1st Place Creative Nonfiction: "Pissant" by Jubi Arriola-Headley

In 1980's Boston, a Black teenager faces racism, the AIDS epidemic, his immigrant father's hypermasculinity – and his own queer desires. Exploring barrooms, bathrooms, bookstores, and beyond, he discovers a world of kink and embarks on a turbulent sexual journey to find his authentic self.

“The air vibrated different, hummed, buzzed, the temperature rose a couple degrees when Daddy walked in. I could see – what I really want to say is I could smell (so strongly I could almost taste it) how the other men got physically, demonstrably, visibly, measurably excited when Daddy walked into Hazel’s place. It was not necessarily a sexually-charged energy – not that those men would ever admit – but an undeniably, though I couldn’t name it so at the time, sensual energy, in the way that men cleave to other men when they want to engage in collective release, a literal or metaphorical circle jerk, which, based on my limited experience in the world, seems to most often take the form of violence, enacted as pornography or sports or legislation or rampage, upon women or schoolchildren or poor folks or immigrants or themselves and each other.”

Bio: Jubi Arriola-Headley (he/him) is the author of two poetry collections: ORIGINAL KINK and Bound (forthcoming in January 2024 from Persea Books). Black, queer, and a first-generation United Statesian, Jubi’s writing explores themes of masculinity, vulnerability, rage, tenderness & joy. Learn more at www.justjubi.com