Kate Osana Simonian, winner of the 2017 Nelson Algren Literary Award competition for her short story Le Problem Being, on the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

(John Weast / Chicago Tribune)
By: Jeremy Mikula

It's no big deal or anything, but Kate Osana Simonian may have tanked on a comparative literature essay.

But there is a good reason for it: That was the day the Sydney native learned her short story "Le Problem Being" took the top prize in this year's Nelson Algren Literary Awards competition.

"I was going absolutely nuts, just wild with joy," Simonian, 29, said in a phone interview while traveling in Spain. "I called my parents on Skype, and we got completely wasted and had a party.

"I was awake for about three days after I heard, it was that bad," she said with a laugh. "By the end of it, I was just wandering around the place. I don't know how I got to sleep in the end."

The short story contest, which has been held annually by the Chicago Tribune since 1981, drew about 3,900 entries this year.

"Le Problem Being," which will be published in the June 18 Life + Style section, follows Tracey Davis, 33 and HIV-positive, on a family vacation to France six months after the end of her engagement to Brandon. For Tracey, who feels "hideously, unforgivably diseased," making things worse are her humorously over-affectionate parents and the romanticism of traveling through France months after being "Abrandoned."

The idea for the story first came to Simonian last year during a trip to France with her "very much in-love" parents. It was fueled by the experiences of friends who have sexually transmitted diseases, who Simonian said feel a "horrible stigma."

"People have very limited empathy for people who have these illnesses, and sexually transmitted illnesses often compound social feelings people have of being 'other' in some way," she said.

For her character Tracey, the conflict rages internally as well: "(W)hat was she meant to do, start telling everyone? Get fired? Be looked at like that? Make her own hellish life worse, just to preserve others in an ignorant comfort from which they hated and condemned her?"

Empathy is key to the power of fiction, said Elizabeth Taylor, Tribune literary editor-at-large.

"Fiction demonstrates the secrets people have and what they're afraid to share with others," she said. "It helps readers be more empathetic with people they meet on the street. You think you know people, but really there's a life going on for someone you might not know about."

Simonian's life has taken her a fair few places. After earning degrees from the University of Sydney and University of Technology Sydney, Simonian moved to the United States in 2012 to enroll in an master of fine arts program in creative writing at Brooklyn College in New York. She is in the second year of a doctorate program in prose at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas.

"Le Problem Being" was workshopped in one of her Texas Tech classes taught by Dennis Covington, a National Book Award finalist for 1995's "Salvation on Sand Mountain."

"We were just blown away by it," Covington said. "I've been teaching for 43 years, and I think she's among the best fiction writers I've had as as student. It was an honor to teach her — so fine, such a great person. And she's gonna have a career; there's no doubt about that."

Similar sentiments are echoed by others who have worked closely with Simonian.

"One of the hallmarks of her work is humor, oftentimes dark humor," said Katie Cortese, Simonian's thesis adviser at Texas Tech and author of "Girl Power and Other Short-Short Stories." "One of the things that came out of (a reading of 'Le Problem Being') was the surprising humor that allowed people to laugh at such a serious situation."

Joshua Henkin, Simonian's thesis adviser at Brooklyn College, described Simonian as a "lovely human being" who easily can connect with readers.

"She has a kind of direct and colloquial way of writing about family, about friendship," Henkin said. "It sounds like a cliche, but there is something very direct and (unadorned) about the work. The sentences are always very precise."

As the grand prize winner, Simonian will receive $3,500. Other recipients of Algren honors include: finalists Rebecca Wurtz ("Water Like Air"), Josh Oakley ("Canyon Mountain, MT"), Brooke Bullman ("Found Objects"), Carol Keeley ("Errata") and Lori Stephens ("We Could Learn a Lot"); and runners-up Leah Velez ("The Lobster's Daughter") and Elizabeth Collison ("William and Sarah"). Finalists receive $1,000 each, and runners-up receive $500 each.

Winning is nice, but what about that comparative literature essay?

"Awful," Simonian laughed. "The saddest part of a great day."