The Salem College Center for Women Writers announces the winners of their eighth annual International Literary Awards, chosen from more than 600 entries. The winner of each genre received $1,200. An honorarium of $150 was awarded to the two honorable mentions of each genre.

Colette Sartor’s short story, Purple People Eater, won the 2011 Reynolds Price Short Fiction Award, judged by Michael Parker. Colette Sartor is from Los Angeles, California. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Prairie Schooner, Colorado Review, Harvard Review, Quarterly West, Fugue and elsewhere. One of her stories was named one of the “100 Other Distinguished Stories of 2008” by the anthology Best American Short Stories 2009, edited by Alice Sebold. Honorable mentions went to Penn Station by Jennifer R. Adams of Birchrunville, Pennsylvania and The Longest Part of the Night by Midge Raymond of Ashland, Oregon.

Mako Yoshikawa of Cambridge, Massachusetts won the 2011 Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award, judged by Meghan Daum, with her essay, My Father’s Women. Yoshikawa’s first novel, One Hundred and One Ways, was published by Bantam in 1999, and her second novel, Once Removed, came out in 2003.  Honorable mentions went to The Pot Thrower: Notes on the Death of a Brother by Karen R. Tolchin of Lehigh Acres, Florida and Gastronomic Judaism: the Maror Has Two Faces by Bonnie Morris of Washington, D.C.

Susan A. Cohen’s poem, The Woman Who Feels No Fear, won the 2011 Rita Dove Poetry Award, judged by Allison Joseph. Susan Cohen is from Berkeley, California. Honorable mentions went to In the Schoolyard by Katherine DeBlassie of Albuquerque, New Mexico and Weight Training by Emily Van Kley of Olympia, Washington.

The Center for Women Writers is part of the Creative Writing program at Salem College.