BRW Board Member Gwen Poole served as coordinator of the 2025 BRW Blue Nib writing contest. August 1 was the deadline for this year's contest submissions Esteemed and eagerly willing volunteer judges selected first, second, and third-place winners in each of the following genres/categories:

• Fiction

• Nonfiction

• Poetry

The Board notified the winners in mid-September and hosted the "Social to Honor Blue Nib Contest Winners" at Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Central on September 27, 2025.

A most hearty "Congratulations!" to each of the winners and to everyone who participated in this year's contest! And the winners are:

Fiction:

1st Place - Francesca Flood, "Two Lives—One Soul"

2nd Place - Douglas Forness, "The Unlikely Happy Childhood of the Posthumously Published Poet"

3rd Place - Lillian Connor, "The Calm, the Anxious and the Exuberant"

Judge: Louise Mitchell

Nonfiction:

1st Place - Francesca Flood, "Passages"

2nd Place - Diane Hernon Chavis, "Memory Within a Memory"

3rd Place - Lillian Connor, "The Pact: Anna, Margit and Xander"

Judge: Barbara Fuhrman

Poetry:

1st Place - Douglas Forness, "The Hand of the Muse"

2nd Place - Joy Merritt Krystosek, "Nascent Sensation of Indulgent Pleasure"

3rd Place - Al Mirmelstein, "Tsunami"

Judge: Deborah Brooks

 

*The BRW Blue Nib contest is the 1st tier (chapter level) of the Virginia Writers Club (VWC) Golden Nib contest (state level). The 1st place winners in each of the three categories—Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry—advance to the state level ( 2nd tier) for judging in the VWC's Golden Nib contest. 

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