From contest judge Merritt Tierce: “Peanuts Aren’t Nuts” deals so masterfully with the bridge between innocence and adulthood—that rotten bridge that falls away behind with every step across. Adolescence is, in this beautiful portrait, by nature a transition from inert to thwarted, a pursuit of even and perhaps especially those yearnings one knows will not—and most likely should not—be satisfied. This fine story, told in bright sentences that catch and thrum, has a clever heart that arouses hope and makes it wear a darkness. That is to say: it feels so true”