Sundress Publications is thrilled to announce the results of the 2025 Prose Open Reading Period. The winning selection is Jonathan Wlodarski’s Love Letters to a Future Ice Age. Wlodarski’s collection is slated for publication in November 2026.
This story collection is bold, disturbing, and deeply memorable—a manuscript fully assured of its vision and unafraid to pursue it with clarity and purpose. Each story feels carefully cultivated to echo the larger themes, resulting in a contemplative, cohesive, and imaginative work that lingers long after reading. We could not be more excited to publish such a brave and original collection of short stories.
Jonathan Wlodarski is a writer and editor. He is a graduate of the Northeast Ohio M.F.A. and has a Ph.D. in creative writing at UNL. His prior work has been published in numerous publications, including Ninth Letter, The Forge Literary Magazine, and F(r)iction, FLAPPERHOUSE, and Third Coast.
We are also excited to note our finalists and semifinalists from this year’s Prose Open Reading Period.
Finalists
- In the Light, In the Night, In the Dark by Joe Baumann
- The Blades of Ana Velasquez & Other Stories by Alexa T. Dodd
Semifinalists
- living conditions by J M Baker
- Portrait of an American Vampire by Thomas William Brewer
- Museum Ice by Amalia Gladhart
- Overthinking It: Essays on Disability, Awkward Phases, and Other Stuff That Never Ends by Anna Hamilton
- Shall Be An Overflowing by Julian Mithra
- You Made This by Lisa Piazza
- MY GHOST by Ariel Joy So
- How to Break an Iraqi by Gemini Wahhaj
- University Story by Karolina Zapal
