See the full list of winners here!

When did you start writing?

Pretty much from the moment I had the fine motor skills to grip a pencil and form letters. I started off in first grade writing elaborate fantasies in my journal about what my dog did when we left the house. As a kid, I’d write books to give as gifts to my cousins when we went to visit them over the summer. I wrote short stories and humor pieces for fun in high school, majored in English and Creative Writing in college, and got to work writing a collection of short stories after graduation. Basically, I never had a shot at doing anything else.

What do you like most about writing in the short short form?

Half of good writing is editing. How can you say what you mean—no more, no less? The constraints of the short short form force you to get to the point and sharpen your prose until it’s precise and deadly. Plus: everyone’s attention spans are so dilapidated these days, you’ve got a much better shot of a reader actually making it to the end of your story if it’s bite-sized.

Where did the inspiration for “A Beautiful and Everlasting Moment of Pleasure” come from?

I was reflecting on a trip I’d taken to Vegas and just how surreal a place it is: the giddiness, the headiness, the buoyant feeling that something wonderful is about to happen at any moment—and also the griminess, the hollowness, the endless tease that never seems to come to fruition. I ended up exploring that double-edged feeling through the lens of a relationship between two people stuck in a toxic cyclical pattern with one another, a dynamic that keeps approaching what feels like love or connection or pleasure but never quite reaches it.

What did your drafting and revision processes look like for “A Beautiful and Everlasting Moment of Pleasure?”

I got pretty much the entirety of the story down in one sitting during a writing session at a local cafe. (That’s another joy of the short short format: being able to hack up a full story in a moment of inspiration and then get straight to polishing it.) The version that won the award actually changed very little from that first draft—I made a few tweaks to tighten and clarify things after running it by my workshop group, but this one came out “fully formed, ready to run,” as Ada Limón put it. 

Do you have a history of entering writing competitions?

Absolutely—like any self-respecting writer, I’ve got an Excel sheet that’s a tribute to the dozens of “no’s,” “nice no’s,” and “shortlists” I’ve received over the years. This was my first real win!

What interested you in entering WD’s Short Short Competition?

I was flipping through the back of Poets and Writers Magazine looking for contests and submission calls that aligned with what I was working on (I’m currently revising a linked short story collection about a bunch of college misfits—think Overcompensating meets A Visit From the Goon Squad by way of Mary Gaitskill). I saw just how many outlets were looking for stories with low word counts (3,000 or less), whereas most of the stories in my collection are over 3K. So I set myself a challenge to write something shorter than my usual work so I could try submitting to some new places, and this story popped out at exactly 1,000 words—the word limit for WD’s Short Short Competition. It felt like fate so I submitted it, promptly forgot I’d done so, and was so incredibly shocked when I received the acceptance email, I was convinced it was a very elaborate phishing scam. 

What advice do you have for other writers out there?

Keep writing, even if it’s just scenes and fragments, because the more you do, the more random pages you’ll have to stumble back on weeks or months or years later and say, “Wait, I wrote that? That could be something…” Keep a journal; use it to keep track of interesting things you notice so you stay attuned to the world. (You will want to remember the jacaranda tree that exploded all over your car, the smell inside that dive bar you stumbled into, the precise color of the sky the day after it rained.) Form or join a workshop with other writers—share your writing with them even and especially when it’s scary; learn how to give good feedback in a way that’s honest, helpful, and kind; and learn how to receive feedback without spiraling, getting defensive, or losing touch with your own instincts. Also, remember that a creative process is as powerful, finicky, and irrepressible as an ocean wave; even if you’re in a creative “low tide,” trust the process and remember that high tide is always coming back around.

A Beautiful and Everlasting Moment of Pleasure

by Hanna Bahedry

Any minute now, the pleasure is coming. Any minute now, around the corner, the pleasure is coming. Any minute now, you’ll be turning the corner and the pleasure will bump right into you or the pleasure will be turning the corner and you’ll bump right into it; any minute now, you and the pleasure will collide and send a tray of fluted champagne glasses flying; any minute now, you and the pleasure will collide and send one or both of you into the hotel pool and you’ll both be sopping wet and everyone in their deck chairs will cheer; any minute now, you and the pleasure will collide.

It’s Las Vegas, because of course it is. This is where the pleasure lives, but just around the corner always. Here is where the pleasure is circulating, but always away from you like a waiter on the casino floor. Here is where the hope lives, not just the hope but the absolute certainty that something magnificent is bound to happen, is right on the verge of happening, that all you need to do is close your eyes and stumble faithfully around the next blind corner to find it. The less you do, the better, actually. The magnificent thing is fated, it is on a course set straight for you, you are the Google Maps destination that the magnificent thing has plugged into the phone on its dashboard, and all you need to do is be here and wait for it to find you.

 Outside, it’s airless like a breath stolen straight from your chest. The heat and the diesel fumes combine in the city’s cocktail shaker like a drink no one wants, a drink left in a plastic-handled neon travel mug on the corner of an intersection wider than a pilgrimage. Under the sun, the asphalt cracks and the linoleum splinters and the paint peels like skin in long strips.

If outside is airless, then inside is all air, airheaded and heady, a balloon cresting a high ceiling like a tongue against a mouth’s roof, everything high high high, too high for gravity, too high for the earth to turn, too high for the clock to strike. Every watch stopped at 00:00, every pair of hands sky high and stuck there forever.

You don’t wear a watch. You wear black and not that much of it. You circle the casino floor like you are inevitable, and every flashing light, every winning shout, every tuneless slot machine jingle is for you. You wait at the bar. You are always waiting here, but that’s OK. Here you know that the pleasure is coming, that the magnificent thing is always already on its way to you. The bartender is making your drink, and then she is handing it to you.

