Vestal, Van Winckel, Wilkins among Pushcart winners

Two Spokane writers, and a Montanan who graduated from Gonzaga University and now lives in Oregon, are among this year’s winners of the prestigious Pushcart Prize.

Shawn Vestal, whose story collection “Godforsaken Idaho” won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham award this fall, was honored for the story “Winter Elders,” which originally appeared in the journal Ecotone. The story is about a man whose dealings with two Mormon missionaries take a dark turn. Nance Van Winckel’s poem “Unwilling,” also was honored. She is a previous winner of the Pushcart Prize, which honors poetry, short fiction and essays from small presses. Joe Wilkins, a Gonzaga graduate who teaches at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, won for his story “Stay,” which originally appeared in The Sun Magazine. (He has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Idaho as well.)

The winners are collected in an annual anthology. This year’s anthology includes works by more than 60 writers. The collection, “2015 Pushcart Prize XXXIX: Best of the Small Presses,” is available for sale now.

“It’s exciting to be included,” said Vestal, a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. “I’ve read that (collection) for years, so being in it is very nice.”

From Sri Lanka to Spokane

Before Joanna Luloff started graduate school – a Master of Fine Arts from Emerson College and a doctorate from the University of Missouri – she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Sri Lanka.

Her experience there helped inform the short stories in her 2012 collection, “The Beach at Galle Road: Stories From Sri Lanka” (Algonquin Books) The collection won the Maria Thomas Fiction Award and was selected as a Discover Great New Writers book from Barnes & Noble.

When she’s not writing, she teaches English and creative writing at the University of Colorado, Denver. And when she’s not writing and teaching, she’s often on the road, talking about writing. This coming week, she’ll be in Spokane as part of the Gonzaga University Visiting Writers Series.

Luloff will be in the Globe Room of Cataldo Hall on Thursday beginning at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free. For information, call Tod Marshall at (509) 313-6681.