Kent Nelson Wins the 22nd Gival Press Short Story Award-2025

Arlington, VA—December 5, 2025

Gival Press is pleased to announce that Kent Nelson of Ouray, Colorado has won the 22^nd Annual Gival Press Short Story Award-2025 for his short story titled What’s in Uruguay? chosen anonymously by the judge John Tait. The award includes a $1,000.00 cash prize and the story will be published on Gival Press’s website and in ArLiJo in January 2026.

Advance Praise

“What’s in Uruguay?” by Kent Nelson opens as a straightforward account of an aging expatriate writer living in Maldonado, Uruguay, but gradually deepens into something more resonant—a meditation on longing, obsession, and the subtleties of cultural distance. Through vivid detail and quietly arresting scenes, the piece reveals the traveler’s—and the artist’s—essential solitude, as well as the uneasy ways in which art and life continually press in on each other. Nelson’s blend of emotional honesty and finely tuned storytelling makes the piece both provocative and compelling.”

—John Tait, judge, and winner of the Gival Press Short Story Award-2024

About the Author

Kent Nelson lives in Ouray, Colorado, and has run the Pikes Peak Marathon twice. His fiction has appeared in many magazines, and his collection, The Spirit Bird, won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. A novel Language in the Blood, won the Edward Abbey Prize for Ecofiction, and another novel, Land That Moves, Land That Stands Still, won the Mountain and Plains Booksellers Award for best novel. He is currently posting on Substack.  Visit: www. KentNelsonWriter.com

 Photo by Cynthia Freeman.

Finalists

Summer Heat

by Kathleen Spivack of Watertown, MA

Maximum Entropy

by Emmaline Bennett of Jersey City, NJ

Bal Harbor

by Joshua Levy of Montreal, Canada

How Old Will I Be?

by Patricia Warren of Atlanta, GA