When he arrives, he’s wearing black too: shoes, pants, shirt, jacket. No tie. He kisses you. He smells like the diesel cocktail from the streets outside. He has been working all day while you sat by the pool in the saline heat with a bright blue cocktail longer than your forearm. He takes a sip from your drink, takes your hand and presses it to his lips, to his heart, which you cannot see but which you assume is somewhere just under the black shirt, the chest hair, the silver chain.

He does not ask you how your day was, and you do not ask him how his day was. He asks you what you want to drink, and he orders two, and he looks into your eyes as if he loves you. It is the way he always looks at you, and it has always scared you because you do not know if what you are and what he is seeing are the same thing. When he looks at you like this, his eyes become bottomless, and you cannot tell where they lead.

He is smooth, so smooth, but underneath the smoothness, there is something spikey and ragged, something that sizzles like a live wire. When the smoothness wears away (which it always does), you know you will get burned. You are covered in these burns already, burns he kisses better once he’s done making them, covered enough to wonder if love is meant to require so much Neosporin. But for now, he is smooth, so smooth. His thumb is at home on your knee, and he is laughing when you laugh. You both have a second round and a third round, and when you get up, the room tilts on its axis like the whizzing eyes of a slot machine. His hand is at your elbow, your back, your waist, and the carpet is red and gold and everywhere.

He waits outside while you hack in the lobby bathroom, champagne and spit on the ends of your hair, which you wet clean in the sink. The mirror is huge, and you are inside of it, and you are gorgeous, even with your champagne and spit-wet ends, even and maybe especially with the hollow look in your eyes. When you are alone with yourself, the hollow thing inside your eyes you do not want to acknowledge gets louder and louder, and so you push back through the swinging door into the casino, which is always louder than your thoughts, the casino which always wins.

He is waiting there, and his eyes are sparkling with the bottomless thing that scares you. His arm is around your shoulder, guiding you through the lobby and into the elevator, where you watch both of your faces in the mirror on the ceiling. Sometimes you think you are always watching because you are waiting for what you are seeing to change into something that does not scare you. You watch for as long as you think it should take to change, and then you keep watching.

The hallway is long with many corners. An empty room service tray, there. You could order room service. You could do anything you want. That’s the whole point, that’s the whole point of coming here, all the infinite options for pleasure, all the infinite options. The door beeps red, then green.

You kiss standing up inside the room, near the door, away from the beds. He kisses your neck. You’re dizzy. You’re crying and you’re not sure why. He is kind, he is always kind when it happens, like a part in a script he knows how to play. Sometimes you wonder if you cry so you can get to the part where he is always kind. He’s running a bath, sitting on the white edge of the tub with one black sleeve rolled up, cuff wet like the ends of your hair. You know in the morning, he will be angry, that the bottomless tunnels in his eyes will close, and when you go to touch him, he will push you away like a punishment, but tonight he is kind. He undresses you and puts you in the tub and undresses himself and sits at the other end. You tell him you are sorry (which is true), and he tells you it’s OK (which isn’t). But he is tender with you now, and it is so easy to believe him.

When the water gets cold, he wraps you in a towel you wish was softer. You hold each other in the bathroom until your skin is sticky with dried soap. You always wish this part could last longer, but already his eyes are beginning to close in that way they do. In the morning, they will be all the way closed, and you will reach for him, and he will turn you away, so tonight you get under the covers and back your body up against his so you don’t have to watch it happen. Maybe it will be different this time when you wake. Maybe his eyes will be open, and when you look into them, you’ll see all the way down to the bottom, and what you see there will not scare you, and he will see you, and it will really be you. You think it should be possible. You think about it so often, sometimes you trick yourself into thinking it has already happened.

Any minute now, the pleasure is coming. Any minute now, you and the pleasure will bump shoulders at the bar, will reach for the same gilded button at the elevator bay, will beeline for the same blackjack table, and put your hands on the same empty chair. Any minute now pleasure’s car will pull up alongside yours on the highway with the windows down, any minute there’ll be a knock on the hotel room door and pleasure will be on the other side of the peephole, any minute now the lever will pull and the lights will flash and pleasure will come pouring out like dirty change right into your ready open palms, any minute now you and the pleasure will collide.

The post Hanna Bahedry: 25th Annual Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Awards Winner appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Ground Zero

by F.A. Battle

I had an uncle who used to say that if the world ended while he was alive, he wanted to be at the heart of the destruction. When the asteroid slammed into the ocean or the nuclear bomb blew off half the continent, Uncle Esau wanted to be right at ground zero.

It wasn’t that my uncle had a death wish. It was more a desire to avoid the despair that comes after such a horrific event. Broken bodies and bloody aftermath. Naked orphans roaming the streets. Desperate, starving survivors, stabbing each other over the last honey bun in the bodega. “Who wants to deal with all that mess?” my uncle would say between bites of stew beef, rice, and collards. “Just take me out with the first wave.”

My mother always cooked for an army because, on top of feeding her own family, her older brother had a knack for showing up just as the food was ready. “What you got cooking up in these pots, girl?” Uncle Esau would ask, as he ambled toward the stove, plate and fork already in hand. She would yell at him for digging in her pots without washing up first. He would huff about it but always went to wash his hands. Then he’d fix his plate and the two of them would bicker, laugh, and gossip about their other siblings while he ate.

When the conversation turned to Armageddon, as it always did for some reason with Uncle Esau, my mother would mumble, “Here we go with this shit again.” Then, she would find something to do in another part of the house. But I loved it. I would sit at the kitchen table and drink in every bit of his dark wisdom about the world’s end.

