2026 Shields Prize Longlist
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2026 Shields Prize Longlist 🔹
The Sea Gives Up the Dead (Red Hen Press) by Molly Olguín
“What a surreal and beautiful thing to be included in this longlist of writers I deeply admire, selected by a jury of writers I love! Both the jury and my fellow authors on the longlist include writers whose work I joyfully share with high school students, and it’s absurd and startling to have my debut collection in this company. ”
Molly Olguín is a queer writer, educator, and monster aficionado. She is the author of The Sea Gives Up the Dead, longlisted for the 2026 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. She has stories in magazines like Quarterly West and The Normal School. She was the recipient of the Loft Mentor Series Fellowship in 2019. With Jackie Hedeman, she is the creator of the audio drama The Pasithea Powder. She teaches English and creative writing to high school students in Seattle, Washington.
The Sea Gives Up the Dead
The Sea Gives Up the Dead is a collection of stories sprinkled into the soil of fairy tale, left to take root and grow wild there. A lovesick nanny slays a dragon. The devil tries to save her mother. A girl drowns and becomes a saint. Three kids plot to blow up their dad, a grieving mother sails the sea to find her son’s grave, a scientist brings a voice to life, and a mermaid falls into the power of a witch. Here, historical fiction, horror, and fantasy tangle together in a queer garden of love, grief, and longing.