Amy Purcell, of Kent, Ohio, is the winner of The Writer 2012 Short-Story Contest. In her story Home Repair, Purcell isolates an original and revelatory moment in the lives of her characters who find themselves faced with a small, seemingly manageable problem, and yet in trying to solve it, the various fissures in their relationship start to tremble like fault lines, said one of the finalist judges for the contest.  The story will be published in the February issue of The Writer.

Purcell’s work has appeared in Third Coast, Beloit Fiction Journal, Storyglossia, Timber Creek Review, 34th Parallel and Rubbertop Review. A part-time graduate student in the creative writing program at Kent State University, Purcell works full-time as director of corporate communications for Luxottica. She lives with her husband David and two Australian Shepherds, Alice and Macy.

Congratulations to Amy Purcell and to second-prize winner Douglas Fetterly (Honolulu, HI) 
forThey Smell Like Horses
 and third-prize 
winner Paul Weidknecht (Phillipsburg, NJ) 
for Her Piece of the Yard.

Check back soon to read all three stories here and watch for Purcell’s Home Repair in the printed February issue of The Writer.

Click here to see the full list of winners.