Ruby Elliot Zuckerman, a Macalester College student, has been named the winner of the 48th annual ACM Nick Adams Short Story Contest.
Zuckerman’s story “scott disick sucks” was selected from the 37 stories submitted by students from ACM Colleges. Author and lawyer Scott Turow served as the final judge for this year’s contest. Joshua Corey, Associate Professor of English at Lake Forest College, and Natanya Pulley, Assistant Professor of English at Colorado College, served as initial faculty readers for the contest, selecting six finalists from which Turow selected the winner. The Nick Adams Contest carries with it a first prize of $1,000. The Nick Adams prize is made possible through a generous gift from an anonymous donor.
“Writing feels like a tool to capture a moment or feeling in a more permanent way.” Ruby Elliot Zuckerman
Ruby Elliot Zuckerman, a native of Los Angeles, will soon graduate from Macalester College with majors in creative writing and studio art. With aspirations for a career as a writer and artist, she plans to spend the next couple years building a creative writing and visual art portfolio for an MFA program. Zuckerman has always been an avid reader and says, “Writing feels like a tool to capture a moment or feeling in a more permanent way.” The structure of Macalester’s rigorous writing classes has pushed her to make her best work and has also allowed her space for exploration. She would like to thank Matt Burgess, her capstone creative writing professor; her friends Theo, Savannah, and Shea; and her boyfriend, Juan.
An honorable mention was awarded to Bea Chihak from Macalester College for “Las Hermanas Grimm.” Additionally, four other stories were selected as finalists by the faculty judges: “As You Are” by Mica Bahn from Carleton College,” “Stygian Blue” by Astin Campbell from Coe College, “These Small and Tedious Longings” by Franziska Hofhansel from Knox College, and “In the Bed Where I Died” by Olivia Humphreys from Colorado College.
Read more about the winner and finalists.
Scott Turow is the bestselling author of eleven novels and two works of nonfiction, which have sold more than thirty million copies worldwide. A native of Chicago, Turow earned an undergraduate degree from Amherst College, accepted a creative writing fellowship at Stanford University, and later graduated from Harvard Law School. Turow has won multiple literary awards, including the British Crime Writers’ Association 1987 Silver Dagger award for Presumed Innocent. Personal Injuries was named the Best Work of Fiction of 1999 by Time magazine. Turow won the Heartland Prize for Reversible Errors in 2003 and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights 2004 Book award for Ultimate Punishment. He received the Carl Sandberg Award for Fiction in 2016.
The Nick Adams Short Story Contest has been held annually since 1973 by the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, a consortium of 14 private liberal arts colleges, which includes Beloit College, Carleton College, Coe College, The Colorado College, Cornell College, Grinnell College, Knox College, Lake Forest College, Lawrence University, Luther College, Macalester College, Monmouth College, Ripon College, and St. Olaf College. The ACM consortial office is located in Chicago.