Winners announced for the first ever McGovern Center Writing Awards in Fiction
The McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics is excited to announce the winners and runners-up of our Inaugural Writing Awards in Fiction, selected by final judge and author, Dr. Novuyo Tshuma! Winners and Runners-Up will be published in the Journal of Medical Humanities.
McGovern Center Healthcare Provider Award in Fiction Winner: Dr. Catherine Kim, for her short story, Nulato
“Set in the age of communicable diseases, “Nulato” journeys us across the indigenous landscapes of snow-laden Alaska, through trading posts and ice-bound slopes. This coming-of-age story of a son breaking out of his father’s grasp is expansive and intimate, thrilling and surprising. We are taken on an odyssey of unbridled youth and subdued adulthood, learning, along the way, that we can’t always protect those we love.” — final judge, Novuyo Tshuma
Catherine Kim is a general internal medicine physician who conducts research in women’s health. Her stories have appeared in Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, The Alaska Quarterly Review, LitMag, and The Masters Review, and have received honorary mentions in Zoetrope and The Best American Short Stories anthology.
McGovern Center Healthcare Provider Award in Fiction Runner Up: Dr. Katie Yang for her short story, Pallbearer
Katie Yang received her MD from Duke University School of Medicine, completed her postgraduate medical training at Washington University in St. Louis, and is board-certified in Anesthesiology. She currently practices in North Carolina. Her short fiction has been published in Please See Me.
McGovern Center Student Award in Fiction Winner: Solomon Kim, for his short story, What’s Written Down
“Through fraught, poetic language, “What’s Written Down” weaves a tender exploration of mental health and inherited trauma. Witty and vulnerable, our protagonist Nari takes us on a voyage through family, shame, and the silences that braid across cultures to form a knot around hybrid selves.” — final judge, Novuyo Tshuma
Solomon Kim is a medical student at California Northstate University College of Medicine. Born to Korean immigrant parents, he is interested in health disparities, patient advocacy, and medical humanities. He is drawn to the stories that patients carry but rarely get to tell, and writes to give voice to those whose suffering often goes unspoken and to honor the experiences that shape their lives but seldom reach the page. He believes that the stories we fail to tell shape the care we fail to provide. He is pursuing psychiatry, with the hope of practicing medicine that listens as deeply as it treats. His creative work has appeared in Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine and Academic Psychiatry.
McGovern Center Student Award in Fiction Runner Up: Maggie Hart for her short story, The Greatest High of Our Lives
Maggie Hart is a writer, leukemia survivor, and student from Colorado. Her creative writing has been published in Off Assignment, Narratively, The Audacity, Gordon Square Review, and Phoebe Journal, among others. maggie-hart.com (external link)
McGovern Center Community Award in Fiction Winner: Greg Beatty, for his short story, The Battle of the Standardized Patient
“By turns wry and earnest, “The Battle of the Standardized Patient” explores medicine in the age of AI. Under threat in a teaching hospital, our wily protagonist, John, goes to great lengths to subterfuge an AI teaching model, “P-Patient,” asking us to consider the ingenious ways in which we show up—or show out—as our full human selves.” — final judge, Novuyo Tshuma
Greg Beatty lives in Bellingham, Washington. He writes everything from jokes about cows to essays on cooking disasters, and has more dog friends than human friends. He blogs about picture books at It’s a Picture Book World (https://itsapicturebookworld.com/ (external link)).
McGovern Center Community Award in Fiction Runner Up: Lucy Zhang, for her short story, Ox Predilection
Lucy Zhang writes, codes, and watches anime. Her work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. Find her at https://lucyzhang.tech (external link).
The call for the 2026-27 McGovern Center Writing Awards will be announced in September.