2015 Briar Cliff Review contest winners announced
By Tricia Currans-Sheehan
Editor, The Briar Cliff Review
The Briar Cliff Review is proud to announce the winners of its 2015 writing contest. The winning entries will be published in the 2015 edition of The Briar Cliff Review, which will be available May 1, 2015.
Best Fiction
Lee Varon, Cambridge, Mass.
Lee Varon is a therapist and a writer. She is licensed as a clinical social worker and maintains a private practice in the Boston and NYC areas. In 1984, she founded The Adoption Network, a counseling and consulting agency specializing in adoption. In 2000, Lee published “Adopting On Your Own: The Complete Guide to Adopting as a Single Parent.” In 2012, she published “Single Adoptive Parents: Our Stories.” Her work in the field of adoption has been featured in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, and many other publications and TV shows, including Good Morning America. In 1985, Lifetime Cable News produced a special on her work in adoption. In addition to her work as a therapist, Lee has had short stories and poems published widely in small magazines. Her work was nominated for the Pushcart Best of the Small Presses XXII.
Best Poetry
Carine Topal, La Quinta, Calif.
Carine Topal, a native New Yorker, lives in La Quinta, California. Her work has appeared in numerous journals throughout the U.S. and Canada such as The Best of the Prose Poem, Scrivener Creative Review, Caliban, Greensboro Review, and many others. She was a Pushcart Prize nominee and has been awarded residencies in the U.S and Russia. She is the recipient of numerous poetry awards, including the 2007 Robert G. Cohn Prose Poetry Award, from which her 2nd collection, “Bed of Want,” was published. In 2008 she won the Excellence in Arts Award from the city of Torrance, California. Her 3rd collection of poetry, “In the Heaven of Never Before,” was published in 2008, (Moon Tide Press). Her new book, “Whole Burnt,” won 1st prize in the Palettes and Quills 4th Biennial Chapbook contest, and will be coming out in early 2015. She teaches poetry and memoir to adults in Los Angeles and Palm Springs area.
Creative Non-Fiction
"Candy"
Lisa Nikolidakis, Newburgh, Ind.
Lisa Nikolidakis’ work has appeared or is forthcoming in Brevity, Passages North, The Rumpus, [PANK], The Greensboro Review, Hobart, and elsewhere. Her flash fiction won A Room Of Her Own’s Fall 2014 Orlando Prize and is forthcoming in Los Angeles Review. She currently teaches creative writing in the Midwest.