jenn Stroud Rossmann; and The Visibility of Things Long Submerged by George Looney.

Ryan Habermeyer earned his MFA from the University of Massachusetts and is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Missouri. His work, twice-nominated for the Pushcart Prize, has appeared most recently in Cream City Review, Carolina Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, and Chattahoochee Review. He lives with his wife and children in Columbia, Missouri, where he teaches creative writing and is finishing his first novel.

BOA Editions will accept manuscripts for the seventh annual BOA Short Fiction Prize between April 1 - May 31, 2017. An entry form and a $25 fee are required. Complete guidelines for the 2017 BOA Short Fiction Prize are available at boaeditions.org.

Congratulations, Ryan, and welcome to the BOA family!