1st Place Fiction: "Maybe, Probably" by Scott Hunter

Coming of age in the summer of 1985, Benjamin flees New York for Japan, trying to salvage his academic career and escape AIDS. He doesn’t imagine falling in love, finding friendship, and reckoning with his idea that love and death are intertwined.

“You reached to shake hands as I bowed, which was awkward, and I took you in:  you in your high-water khaki trousers, tight; sockless in your black penny loafers, shined; your motorcycle jacket open, leather sleeve straps flapping their buckles; your side-parted hair flopped down not quite blocking the chisel of your cheekbones, two perfect ruddy squares, as if someone had faintly marked you with a fat kanji brush dipped lightly in blood.”

Bio: Scott Hunter’s (he/him) short fiction has appeared in Hong Kong Review, Kyoto Journal, Blood Orange Review, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  Maybe, Probably is his first novel.  A 2018 Lambda Literary Emerging Writers fellow, he studies and teaches at the Writers Studio in New York.