RUNNER-UP – Lleyton Michael Kane, a senior from Georgia, for his short story “The Last Well-Reader”.

His prizes include a possible feature on Reading Rural YAL and a signed copy of a book of his choosing written by one of our judges.

Tanya Aydelott is a Pakistani-American author who spent her childhood in the Middle East and Tennessee. She holds an MFA in creative writing for children and young adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is an associate editor for Cast of Wonders, a young adult speculative fiction podcast. Her short fiction has been published in FORESHADOW: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading and Writing YA, Dark Moon Digest, Tales & Feathers Magazine, Podcastle, and Flash Fiction Online; she has also contributed to the Nerdy Book Club blog and to Spinning Towards the Sun: Essays on Writing, Resilience and the Creative Life. Visit her online at tanya-aydelott.com.

Jen Ferguson (she/her) is Métis and white, an activist, a feminist, an auntie, and an accomplice armed with a PhD. She believes writing, teaching and beading are political acts. Her debut YA novel, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet(Heartdrum/HarperCollins) won a 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award and is a 2023 Stonewall Honor Book. Jen’s second YA novel Those Pink Mountain Nights has four starred reviews and is a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection. A Constellation of Minor Bears, about three teens grappling with balancing resentment against enduring friendship—and how to move forward with a life that’s not what they’d imagined, is a USA Today Bestseller with two starred reviews. She is currently writing an adult speculative novel about the so-called end of the world.