Because he was my uncle, and I was a child, I was prone to agree with him on the whole post-apocalypse thing. There would be no military rule or refugee camps for me. I would be proud to get taken out on the front line, screaming like a bitch along with the rest of the moron army standing in the street, gaping up at the million-ton space rock careening toward our faces. Hypnotized by the scarlet hell boiling down on us instead of running our asses for cover. The few! The proud! The instantly fried! Sign me up, dammit! I’ll be the one melted right into my shoes.

Over the years, I’ve gleaned a great deal of strength from Uncle E’s philosophy and those endearing childhood chats about death and cataclysm. I’ve faced many trials with his voice echoing in my mind — Stand tall and take it head-on, girl! or If it don’t kill ya, it’ll make ya stronger, and who can forget the classic, If it kills ya … ah well.

But today, I am alone in this theater lobby, and all that big stand-strong-and-take-it-like-a-woman talk is barely a whisper in the distance. I’m locked on the pair of eyes just beyond the concession stand. They’re burning a hole through me. These mahogany pools, set ablaze with flecks of gold and emerald — are far more dangerous than any space rock. More deadly than any bomb or weapon of mass destruction. I’m hypnotized into paralysis. I’m a pathetic twitching mass with no will of my own. And contrary to my uncle’s wise teachings, every part of me wants nothing more than to run for cover.

If I could muster the will to move my legs that’s exactly what I would do. If I could suck enough air into my lungs to run out of this lobby and back into the street, then I would be so gone. But my legs are numb. My breath has rattled to a stop. And my heart is slamming against my chest, telling me to move forward or die right in this spot.

Twenty years. That’s how long I’ve known my husband. Married for 10 years. We have two beautiful children, a boy and a girl.

Am I happy?

Knowing that my kids are cherished and cared for by two loving parents makes me happy.

But am I happy?

I like my job. I make a decent living. We live a good life.

Girl! Are you happy?!

No. I am not happy. I want to be. I should be. I have tried to be for a very long time. I slip on the happy-wife mask and wear it for as long as I can tolerate. But then, my skin starts to itch, my head spins, and the mask slips away. Beneath, is a face I don’t fully recognize.

And now, here I stand at ground zero about to get pulverized by those eyes. Because I should not be here. But there’s no other place in the world I want to be. I am what? Gay? Bisexual? Lesbian? Queer? None of them feel right to my ears, so I use them all interchangeably, but only with myself. To everyone else, I am Mommy, Wife, Sister, Friend, Co-worker.

To everyone except her.

To her, I am simply Felicia. And this Felicia…this unmasked, wide-open Felicia is Beautiful. Passionate. Intense. Sexy … So deliciously different that I am unlike any other woman on the face of the planet. She tells me that in words, but she doesn’t have to. I can feel it in the caress that sends currents of electricity through my entire body before her fingertips even land on my skin. And in the way her lips claim my own for themselves. Both soft and delicate then deep and passionate, locked in kisses so sweet I can taste her for days after. The same lips that now smile at my approach, brush my cheek, and whisper my name, as I melt right into my shoes.

Let the bloody aftermath begin.

See the full list of winners here!

The post Ground Zero: Writer’s Digest 5th Annual Personal Essay Awards Winner appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Want an opportunity to win a WD award? Keep checking our competitions page for upcoming competitions.

1. “Ground Zero” by F.A. Battle

2. “They Say if You Name the Thing, it Helps” by Allie Dixon

3. “A Stroke, a Recovery, and a Marriage Revised” by Charlotte Troyanowski

4. “How to (not) get into an Ivy League School” by jlee

5. “Letters from Far Away” by Jean Palmer Heck

6. “The Verizon Guy” by J. Shepherd

7. “A Baker’s Dozen: Thirteen Perspectives on Anorexia” by Deborah Svec-Carstens

8. “Ode to an Ugly Urn” by Katrina Gallegos

9. “Delivery Notes” by J. Mackenzie

10. “Didu” by M. Talu

11. “The Hunt” by Elinor Horner

12. “Cardinal Virtues” by Robin Clifford Wood

13. “Treasures from the Sea” by Renee Srch

14. “A Clash of Cultures Around the Dinner Table” by Genine Babakian

15. “AFTERTHOUGHT ON AN EPITAPH” by Melanie Verbout

16. “Because the Night belongs to Mothers” by Hope Loraine Cotter

17. “My Name Isn’t Michelle” by Nicholle Harrison 

18. “Historian of Silences” by Jonathan Odell

19. “In the End” by Mark V Sroufe

20. “Man Enough” by Christian Escalona

21. “Across the Gulf” by Annie Barker

22. “On Fathering (What You Didn’t Know)” by John Cheesebrow

23. “My Name is Not Sally” by Celia Ruiz

24. “An Abortion, a hysterectomy, and Black Sweatpants” by Lynne Schmidt

25. “Aging, Angst, & Anxiety” by Stephanie Baker

Check out the latest Writer’s Digest Competitions!

The post Announcing the 5th Annual Personal Essay Awards Winners appeared first on Writer's Digest.

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While Lucy Day has a lot of interesting and surprising things to share about her almost 10 years of self-publishing, at the top of the list might be this: She started her writing career being traditionally published.

“I found with a traditional publisher—this was years ago—that it could take 18 months or more after a manuscript was accepted to actually see it finished, and that’s an eternity,” she says with a laugh. “I really love that with self-publishing, I create my own timetable, and I can generally publish faster than that. The first Lucy Day book was published in September of ’22, and now the fourth one [came] out [in February].”

