2020 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize Winners

The latest issue of Ruminate features the writers who placed in the 2020 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize.

First Place
“Destiny of Cumin” by Jasmine V. Bailey

Second Place
“A True Prayer is One That You Do Not Understand” by Kelly J. Beard

Honorable Mention
“How To Ruin a Persian Wedding” by Atash Yaghmaian

Finalists include Avra Aron, Kaimana Farris, Dorothy Neagle, Alexandra Loeb, Sally Pearson, Arielle Schussler, Jamie Smith, Shannon Tsonis, and Shannon Yarbrough.

Selections were made by Ruminate’s founder, Brianna Van Dyke and says of her first-place selection: “Jasmine V. Bailey’s ‘Destiny of Cumin’ offers a wide-searching exploration of food and slavery and motherhood and becomes an essay about power and love and what it means to live among the contradictions of our own hearts.”