Adult Winners (available via the story’s link) :
First Place: Leslie Spitz-Edson (“Fireflies“)
Finalists: Fiona J. Mackintosh (“Absent Without Leave“)
Marina Koestler Ruben (“Licking“)
Student Winners:
First Place: Shriya Sharma (“Chanda Hain Tu“)
Finalists: Austin Stump Manning (“It All Started with the Little Blond Girl with Pigtails“)
Sebastian Ko (“The Detox“)
The 2026 Short Story Readings event has been scheduled for 6:30 pm on Thursday, October 8 at Rockville Memorial Library. At this event, the winners of the Short Story Contest will be honored and read their work.
William Campbell will be a featured speaker at the Short Story Awards event. Our adult contest winner in 2022,
Bill is a retired U.S. Army colonel, neurologist, award‑winning author, watercolor artist, and philanthropist, who currently resides in Richmond, Virginia. His creative writing began with short stories inspired by memorable patients from nearly five decades of neurology practice His work has appeared in The Sherwood Forest Art and Literary Review, As You Were: The Military Review, Ink In Thirds, Five Minutes, and The Glint Literary Journal. His recent novel, Soldier for the Union, is a historically rich Civil War fiction set during General Grant’s Overland Campaign in 1864. The story blends war narrative with themes of courage, self‑sacrifice, and the hidden history of women who fought in the Civil War.