But it’s not just how quickly she can get the works out to readers that draws her to self-publishing. She says, “It’s empowering to learn all the facets of self-publishing, all those nitty-gritty details, and that it’s possible to do all that—or a lot of it—yourself. And to do it well and publish the same caliber books that traditional presses are doing.”

Along this vein, she says that she “just never really understood that stigma of self-publishing not being as good as traditional. I think there are a ton of amazing books out there that are self-published. And I think we’re lucky that we live in a time where it’s relatively easy to self-publish.

“There are a lot of people out there with a lot of important things to say and amazing stories to tell, and they don’t have the same resources that a lot of other authors have. It’s really hard to find an agent and get in with a traditional house sometimes. Then it can take years to finally get a book in print. It’s a gift to be able to self-publish, and I think there’s a lot of amazing authors out there doing it.”

That pride in quality is what elevated her novel, One Sweet Holiday, to the top of the Writer’s Digest 12^th Annual Self-Published E-book Awards. This grand-prize win netted Day a prize package of $5,000, a paid trip to the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference, and more.

While she finds self-publishing rewarding, it comes with challenges. Day says the biggest challenge for her is marketing. “It’s a challenge to gain visibility when you self-publish. … I feel like the landscape in marketing is the thing that is always changing. And I just want to be able to engage with my readers. I find that it’s sometimes hard to do that through social media just because, especially now, it seems like there’s so much noise. It’s really hard to cut through! [laughs] But I would say that that visibility and that engagement is the most challenging thing. … Marketing can take a whole lot of time and, frankly, I’d just rather spend that time writing.”

How does she overcome these challenges? She turns to her community of writers and self-published authors. “A friend of mine and I went into this self-publishing vein together, and she and I had strengths that complimented each other. So, we had learned a lot over the years about editing, formatting—I’m a graphic designer, so the cover design, I felt confident doing myself. … I am fortunate to have a couple of close friends who also work as editors … several of us will trade services essentially. I’m lucky to have a network of people who I can trade those services with. [But] if I didn’t have friends who could help me … that would be really hard to navigate around.”

It was her community that inspired the story of One Sweet Holiday. Although this is the third book of the Jasmine Falls Love Stories series, one of Day’s friends challenged her to write a holiday romance—something she’d never tackled before. She took up the challenge and decided to add in other romance genre elements she loves: someone new comes to a small town to give people a fresh perspective; opposites attract; a female entrepreneur who is finding her path. And she says, “My late mother loved Christmas, everything about it. The more I worked on that story, it just became kind of a love letter to her too.”

We also discussed how community can give writers confidence—and that confidence can be the make-or-break-it of a writer’s career.

“I have this friend and writing coach, Camille Pagán, who’s been a huge influence on me in terms of mindset. And this is something that we talk about together a lot because, you know, now I feel like I can either tell myself that writing’s hard and I can toil, or I can tell myself that writing is easy and it’s going to be fun. Those thoughts directly affect how I feel and how I write. So, it’s a little bit woo, but it’s about the science of mindset. … I choose to have fun when I’m writing. Now it often comes more with ease than it used to, but there are definitely moments where I get stuck, and sometimes, I just need to take a walk, get out of the house and clear my head, let ideas percolate and come back to them later. But ultimately, I just trust the process now. I know some parts are going to be harder to write than others, but I’m confident I’ll get the story where I want it to be in the end.

“It took me a long time to get to that place. I’m not saying it happened overnight. [laughs] But once that confidence started to grow, it’s like, ‘OK, I know how to tell a good story. I can trust myself to shape this the way it needs to be.’”

Part of that confidence is in knowing where your strengths do not lie. Being able to discern this can set a writer up for success. Day says, “I’m always happy to hire people who do the things that are outside of my wheelhouse because I have learned the hard way that it can be not the best use of my time to try to learn too many things or to do things that are really just not in my expertise. [laughs] Book tours, for example. I always hire somebody to handle tours for me because that’s not something that I’m very good at, frankly. And that’s just how I approach it. If I come upon a task I need done that I know I’m not going to do it well enough that I’m happy with it, I’d rather hire somebody who is really good at it and hire the most professional people I can to help.”

When asked what advice she has for other writers, her answer is simple but profound: “Trust your gut, and choose a path that aligns with your goals and your intentions. Don’t be afraid to take the leaps that will allow you to grow. Just show up for yourself every day and have your own back—to me, that has been a game changer.”

Check out the current Writer’s Digest Competitions!

The post Lucy Day: 12th Annual Self-Published E-book Awards Winner appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Irene Te always knew she wanted to self-publish her YA romance novel, This Place Is Magic. “I knew from the beginning that I didn’t want to query this project,” she says. “I never even attempted it. It wasn’t a story that fit neatly into any boxes, and if it was difficult for me to position and pitch, I felt it would be difficult for an agent, too. And since there were so many elements I wasn’t OK with negotiating, I chose to self-publish. I saw it as the best way to stay true to the story I wanted to tell.”

Her instincts proved right, earning her the top prize in WD’s 32^nd Annual Self-Published Book Awards, but this also dispels the notion that self-publishing is merely a backup plan for authors if traditional publishing isn’t working out. The benefits of self-publishing—writing the story the way she wanted to, going against traditional romance tropes—far outweighed those of traditional publishing for Te to begin with; and now, the validation of winning Grand Prize is something she hopes teaches others the legitimacy of self-published books.

WD spoke with Te about why she entered the competition, the inspiration behind This Place Is Magic, and more.

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Congratulations on winning Grand Prize! What made you decide to enter our competition?

