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by Alan Steinberg First Prize - $1000 A college professor hosts a famous writer for an evening only to discover the hypocrisy of the man's words and actions. |
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by Dori Ostermiller Second Prize - $200 When a girl is forced to bear the
strain of her mother's second marriage she turns to God hoping to find the strength to
cope. She discovers that the strength must come from within herself. |
My mother suffered a change of heart the day of her second wedding. I had
heard about these things happening before, in Sabbath School. I had heard about Belief or
Doubt swooping down like whimsical crows upon unsuspecting souls and changing them
forever. I’d seen it happen at altar calls on Saturday mornings: suddenly a
person’s face would get all glossy and pale and they’d stand up like it was a
done thing, make their way firmly to the altar, faith singing on their sweaty features.
They looked like people about to buy a new car, or claim a prize at a drawing. It had
never happened to me this way. But my mother was always getting seized and tossed away by
her faith, and we all suffered for it.(more ...) |
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by Michael Burns Third Prize - $100 A man must come to grips with his
failing marriage and desire to use alcohol to relieve the stress. |
 December 31, 1967 What sticks in my mind is the sight of Katie, little Katie, my child bride, sitting in the middle of the overstuffed sofa balancing a wine glass on her bare knee. She has on the black shift I bought her for her nineteenth birthday. I don’t think anything of this because it ‘s New Year’s Eve, and we have guests coming. But Katie’s no drinker and here it is, the middle of the afternoon and she’s drinking wine. She’s so tiny, so insignificant, swallowed up in the nubby fabric of that enormous sofa.. (more ...) |
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by Lynn Sadler Honorable Mention - $50 A young primatologist goes to
Madagascar only to discover the mystery and lore of ancient myths are actually true. |
"Call her
mad. Pure and simple. You have the mad in America, yes?" "Of course we have the mad in America, Henri, only not so . . . ." Henri laughed. "Not so blatant, those mad people of America, Cher Jacques. Is that it? You keep them out of sight." "Perhaps. Some of the homeless . . . ." I shrugged, stared at the woman across the street from us. She was small, though her back was humped after the fashioning of osteoporosis, and I couldn’t be sure her height wasn’t illusion. She looked small. Until she started her cursing. "Is it just us foreigners?" (more ...) |
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by Claire Splan Honorable Mention - $50 A burned-out literary scholar comes to possess Hemingway's long
lost,
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Then there
was the heat. It cooked San Francisco, turning my brief vacation into a week-long steam
bath. I wandered from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of a cool breeze and a bit of
the fog that, if you were to believe Mark Twain, never vacated the city. But Mark Twain
was a liar and there was no sign of relief from the oppressive temperature. On my second afternoon in town I got on a BART train, not particularly caring where it went or where I’d end up. The train was air-conditioned and, cool at last, I pulled my dog-eared copy of the Nick Adams stories out of my backpack and flipped through it before settling in to read a few pages. But only a few. It was my favorite collection of stories, but now it felt stale. I had worn out Hemingway. I’d studied him, taught him, written about him. Familiarity had bred contempt of a literary nature. I knew all his tricks now and he had nothing more to offer me. Nevertheless, in two weeks I’d be back in Humboldt in one of my cramped classrooms in the claustrophobic woods, the eyes of thirty wearisome undergraduates trained on me, wondering why Hemingway was the greatest American writer. I’d stand before them, trying to sound convincing, but all the while I’d be scratching my beard and wondering if I still believed it myself. (more ...) |
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The Wingbeats of Insects & Birds by Emily Rapp-Seitz Honorable Mention - $50 A teenage girl coming of age faces her insecurity and personal doubt by trying to understand the what drives her disabled older sister to live life to its fullest.
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My sister is saving the world, one leg at a time. I sit
cross-legged on the waterbed as she unpacks her human-sized backpack stuffed with clothes
rolled small and tight as boulders. I run my hands over the gift she has brought me from
Africa. It is a winding tower of smooth-faced ebony people twisting around each other.
This hand melts into that foot until even the wood looks like it will crawl all over
itself. "It’s from Kenya," she says. "It’s a statue of
humanity." I wiggle my finger through an ebony leg to poke the chest of another
coiled person. "Ouch," I say, grimacing. She shakes her head at me, smiling. "You’re tall," she says, picking up one mini-bundle after another. Shaking them out life-size, the shirts and shorts are lost in thick specks of foreign-looking dust. A strange, sweet fleshy smell settles on my skin like warm sunlight. (more ...) |
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by Jeanette Tyron Honorable Mention - $50 A woman suffering from a recent miscarriage finds solace with a wayward young man who helps her overcome her sorrow.
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Alice went
into the closet and she pulled the door shut behind her. She settled into the furthest
corner, burrowing her head through the hanging clothes, pushing rags and old shoes out of
her path with her hands. She sneezed once, and then let the dust settle on her. The dust
felt good on her skin, gentle and indifferent. She went to sleep. It was the first time
she had slept in a week. She awoke several hours later. Her husband was pacing around the house calling her. "Alice! Alice!" he called. She didn't answer. "Alice!" he called again. "The phone is for you!" "Who is it?" she asked, sleepily. "Alice!" he yelled. "The phone!" "Who is it?" "Where are you?" "I'm in the closet." She heard his footsteps grow louder as he approached the closet. The door swung open, and her husband's shadow fell across her. (more ...) |
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