This year's Guest Judge is Amy DeBellis. Amy DeBellis is a writer from New York and the author of the novel ALL OUR TOMORROWS (CLASH Books). Her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, has appeared in the Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist, and can be found in X-R-A-Y, Uncharted, Write or Die, Monkeybicycle, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere.

She writes, “I’d love to see stories that are character-driven and emotionally honest, with a distinct voice and close attention paid to style at the line level. I also appreciate fiction that allows the reader to step into another person’s shoes while at the same time prompting them to reflect on their own lives and selves. The best stories, to me, don’t shy away from darkness or ambiguity—they embrace the visceral, the uncomfortable, and the surreal. Give me a story that only you could have written.”

She had this to say about the winning story, “Necronomics.”:

The moment I started reading “Necronomics”, I knew we had something very special. This tale of grave-robbing gone wrong is so much more than just that. The writer’s voice is very strong; they guide us through our characters’ world with a confident hand, so that we feel as though we’re there, rather than just looking in from the outside or being told about it. The writing is taut and precise. The author makes use of imagery in a gorgeous and visceral way, but never overdoes it. Parts of this story reminded me of Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk in how it blends the mundane, often beautiful parts of life with the surreal and the grotesque. Charlene in particular came so alive that I know I will be thinking of her for a while…almost as though she’s a real person. Darkness and light coexist beautifully in the narrative—from the gracefully rendered description of light inside a broken-open crypt to the discovery of a tentative, fragile intimacy between two members of the group. The final scene is vivid, gut-wrenching, and incredibly sad without ever being sentimental.