Public Announcement Challenge Winners

For the Public Announcement Challenge, writers were asked to work inside voices built for control. These were notices, warnings, and updates meant to inform rather than confess. The strongest entries committed to that form and didn't break from it. Corporate memos, formal government alerts, and internal policy language were held consistently, allowing emotion, fear, grief, or humor to surface indirectly through pressure rather than declaration. The following poems recognize the voice of authority, and let human feeling slip through despite all its rules and restraint.

🏆 Winners

Peremptory Warning by Edward Swafford

Edward Swafford weaponizes bureaucratic certainty, letting technocratic jargon spiral into outright coercion. By the time we’re told to relinquish our Bayesian beliefs (we really loved that line by the way), the announcement has already crossed from public safety into something far more chilling.

Missing Person by Luna Jordan

Luna Jordan trusts institutional language to erase what it can’t explain, letting the notice calmly misname, contain, and terminate its subject, right up until the form breaks and starts over again.

Attention: Missing Persons. by Latisha Jean

Latisha Jean adopts the voice of civic urgency to hunt for the unrecorded, letting the notice grow increasingly anxious as it tries to translate real presence into something the system can recognize.

PSA- Loneliness by Sara Wilson

Sara Wilson treats loneliness like a manageable condition, letting the announcement format offer small, earnest instructions that trade urgency for invitation and control for care.

ATTENTION GRIEVANCE IN EFFECT by Tim Carmichael

Tim Carmichael adopts the voice of an official policy to say what people rarely do out loud, that grief disrupts systems, resists timelines, and deserves patience instead of repair.

🎖️ Runners-up

• PUBLIC SERVICE NOTICE REGARDING MATERNITY PATIENTS by Cali Loria
• who may write softly, by kp
• Comply with Abundance! by Lana V Lynx
• BREACH OF SANCTITY by Caitlin Charlton
• Public Notice Regarding Expectations of Engagement by Imola Tóth
• The Edge is Unstable by Hannah Moore
• Operations May Cease by Sandy Gillman
• Comply or Die by Kay Husnick
• For the Needs of the Business by Cristal S.
• The 2nd Coming by Lamar Wiggins
• This Is Not a Test by Gerard DiLeo
• No Dumping by Jesse Lee
• You Must Present for Authentication by Adam Kolozetti
• The Lottery by Raistlin Allen
• To All Residents of Sunset Thistle Estates by Aaron Morrison

🏅 Honorable Mentions

• You're Next by D.L. Finn
• Internal memo by Beth Godfrey
• ORIGINALITY WILL NO LONGER BE PERMITTED by Alicia Melnick
• Do NOT pet the Wendigos by Alicia Anspaugh
• You Are Falling in Love by Raine Neal
• public announcement in response to rebellion by Katherine J. Zumpano
• Letter to the Lonely by Sam Spinelli
• The Man or The Bear by S.
• Stay safe out there! by Suze Kay
• S.I.L.E.N.C.E...Please! by Novel Allen

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