L’Esprit Literary Review
Judged by Diane Josefowicz
I’m interested in writing that takes risks, and I’m especially interested in risky choices of style, voice, register, and point of view. I love writing that trusts the reader with a degree of ambiguity or difficulty while remaining alert to the flow of her attention.
–Diane Josefowicz
L’Esprit seeks short prose of exceptional vision and skill.
The 2025 Clarissa Dalloway Prize for Short Prose will be awarded to the best piece of fiction, nonfiction, or hybrid work under 5,000 words. There are no other requirements; we’ll simply be looking for the best work we can find, true to the journal’s mission of publishing risk-adept, language-driven writing crafted in a revolutionary spirit. We welcome pieces that challenge convention in form, style, and/or content, and which invite us to think differently about the world.
2025 Clarissa Dalloway Prize for Short Prose
Guest Judge: Diane Josefowicz
Grand Prize Winner || Publication in L’Esprit Issue Seven and $500
Lionheart, Mark Cunningham
Second Place Award || Publication in L’Esprit Issue Seven and $150
Stummfilm, Linn Hansen
Finalists || Publication in L’Esprit Issue Seven and $50
Carry Me Along, Lincoln Hirn
Seagulls, Adrianne Beer
Achilles Grieves, Cosmo Hinsman
Shortlist Nominees
Tidy Is A Lie, Khalisa Thompson
Boys of Summer, Jason Mortensen
Lionheart, Mark Cunningham
Birthday, A. S. Aubrey
Healing Season, Heather Bartel
Achilles Grieves, Cosmo Hinsman
Seagulls, Adrianne Beer
Debridement, Anneliz Marie Erese
The Grand Shame Pas de Deux, Rachel Parker
Carry Me Along, Lincoln Hirn
The Promise In Writing, Daniel Uncapher
Girls, Together, Helen Peluso
Jan and Wilhelm in Saigon, Brendan Ryan
The Pulsating Moment, Samantha Stone
The Second Cumming, Connie Chen
Einstein’s Begonia, Sarah McElwain
Tornado, Rob Smith
Flybottle, Hunter Allund
Stummfilm, Linn Hansen
Longlist Nominees
August 2006, Lynne Schmidt
The Poet In Room 12, Ted Morrissey
Anatomical Man, Steph Rantz
Portrait of the Hysteric as a Young Girl, Becky McLaughlin
Flight, Maura Carty
Dugout, Emma Oldman
Mockingbird, Danielle Barr
Glass Boys, David Willey
J’attends mon ami, Sara London
The Museum of Lost Voices, Linden Hibbert
Wild Goose Chase, Gemmarosa Ryan
A Literary Horoscope, Adrian Potter
Writing a Redeemable Man, Robin Messing
(Within The Open Parentheses), Adria Bernardi
Star Days, Loie Rawding
Sagittarius, Sophia Terazawa
Transpacificism, Tim Knight
Ahead, Ekaterina Michkovskaia
Rue Cler, Michael Edman
Thank you for your support of fearless writing.
Diane Josefowicz is a novelist, editor, and historian.
She is the author of a novel, Ready, Set, Oh (Flexible Press, 2022) and a novella, L’Air du Temps (1985), just out from Regal House. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Boston Globe, LA Review of Books, Dame, Liber, Conjunctions, and Fence, among others. She serves as Reviews Editor at Necessary Fiction and Managing Editor of the Victorian Web, the internet’s oldest and largest website devoted to Victoriana.
Diane on what she’s looking for in judging this award:
I’m interested in writing that takes risks, and I’m especially interested in risky choices of style, voice, register, and point of view. I love writing that trusts the reader with a degree of ambiguity or difficulty while remaining alert to the flow of her attention; that’s rich yet uncluttered, in touch with the physicality of its characters and the worlds they inhabit; and plays interestingly with time, history, and memory. Touchstones, for me, include Rikki Ducornet, Helen DeWitt, and Rachel Cusk; lately I’ve been inspired by Amy Arnold’s subtly unreliable narrators, Caren Beilin’s exuberant absurdism, and the frank, unapologetic intelligence of recent books by Gina Apostol and Kate Briggs.
in mediam mentem // Clarissa Dalloway Prize
L'Esprit Literary Review 