Thank you! I chose to enter this competition because I consider Writer’s Digest to be a reputable and reliable source of support for anyone who writes. I felt that winning—even an honorable mention—from a WD competition would be a great thing for me as a writer; I also felt that it would help me continue to dispel the misconception that self-published books are not worthy of critical acclaim on the same level as books that are traditionally published. I don’t think I’m the only self-published author who feels like no matter how much effort, care, and craft I put into my work, it’s still dismissed as lesser quality because I didn’t choose the traditional route to publication. It was nice to receive validation that I’d chosen the right path for my book. Winning an award from a respected industry publication like Writer’s Digest could help my book reach more readers.

Tell us about This Place Is Magic. How did the idea come to you?

The fictional K-pop group in this book has been around since 2017, starting out as a list of characters in a Google doc. Pretty much all my projects take a long time to simmer. Case in point, I didn’t return to the idea of writing about K-pop until early 2023, when I saw an Instagram post featuring an idol on an evening walk. He had his back turned to the camera, just strolling through some neighborhood in California. Initially, I was drawn to the aesthetic: the dark blue of the sky, the streetlamps, the billowing white shirt. It felt hopeful and carefree, but also kind of sad. Someone so famous would have a hard time taking a walk anywhere without being recognized or interrupted. Even the casual nature of this picture was, at heart, a kind of performance. It seemed exhausting.

I kept scrolling after that, but there was something about the image that just stayed with me. I started looking at all the other posts by idols in my feed and totally overthinking each one. I thought about how crazy it would be for someone to find a random K-pop idol wandering down the street outside their house. Why was he even there? What if he’d gotten lost? And then, the question that led me to my protagonist: What if he wanted to be lost? What if this character was running away?

Something I think you capture really well is the banter between characters. Charming, charismatic dialogue is critically important to a successful rom-com. How did you go about creating the unique voices for each of the characters?

In my experience, a character’s unique voice is directly tied to who they are as a person. I spend a lot of time thinking about where a character comes from, whether they’d be wordy in their responses or very brief and to the point, and if they have any phrases that they use a lot. Then I come up with “rules” for how each character uses language.

The fun part of banter and conversation between characters, for me, is watching the interplay of all these different “rules” in action. Some characters never interrupt. Others do nothing but interrupt. Some characters never curse and one character curses constantly. When you get them all interacting together, I think the dialogue has no choice but to be lively.

Were there any surprises in the writing process of This Place Is Magic?

The biggest surprise was how easily the story fell into place. It was the rare project that seemed to be writing itself. Although he’s the quietest and most undemanding protagonist I’ve ever written so far, Eunjae really had a story he wanted to tell me.

If you could share one piece of advice to other writers considering self-publishing, what would it be?

I think the best thing you can do for yourself as a writer is to cultivate a willingness to learn. Remain open to the idea that there’s always more learning you can do. This means studying craft, but also taking feedback and figuring out your unique process. Take the time to improve your skills. To me, learning is an investment in yourself. 

Enter the 33rd Self-Published Book Awards now!

The post Interview with Irene Te: WD’s 32nd Annual Self-Published Book Awards Winner appeared first on Writer's Digest.

[See the complete winner’s list]

Choosing Week

by Ruth Scharff-Hansen

The black sheath dress that the Council picked out for me makes a crunching noise as I walk down the corridor to my first trial. It is too plain to give any hints as to what I might have to endure this Choosing Week.

I just graduated from what many would consider the best university in the world. A city full of dreaming spires, crumbling sandstone, and statues of problematic men who funded our ornate institution by trading drugs and weapons and people. It was austere. But the benefit of a serious education is that my path now seems clear enough. The professors I worked under are well-respected, and I am sure that the Council will take their recommendation whole-heartedly when making my Choice this week.

The elders say that Choosing Week is a relatively recent practice. Back when our country used to be prefaced with the word ‘United’, all young adults had the illusion of free will. But that illusion crumbled along with the economy. Suddenly, masses of fresh graduates all vying for the same jobs found themselves crushed under the weight of student debt, with no way to pay it off. Meanwhile, necessary positions that weren’t considered as desirable remained unfilled. The government, which evolved over time into the Council, decided that talent needed to be redistributed. They took this distribution into their own hands.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is still some remnant of autonomy in the Choice. When you’re 5 years old, you share your future hopes with the Council, and this childhood nonsense is regarded as the first guiding point in their decision. And again when you finish school, whenever that may be, you work with your teachers to recommend a second option. This is generally the more realistic and thought-out possibility. Rarely, the Council will select a profession completely outside of these two paths: I know of a medical student who became a model! But most of the time, especially when you went to a university like mine, the Council avoids ruffling any feathers. They make sure artists get to make art, musicians get to make music, and bankers get to make money, and that’s that.

I’m going to be a lawyer. Adults have told me this since I was little. Apparently I have “a way with words” that should be put towards “something useful.” I’ve been groomed in this vision for years: from internships at law firms to heading up the debate club. It’s an easy slam-dunk for the Council. On the second day of Choosing Week, I will show them what a day in my life as a lawyer will look like. They will observe before coming to a decision this Friday.

Before I get to prove myself, though, I must make it through the first day. Today is a day to “live my childhood fantasies.” Like many of my peers, I do not remember what I told the Council a decade and a half ago. A distant dream picks at me—one full of tall stories and old books—but the feeling I get in my gut is dangerous, and so I suppress it. Now I dread to think what waits for me behind the heavy brass doors at the end of this hallway. It could be a herd of giraffes if I said I wanted to be a zookeeper. It could be mounds of unmolded clay if I had wanted to be a sculptor. Or perhaps I wanted to be a unicorn. What would that even look like?

I take a deep breath. Part of me wants to throw this day away, but I know the punishment for not taking the process seriously is imprisonment. And another part of me—a quiet part—wonders what I hoped for before I was taught the right way to hope.

