The 2025 Kentucky Visions Short Story Finalists and Winners
Congratulations to the finalists in the 2025 Kentucky Visions Short Story Contest! This year’s contest received seventy-nine submissions from across the United States and Europe. From those submissions our esteemed panel of judges selected fourteen stories that represent the best in this year’s Kentucky short fiction. After much deliberation the judges identified the top three finalists to be awarded first, second, and third place.
All finalists will be recognized hope you’ve made plans to attend the award ceremony on April 16 at 2:00 in the Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort when Lindy Casebier, Secretary of the Cabinet of Heritage, Arts, and Tourism, will recognize your accomplishment and award your finalist certificate. The finalist anthology is being formatted and we hope to be able to give you a copy at that ceremony.
2025 Kentucky Visions Finalists
“Big Hefty” by Daniel Reiss
“God Has a Way of Taking Care of His Own” by David Sweet & Glenda Toews
“Mi’Kmaq Justice” by Leslie Gulvas
“Operation Takedown” by Tekoa Manning
“Pink and Blue” by Damian C. Beach
“Subsidence” by Artie Ann Bates
“The Caregivers” by Brian Daldorph
“The Seasons of Life” by Jenny Smith
“The Three Trees of Threapwood Yews” by Lynette Hill
“Yearning” by Beth Dotson Brown
“Your Name is Mudd” by Jeanne Anne-Marie Bossier
2025 Kentucky Visions Winners
Third Place: “The Vein and the Vein” by Bradley Firchow
Second Place: “Just Like the Ones I Used to Know” by Pamela Perlman
First Place: “Thin Mints and Nightmares” by Nell KT Campbell
All finalists will be recognized hat an award ceremony on April 16 at 2:00 p.m. EDT in the Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort, KY. Lindy Casebier, Secretary of the Cabinet of Heritage, Arts, and Tourism, will present awards and a copy of the commemorative anthology that is being published. All are welcome and encouraged to attend the ceremony to honor some of Kentucky’s premier short fiction authors.