Autumn House Press Rising Writer Prize - Magdalena Is Brighter than You Think

Inventive and emotionally nuanced, Grace Spulak’s debut story collection explores the complexities of gender, queerness, trauma, and resilience through characters who live in the margins and imagine new ways to survive there. Pushing the boundaries of traditional narratives and forms, these stories suggest paths for picking up our pieces—and for transforming and escaping the realities that constrain us. A social worker becomes entangled in the life of a woman she’s meant to investigate, blurring the line between empathy and obsession. A veterinary student communes with a yak that seems to speak to her—if only she could understand its message. And a separating couple embarks on one last errand together to unburden themselves of an unsettling memento. Backgrounded by the New Mexico landscape—a place of isolation, strange beauty, and potential transformation—this collection offers unexpected flashes of grace and hope.