Meet the Contest Winners

In person and online, festival-goers this year will meet the winners of the first-ever Word Festival Writing Contest.

The adult winner, Elizabeth Kirschner of Boston and Blue Hill, will read her short story, “A Doll’s Fingerprints,” at 6pm during the Word.Art opening Thursday, October 24, at Cynthia Winings Gallery.

Oona McPhearson, 16, of Brooklin, the youth winner, is at school in New Mexico and won’t attend the festival. They read the winning short story, “Frosted Glass,” in the video below.

Kirschner will join Claire Millikin and Karin Spitfire in reading at the opening.

With a July 15 deadline, the contest invited writers to submit works of fiction no longer than 1,500 words. Word collaborated on the contest with the University of Maine’s  renowned Stonecoast MFA program and its literary journal, The Stonecoast Review. Leah Scott-Kirby, the review’s editor-in-chief, served as contest judge.

The two winners each received $100, and their stories will be published in the 2024-25 winter edition of The Stonecoast Review.

“Both stories exemplify the best of contemporary fiction,” Scott-Kirby said, “fearless in their exploration of dark, emotional landscapes while offering readers a deeply personal and resonant experience.”

Kirschner is a writer, teacher, and master gardener. She lives in Boston, but spends much of her summer in Blue Hill  with her little dog, Albert. She has published six volumes of poetry, a memoir, and a collection of short stories. She's working on a series of hybrid essays.

McPhearson, a student at United World Colleges in Montezuma, NM, has been writing on her own since the age of eight, later taking creative writing classes online through Writopia Lab. “Mostly I write short stories and flash fiction,” she said, “although more recently I’ve begun writing quite a bit of poetry.”