iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Open on Bluesky →

Lit Match Collective @litmatchcollective.com · 22/07/2026

Lit Match Collective’s very own Justin Gibson is a Pushcart Prize WINNER!!! His winning story, “Rasputin Loses Employee of the Month,” was published in The Pinch last year. LMC’s Firelight Readaround Host and Social Media Associate, Emily Afifi, asked him all about it.

LMC Spotlight:
Justin Gibson

Pushcart Prize Winner!
"Rasputin Loses Employee of the Month"
published in The Pinch Journal

What do you love about your story?

"I don’t know if I can pick one thing! I love the premise first and foremost — just how weird and funny it would be to have Rasputin as a coworker in modern times (never mind at a used car dealership) is such a stellar bit. And then, both the humor and the heart of the story all throughout are humming at a perfect frequency if I do say so
myself.
Also, 'a 10-year-old blind mule named Pissy Debra' is maybe one of my favorite /
funniest lines I’ve ever written. I still smile and chuckle when I read it."
- Justin Gibson

How has your life changed since winning a Pushcart?

"The first week after I won, I kept googling things like “pushcart prize” and “is pushcart prize big deal” and “pushcart prize trophy?” and rereading the results just to confirm to myself / internalize I won this. Now that the initial shock and excitement has worn off, I’m taking the grounded stance that it’s a nice little bonus, a feather in the cap. The main thing stays the main thing, and the main thing is still just the act of writing itself,
and the enjoyment I derive from it. The most tangible change is I’ll probably update my author bio to mention that I won."
- Justin Gibson

Any last takeaways?

"This really underscored for me just how subjective this craft / art form is. I submitted this to — and was declined by — seven lit mags or journals before The Pinch said yes (and they know who they are). But ultimately they were right to say no to it, because it wasn’t in their tastes or aesthetic. Never mind that in retrospect they turned down an award-winning story. I was just lucky that the editors at The Pinch vibed with it enough to publish it, and then doubly lucky that they liked it enough to nominate it, and then I was triply lucky that the Pushcart editors liked it enough on whatever day they happened to read it to select it.
The whole thing confirms you gotta write what you wanna write — the work that only you could write — with the blind hope that there’re people out there who are on the same wavelength; who are going to appreciate it."
- Justin Gibson