2025 Prize Judges: K-Ming Chang, Steven Dunn, and Katie Jean Shinkle

We are pleased to announce that K-Ming Chang will serve as final judge for the 2025 Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize. K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award winner, a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, and an O. Henry Prize Winner. She is the author of the novel Bestiary (One World/Random House, 2020), which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the Otherwise Award. In 2021, her chapbook Bone House was published by Bull City Press. Her story collection Gods of Want (One World/Random House) won a Lambda Literary Award. Her latest novel is Organ Meats (One World, 2023), and her next book is a novella titled Cecilia (Coffee House Press, 2024).

For the Sukenick, we welcome the rare phenomenon of cojudges: The 2025 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest will be judged by Steven Dunn and Katie Jean Shinkle.

Steven Dunn (a.k.a Pothole, cuz he’s deep in these streets) is a Whiting Award winner who was shortlisted for Granta‘s Best of Young American Novelists. He’s the author of three novels: Potted Meat (Tarpaulin Sky, 2016), water & power (Tarpaulin Sky, 2018), and Tannery Bay (FC2/University of Alabama Press, 2024), which is co-authored with his homie Katie Jean Shinkle. He teaches in the MFA programs at Regis, Stetson, and Naropa universities.

Katie Jean Shinkle’s books and chapbooks include The Only Way Out is Through (YesYes Books, forthcoming), Tannery Bay (coauthored with Steven Dunn, FC2, 2024), None of This is an Invitation (coauthored with Jessica Alexander, Astrophil Press at University of South Dakota, 2023), and Thick City (Bull City Press, 2023). Other work can be found in or is forthcoming from Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance (Sarabande Books), American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, The Nation, Denver Quarterly, New Letters, Witness, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Arts from the University of Denver, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama. Awarded fellowships and residencies from Lambda Literary and Ragdale, she serves as co-poetry editor of DIAGRAM.