The winner of Howling Bird Press’s 2025 Fiction Prize is Annie Bruno, for her novel Until You Find Your Way. Her novel will be published by Howling Bird Press this March, and is available for preorder now from Itasca Books!
Until You Find Your Way by Annie Bruno (forthcoming March 23, 2026)
Fiction
In the aftermath of losing their eldest child, Beada and Porter have become an estranged couple, living on different continents. She’s in rural Minnesota raising their two other teens, while Porter visits from Bangkok “when he can,” disguising his pain as arrogance. When Beada’s only outlet—careful, unorthodox confessions to the local priest—take an abrupt turn, a quiet but seismic shift forces everyone in the family to decide what they cannot live without.
“With precise, exquisite prose, Bruno illuminates the relationship between loss and desire and how the heart can find its way when it learns to let go.” —Cassandra Garbus, author of Solo Variations and winner of the American Short Fiction Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize