We are thrilled to announce Robin McLean as winner of the third annual BOA Editions Short Fiction Prize for her collection Reptile House. The collection was selected from nearly 200 manuscript submissions by BOA Publisher Peter Conners. Robin McLean will receive a $1,000 honorarium and book publication by BOA Editions, Ltd. in spring 2015.
Of the collection, Peter Conners says, “Robin McLean’s Reptile House introduces us to a debut author of audacious originality. Her stories probe the underbelly of human behavior revealing the darker motivations behind the chilling interactions she breathes to life. Like all great works of literature, the stories and characters in Reptile House will stay with you long after you close the book… and will beckon you back again and again.”
Five finalists were also selected: To No End by Penelope Cray; Appetite by Norma Marder; Jean Takes a Moment to Respond by Michael Sheehan; Little Room by John Staples; and Great American Desert by Terese Svoboda.
Robin McLean was a lawyer, and then a potter, for 15 years in the woods of Alaska before receiving her MFA at UMass Amherst in Massachusetts. Her collection Reptile House was a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Short Story Prize in 2011 and 2012. McLean’s stories appear widely in such places as The Nashville Review, The Malahat Review, Gargoyle, The Common and Copper Nickel, as well as the anthology American Fiction: The Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers. A figure skater first—having learned to skate and walk at the same time—McLean believes that crashing prepared her for writing fiction. She currently teaches at Clark University and lives by Newfound Lake in New Hampshire.
BOA Editions will accept manuscripts for the fourth annual BOA Editions Short Fiction Prize between April 1 and May 31, 2014. An entry form and fee are required. Guidelines will be announced on the prize submission page later this year.
Congratulations Robin, on your winning manuscript Reptile House, and welcome to the BOA family!
