News and updates:

The results are in! Over the next couple days LOA will release the winners and runners up of the four different categories of the 2026 Wright Prize! First up, “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” by Michael Farwig won the Prose by a Military Veteran award. Of Farwig’s piece guest judge Jackie Spinner said, “This piece is exceptional because it understands that a war story doesn’t have to be about combat to be about war. The writer takes us into the mind of a veteran who has brought the war home with him, and does it through action, memory and detail rather than explaining his trauma to us.  As someone who has reported on war, I especially appreciate that the piece understands the complicated aftermath of survivor’s guilt, isolation, the loss of the people who gave you a sense of belonging and the difficulty of returning to a world that has moved on. Cole is not presented simply as a hero or a victim. He is responsible for things, haunted by things and trying, unsuccessfully, to make sense of them.” In second place, “This is an Essay About Gilgamesh” by Brandon Davis Jennings. And in third place is “The Engine Room Ghost” by Ismael Rodriguez. Congrats to all of you!