The metal doors creak in their hinges as I walk through the threshold. The room is completely bare, save for a microphone and a selection of instruments in the middle of the padded floor. Immediately, I decide to leave the guitar and piano alone. I can’t play. Opposite me is a massive mirror: double-sided glass. They’re watching.

“Emily Hudgens.” A voice rings through the room, and my heart beats out of my chest. I assume a Council member is speaking to me from behind the mirror. Should I say hello back? Would that be inappropriate? It’s unnerving hearing such booming words when I can only see my own trembling reflection. I shift from foot to foot, fidgeting, as I wait for my instructions. “Rockstar.”

My stomach turns. Rockstar? I’m about as tone-deaf and talentless as they come! Why on Earth would I have wanted to be a rockstar? I briefly recall a late-night television show I fixated on when I was little, but still, this is a ridiculous task. I can do nothing but gape and force myself to remember that, as always, quiet obedience is my only realistic option.

“Sing.”

Shaking, I step towards the mic. But not for the first time, I’m angered that I need to go through this charade. There is a career out there for me that everyone knows I will excel at. Why should I bother with what might have once made me happy? Why pretend that we get to contribute to this choice, when even my goals were born from pressure? What should I sing, what should I sing? I lean down and echo the song I’ve performed in assembly every morning since kindergarten. The national anthem.

It comes out flat and harsh.

“Sing something original, Emily,” the voice behind the glass chastises. There’s a little laughter in it, and my face burns bright red at the embarrassment of my obvious failure.

“Original?” I repeat dumbly.

“Make your own song.”

I chew on my lip for a moment. I’ve never been very musically inclined, but you may remember that I allegedly have a way with words. The syllables catch in my throat, and when I choke them out, they’re tuneless, falling short of the chirpy melody I’m going for. But hey, at least they rhyme.

“I wonder what would happen
If I was just a teenage girl
If I let go of my worries
But held on to the world.”

I pause, hoping they’ll tell me it’s enough. But I’m only met with awkward silence, and so I scramble to craft another line. I’m getting agitated now, and perhaps a little too bold with my semantic selections. The words are starting to sound less and less like a rock song and more and more like slam poetry.

“If I let myself rant
About those who did me wrong
And didn’t feel an inch of guilt
About not singing this song.”

It’s a risky choice, but several voices chortle at the end of this verse.

“I wonder who I’d be
If I let myself slip
Into the world of adolescence
Where no one’s got a grip!”

They laugh out loud when I take a sardonic bow.

“Thank you,” I say.

Suddenly, I am very grateful that the single-sided glass prevents me from seeing the faces of my audience, for I can hear their pens scratching furiously against paper on the other side of this divide. I try not to wonder what it is they’re writing. When I write, when it’s quiet, and no one is watching, I only ever scribble so intensely when I am seized with inspiration. What did I do that would warrant that?

After an excruciatingly long pause, I clear my throat. “Um, am I excused?”

“Yes, Emily.” The voice says. “Be ready for your second trial this Wednesday.”

I want to tell him that I was born ready, but not only would it be blasphemous to speak to the Council that way, it isn’t true. I was made ready. I dip into a shallow curtsy—a peculiar thing to do, given that our country hasn’t had a monarchy in decades—and back out of the room in a hurried half-run.

When I get home, I tell my family how I bombed. They laugh and pat me on the back. My older brother, who made it through his childhood hurdle of marine biology before becoming an engineer last year, actually cries because he doubles over so hard.

“At least I didn’t kill a fish during my trial!” I quip back.

“It was an accident!” He protests.

I am assured that all will be okay, because I will be a lawyer anyway. I’m stuffed full of casserole and words of encouragement before I am sent to bed, feeling slightly annoyed. I’m not sure why: They mean well. It’s hours before the Council-mandated curfew, and a few of my friends are going out to celebrate the start of Choosing Week, but I don’t have it in me. I was defiant today. The Council may reward my boldness, but they may punish it too. 

When I take the same walk down the same corridor on Wednesday, wearing the same outfit in a gray color, I don’t have the same butterflies in my stomach. In fact, I don’t really feel much at all. I make my way through the motions: the room is set up like a mock trial, and I craft a watertight skeleton submission that I slip through the letterbox on the side of the room for the Council’s review. I then deliver a short speech, and though I am standing by the same microphone in the same room with the same audience, I am a different Emily Hudgens today.

No one laughs or applauds. I am dismissed, knowing I have done a cookie-cutter job.

The end of Choosing Week doesn’t conclude in a flourish like you might expect: Our country doesn’t have the resources. There’s no ceremony, no elaborate tradition, no rousing speech. There’s a thin, white envelope that comes in the mail on Friday, stamped with the official ink of the Council and addressed to one Emily Hudgens, 212 Primley Road. I know from my brother’s experience last year that I will be told to immediately report to my new position. After all, the whole point of this process is that the Council needs workers, as soon as possible.

The paper feels damp in my hands, like it has passed through many fingertips in order to get to my family home and deliver my fate. My brother leans over to open the letter himself—he says I am doing it too slowly—but my parents swat him away, though I can tell they are just as eager. They watch with baited breath as I read through the message.

It’s only four lines long.

It states my name.

It thanks me for my (forced) participation.

It states the address of my new workplace.

And it announces my position.

My parents don’t have time to ask questions, too stunned by what I have read aloud, before I hop in the car to drive to my new everyday spot. My hands shake on the wheel. As the glass doors of my office revolve, I think of the medical student who became a model. I wonder if she felt as alive as I do now.

