We are awarding a monetary prize and a complimentary print issue to the reader who submits the best feedback on a piece appearing in each issue of The Summerset Review. For information on how to submit your feedback, see our Guidelines page. We have awarded from $50 to $150 in past issues. For Winter 2009, we awarded a total of $100. For the current issue - running now through June 1, 2009 - the prize money is again set at $100.

Award winners for the Winter 2009 issue (each will be awarded $50 and a complimentary issue of our newly-released Volume Two): Amy Hanridge of Pinetop, Arizona Linda McHenry of Bluffton, Indiana

We want to thank all those of you who submitted entries. We recognize the investment you've made to read our publication and write to us. We sincerely appreciate the interest.

Amy writes about Andrei Guruianu's story, "Body of Work" - Over half of the reported cases of infertility in the United States are male factor infertility, yet this half of the picture rarely gets painted. "Body of Work" is a moving story portraying a small part of what it must feel like for a man to be unable to give his wife a biological child. As someone who has experienced it personally, I know that infertility truly is an unseen blemish on a person. Andrei Guruianu’s piece depicts, through its brilliant use of the imagery of painting and of painting people’s imperfections, some of what the scars of infertiity feel like, and the story reveals some of the painful effects of infertility’s invisible marks. Thank you to Mr. Guruianu for his story.

Linda writes about Kasandra Snow Duthie's story, "Where the Glazed Girls Go" - Only now, in my adult life, have I considered what perceptions my teenage "friends" had about me. I was the tag-along, invited because I lived next door to a popular girl. It was my saving grace. Invite my neighbor to a party, and I had to be invited also. It couldn't have been done properly any other way. Wyn was different on the outside, way too obvious to be ignored. She chose to enhance that difference with attitude and mystique, whereas I did everything I could to blend into my surroundings, pretend I didn't know so that my own pretense hardened in a frozen landscape. Caught between a rock and a hard place, a girl who is different has a hard time fitting into the cracks of society.