We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 Sunstone Fiction Contest, sponsored by an anonymous donor. Each year the competition gets tougher as more talented writers enter the contest. Sunstone subscribers can look forward to reading each of these stories in future issues of the magazine.

1st place: “Into the River,” by Larry Menlove. A Flannery O’Connor-esque tale of two missionaries who meet different fates in the same river.

2nd place: “The Dead Are All Around Us,” by Luisa Perkins. A teen girl is either being haunted by a ghost or ministered to by an angel.

3rd place: “The Thicket,” by Bradeigh Godfrey. The friendship of a girl and boy on the cusp of adolescence is fractured by a murder.

Congratulations to the winners!