MFA Creative Writing Student J.L. Bermudez Nominated for Pushcart Prize

Congratulations to MFA Creative Writing student J.L. Bermudez on being nominated for a Pushcart Prize!

Bermudez has been nominated for her short fiction, "Juigalpa, Chontales" published in issue 24 of Leon Literary Review.

An excerpt from "Juigalpa, Chontales":

I don’t remember what festival it was, but I remember the way the duck looked at me.

The crowd hummed with excitement as I sat on Papi’s shoulders, my hands lost in his thick hair. His hair was still black then, his shoulders still strong enough to carry me and the weight of all my questions.

I squinted down at hundreds of cream and black sombreros, watching spectators wave their sandinista flags and jeer. The stadium reeked of sweat and smoke, children and women crowding in close. The villagers pushed one another towards the edges of the muddy clearing, each hoping to get a better view of the group of rancheros who were lined up in a row. All of the men were blindfolded and wielding machetes. [ . . . ]

photo by Mircea Iancu via Pixabay; licensed for use under Creative Commons 0/Public Domain Declaration (CC0 / public domain declaration).