ABOUT THE AWARD -- The Northwind Writing Award, sponsored by Raw Earth Ink and facilitated by tara caribou, was created to shine light on little known yet exceptional writers across the United States. -- The award was granted by process of anonymous scoring by a panel of judges. The judges had no way of knowing who the authors are, so without any bias they were able to score impartially. Overall we looked for writing which stirs emotion, paints vivid imagery, is high-caliber or underappreciated, captures our attention, and lastly, is memorable. -- This year's anthology features the winners in Non-fiction: Amanda Trout, Angela Townsend, Kathryn O'Day, Kaci Skiles Laws, and Tulip Chowdhury; in Prose Poetry: Braeden Michaels, Rachael Ikins, and Amanda Trout; in Poetry: J.R. Woods, Mose Graves, Adele Evershed, Tohm Bakelas, Suzette Bishop, Beth Kanell, Robert Birkhofer, Nancy Dunlop, Michael Shoemaker, Aaron A Brauer, Braeden Michaels, Tess Lecuyer, Rachael Ikins, Vito del Valle, Diane Funston, and Carolyn Donnell; and in Fiction: Logan Medland, Wren Oldham, Jim Landwehr, Loretta Kemsley, and Val Valdez.