Our Nominations for Best of the Net 2025
When tasked with the effort of reviewing all the pieces we’ve had the privilege to publish between July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024, the intrepid DIHP team set to work sprinting down memory lane. The problem with nominating pieces for “Best” lists is that we adore each and every piece we’ve published, and picking favorites can feel unnervingly unfair. But in order to ensure we’re lifting up all the pieces we publish, participating in this annual celebration of literature is important to us, to our readers, and the literary community we serve.
Thus, we carefully worked to carefully select pieces representing the range of work we’ve published over the past year: words that stuck to the bottom of our memories, pieces exchanged in texts/calls/messages from friends and loved ones and strangers, and images that skip off the atmosphere of metaphor into something else entirely. Thanks to each and every DIHP contributor, and special congrats to these thirteen exemplary pieces and their authors.
We’re honored to send these pieces out as ambassadors of “unseamly literature.”
Fiction
“The Projectionist”
Will Willoughby
Will’s gentle, surreal exploration of our most vulnerable state was a surprise in subject matter, tone, and poignancy.
Published in our February 2024 edition. Read the full story here.
“A Biting Clown”
Dana Hammer
Darkly funny and somberly discomfiting, this cinematic tale of clowns gone wrong found us hopeful for our own rebellious hearts.
Published in our April 2024 edition. Read the full story here.
Creative Nonfiction
“Bones of the Shelter”
Angela Townsend
Full speed into the deep end, Angela’s love letter to life and love and friendship and animals leaves us gasping for air in the best way.
Published in our April 2024 edition. Read the full story here.
“The Beach”
Susan T. Landry
An autobiographical dichotomy of identity, teeming with imagery, sounds, scents, and lyrical poetics.
Published in our May 2024 edition. Read the full story here.
Poetry
“Dia de los Muertos”
Amy Raasch
Brimming with the strange, orange energy of Los Angeles, this poem pushes metaphor through the absurd into the delightful, never taking its eye from the riveting center of the comedic tragedy within.
Published in our June 2024 edition. Read Amy’s poetry here.
“Metastases”
Robert Okaji
“What is a cough but an explanation?”A poem about cancer, but about infinitely more than disease. Here, a man, a man’s journey — a moment, an entire lifetime. A transformative lens with which to see.
Published in our March 2024 edition. Read Robert’s poetry here.
“Liver biopsy chronicle”
Laura Damian
A poem about a liver and a pig and a pig’s liver, all wrapped into the strange familiarity of loss, of the din of panic, and the terrible warmth of grief.
Published in our February 2024 edition. Read Laura’s poetry here.
“My Daddy Taught Me to Save Myself”
Kristie L. Williams
A deeply personal, vulnerable elegy to a father, and also a gorgeous paean to those who lovingly teach us how to live without them.
Published in our July 2023 edition. Read Kristie’s poetry here.
“Some of the Reasons”
Hardy Coleman
We were stunned and saddened to learn of Hardy Coleman’s passing in March 2024, the month after we published these poems (the second of Hardy’s DIHP appearances). Hardy had a precise, unique way of inviting the reader to the table to share the pain and joy of being alive.
Published in our February 2024 edition. Read Hardy’s poems here & here.
“An Ode to Lost Girls”
Caitlin Upshall
Holding a mirror to our societal obsession with true crime, this gorgeous, timely poem delicately teases apart the scaffolding of violence against women, past, present, & future.
Published in our June 2024 edition. Read Caitlin’s poetry here.
Artwork
“Slipping Past the AI”
Karen Faris
Full of color and words, sound and light, this piece by Karen Faris reaches across the boundaries of story, poetry, and visual art. It is urgent and dire, hopeful and bright all at once.
Published in our December 2023 edition. View the full gallery here.
“Story Cloth Nesting”
Suzi Banks Baum
As deftly as words stitch a canvas of story, the Story Cloth project is a fresh look at the ways we record and reflect. This particular perspective takes a peek into the scale of this textured anthology.
Published in our May 2024 edition. View the full gallery here.
“Mr. Pig”
Lorette C. Luzajic
Though it was almost impossible to choose a favorite from this series of animal Tondos, the team adores this dapper, porcine ambassador of “oddities by forgotten surrealists.”
Published in our June 2024 edition. View the full gallery here.
