DIAJ Award Winners

Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine annually honors its contributors that best represented the year's submissions. The award goes to someone in each category we publish. Anyone who submits work to Door is a Jar Literary Magazine has a chance at winning this award.

The 2024 DIAJ Award winners:

My Brother's Ten-Speed Bike by M.R. Mandell (Poetry)

Letting by Sofia Drummond-Moore (Fiction)

Shadowboxing by Jack B. Bedell (Nonfiction)

Self-Made by Dimitra Rizou (Art)

Stormy Neighbors by Bruce Southers (Drama)

Other People’s Crazy and Other People’s Drama by Gregory Fletcher Book Review by Thu Nguygen (Book Review)

When judging for this award, we look for pieces that are accessible and relatable in a way that goes hand in hand with one of our core values — the value of making our publication open and available to everyone.

NONFICTION

Shadowboxing by Jack B. Bedell (Issue 31 Summer 2024)

Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Heavy Feather, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, No Contact, Autofocus, WAS, and other journals. He’s also had pieces included in Best Microfiction and Best Spiritual Literature. His latest collection is Against the Woods’ Dark Trunks (Mercer University Press, 2022). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.

ART

Self-Made by Dimitra Rizou (Issue 32 Fall 2024)

Dimitra Rizou is a cartoonist and writer based in London, UK. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Yorker, The Private Eye, Door is a Jar, Split Rock Review, Litro, among others, and was shortlisted in Artificuim's Signo Novella Prize. She has also illustrated stories written by children for the Ministry of Stories charity. She can sometimes be found online on www.ahoyuniverse.com and on @ahoy_universe on Instagram.

DRAMA

Story Neighbors by Bruce Southers (Issue 31 Summer 2024)

Bruce Southers is originally from the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, but now lives in the Ohio Valley and is a Project Manager for a large law firm. He spends his free time writing plays and non-fiction, as well as raising a small flock of chickens in his backyard.

BOOK REVIEW

Other People’s Crazy and Other People’s Drama by Gregory Fletcher Book Review by Thu Nguygen (Issue 31 Summer 2024)

Thu Anh Nguyen is a writer and painter who grew up on a mango farm in Florida. She has strong opinions about fruit and unreliable narrators. Although she reads and reviews books professionally now, some of the best writing she has ever read was by her middle and high school writing students.