“Hey!” One of my colleagues calls out as I make my way across the floor. “There’s the new girl who can rhyme!”

I tip my head at him with a broad grin. A way with words. The girl next to me chatters about how they heard all about my little show on Monday, and I can’t help but feel that the Council has rewarded me, after all. I remember how I hoped before I was taught the right way to hope.

There’s nothing on my desk but a fountain pen, a stack of empty pages that I itch to fill with dreams, and a name card that admits what I have been too scared to admit all along.

“Emily Hudgens,” the sign reads. “Writer.”

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Grand Prize

Matt Strempel, “Botched” (humor). Read the story here.

Memoir/Personal Essay

1. “Cupcakes and Eternity” by Kristin Eck
2. “Asia (1969)” by Jennifer Rose
3. “Like Mother, Like Daughter” by Kira Schiavone
4. “Seeking the Third” by Alison Luterman
5. “No Such Thing as Just One M&M” by Katrina Peacock
6. “Harvest” by Catherine L. Hensley
7. “To Write or Not to Write: The Case for Both” by Alan George Maki
8. “Night Rounds” by Joseph Marr
9. “First Shift” by E.R.J. McKay
10. “Who yo people” by Pam Sam

Honorable Mentions

• “A Final Prayer” by Carol Larson
• “A Poetry Lesson Named Craig” by Clint Martin
• “A Weapon of Junipers and Jays” by NV Mann
• “Aging, Angst and Anxiety” by Stephanie Baker
• “All Summer in a Day at the Ballpark” by Barbara Tylla
• “An Unspoken Apology” by Leslie Absher
• “And the walls came tumbling down” by Katrina Brown
• “Avoiding the Danger of Relative Privation When Lives and Art Are Lost: A change in the way society values art can address the growing popularity of putting art in the crosshairs to make a point.” by Ron Leshnower
• “Bitten by the Mosquito: A College Student’s Essay on Her Severe Intrusive-Thought OCD” by Hannah Lavoie
• “Come on Down” by Mary Warwick
• “Different Hands and Knees” by Penny Dahl
• “Door to Door” by Joella Aragon
• “Fantasy” by Skylar Colby
• “Fluent in Distance” by Laura O’Gorman Schwartz
• “Gotta Have It” by K. Patrick O’Neill
• “Grass Bradford” by Fillmore Same
• “Holding a Glass Up to the Light” by Rosanne Gordon
• “I was a little girl once.” by Devin Overend
• “Jocko’s Gone” by Steve Powell
• “Learning to Trust Again” by Linda Summerford
• “Mandy” by Amy Claire Massingale
• “Northern Lights” by Mo Conlan
• “Polar Plunge” by Jennifer Jones
• “Poop Happens” by Stephanie Kilpatrick
• “Powers of Poseidon” by Katherine Larryn
• “Raymona” by Allison Cross
• “Shattered” by Lillian Martin
• “Stays Mainly in the Plain” by Joe Blair
• “Teabiskitwala Cafe’” by Wanderwoman
• “The Club No One Wants to Join” by Rebecca Bartlett
• “The Fear of Going Missing” by Matthew Haynes
• “The Forever Medicine” by MJ Robertson
• “The Melting Watch” by Bliss Goldstein
• “The Wolf” by KT Ryan
• “There is an Ocean” by susan westlund
• “Threads of Life” by Diane M. How
• “Three Pieces of Pie” by Carole Vasta Folley
• “Unexpected Ending” by Brian Watson
• “Uninvited” by Brandon Williams
• “What They Brought” by Maryann Grau
• “Why I Hate Tuesdays” by Vivian Finck
• “Working … Like a Dog” by Sheryl Bass

Inspirational/Spiritual

1. “Mystical Messages” by Grace Ryan
2. “Family Matters” by Michelle Layer Rahal
3. “Flutter” by Shelby Poulin
4. “Fertile Emptiness” Marielena Zuniga
5. “Guzen or Gift?” by KK
6. “Finn” by Kristen Swanson
7. “A note from the friend every person should have” by Tiffany Chartier
8. “Taffy” by Karen Tinsley
9. “Breath as a Blessing” by Angela Waldron
10. “The Husband, the Hound, and the Good Shepherd” by Allia Zobel Nolan

Honorable Mentions

• “A Conversation with a Stranger” by Alex Lee
• “A Mirror Moment: God, Make Me Stronger Than the Alcohol Proof” by Sincerely Syreeta
• “A Personal Reflection on a Solar Eclipse” by Dan Zavoianu
• “A True Story” by Jean Lennon
• “A True Testimony” by Robyn Gaffney
• “Acceptance” by Kerith Mickelson
• “An Epiphany of Angels” by Preetamdas Kirtana
• “Anticipating Forsythia” by Maureen Miller
• “Bird Days: Living with Chronic Illness” by Kristina Fluitt
• “Conversations on Fire” by Jennifer G. Townsend
• “Cradlesong” by Maureen Miller
• “Cries from a Cold Bathroom Floor” by Rhett Wilson
• “Eulogy for Beth Martin” by Rona Trachtenberg
• “Field Notes from the Forest Floor: Foraging as Spiritual Practice” by Daniel Cooperrider
• “God, Roses, and Jiffy Lube” by Rhett Wilson
• “Growing Old” by Q. L. Berger
• “I’ve Always Been a Pirate” by Kendra Boersen
• “My Friendship Bracelet” by Jorge Brana
• “Star Sapphire” by Dianne Beard
• “Stay for the Cookies” by Kris Winters
• “Superheroes Among Us” by Karen Taylor
• “Tangled Up in Grief” by Sarah Brown
• “The Bluebirds” by Robin Rogel
• “The Day of Dance” by Annika Connor
• “The Everythingness of Interbeing” by Jenny Zenner
• “The Faithfulness of God: the MRI” by Kathy Benedetto
• “The Greening of My Soul” by Mo Conlan
• “The Handoff” by Tim Campbell
• “The Sheep and the Goats” by Chief John West
• “The Tree Who Saw the Sky” by Karen Townsend
• “The View From the Window” by Beth Olson
• “Vision” by JM Fletcher
• “What They Brought” by Maryann Grau
• “Windsong” by Rachael M. Colby
• “Woody” by Peggie S. Tucker

Children’s/Young Adult Fiction

1. “Choosing Week” by Ruth Scharff-Hansen
2. “The Art of Motivation” by Henry Weese
3. “Untitled Picture Book” by Paige Cohen
4. “The Field Trip to the End of the World” by Sydney Weber
5. “Mommies Always Come Back” by Sherry Sallows
6. “The Canon of Katrina Quinn” by Anne Hanovich
7. “SNORKELING WITH SHARKS” by Symantha Sanda
8. “Marta Blossoms” by Rochelle Stretton
9. “Beware of Monsters” by JL Auguste
10. “All Shapes Belong” by Theresa Rice 

Honorable Mentions

• “A Torch Made of Darkness” by Darya Black
• “Bedtime Crew” by Jenna Stehler
• “Bedtime Hullabaloo” by Sharon White
• “Betwixt the Stars and Seas” by Jennyfer Gilgan
• “Blood Raven” by Becky Franklyn
• “Castaway Carl” by Carolyn Irving
• “Colorful Feelings” by T.N. Wehr
• “Girls in Polka-Dot Dresses Change the World. A Peace Corps Stories Series Story (Cameroon)” by Leonia
• “Growing Up” by Liberty McArtor
• “How to Attract a Hummingbird” by Symantha Sanda
• “How to Ride a Tiger” by Nicole King
• “I’m Telling Your Mother on You!” by Kathleen Jacobs
• “Love, Little Liberty” by Kathleen Jacobs
• “Lovely Nothing” by Krista Harrington
• “Mrs. Patrick’s Attic” by Jessica Dunnagan
• “Nat and the Not-Recital” by Tracie Renee
• “Not Ready Yet” by Michelle Nott
• “Our House Illuminated” by Kate Spires
• “Passages” by Peter Hausman
• “Peace and Carrots” by Angela De Groot
• “Reenie Brings the Rain” by Angela De Groot
• “Stealthy, Wealthy & Lies” by Elaine Hrivnak
• “Sweet Sixteen” by Meg Oolders
• “The Bench” by Larissa Hockett
• “The Boogeyman Ballad” by Kimberly Dana
• “The Cosmic Adventures of Galaxy McManus” by Christa Martin
• “The Elm of Elmwick Manor” by Breanne Palmerini
• “The Gift” by Michael Harley
• “The Late Migration” by Blake Byington
• “The Magical Tree” by Robin Currie
• “The Stones” by DM Reynolds
• “The Wednesday Lesson: A Short Story in Free Verse” by Tracie Renee
• “Use This Book as Wings” by Allan Peterkin
• “Walk A Mile: Steps in Time” by Robin Korb
• “Winter in the Boreal Forest” by Virginia Talbert Hickey

Genre Short Story

1. “Good Reason” by Jillian Grant Shoichet
2. “Border Crossing” by Brian Huber
3. “The Potomac Smelled Like Guts” by Laura Garden
4. “A Parting Gift” by Susan Goodwin
5. “The Apex” by Jennifer Slee
6. “The Last Super” by Andrea Sumner
7. “Ink” by Erich Noack
8. “Child in Time” by Keby Boyer
9. “A Song of Love and Longing” by Leslie Wibberley
10. “FisherMan” by Megan Ham

Honorable Mentions

• “A Bedtime Story” by Erica Balfour
• “A Purr-fect Love” by C.K. Shard
• “A Recipe for Change” by Charly
• “Brilliant Cut” by Tanya Menoni
• “Ceremony for the Sea” by Katie McLean Hoar
• “Coin Boy” by Kayla Sue Pugh
• “Dark Wings” by B. R. Knight
• “Deathbreaker” by Gracie Eland
• “Default 666” by Sharon Wagner
• “Dilemma on Mars” by Fred Shackelford
• “Eden” by Michael Stanley
• “Enough” by Murphy Maurice
• “A House Without Flowers” by J.A.Clarke
• “In the Back of the Truck” by Covington Dunn
• “Mercy” by Jennifer Della’Zanna
• “Mrs. Kornelie’s Cup-de-sac” by Lynda Vaughan
• “Old Forgotten Friends” by Philip Rosenblatt
• “Prize Horse” by Christina Lyon
• “Puckish Delight” by Charles Green
• “Rain” by Danny Imwold
• “Robot Baptism” by W. Steve Wilson
• “Rougarou” by Robin Lee Lovelace
• “Rule Number One” by Cat Sides
• “Shavasana” by Tree Martin
• “She Suffered” by LJ Denham
• “Spiderwebs and Ants” by Casey Nyvall
• “Stepping Forward” by Shirley Qin
• “The Angel’s Workweek” by Amy Suto
• “The Draft” by Erin M. Chavis
• “The Ice Cream Man” by James Logsdon
• “The Lady” by Kayla Mesker
• “The Magus and the Rabbit” by Mariel Masque
• “The Running Game” by Jennifer Slee
• “The Temporary Pastor” by Barbara Barker
• “The Third Men” by Jennifer Slee
• “The Toreador of the Tunnels” by Sheila Sharpe
• “The Vessel” by Thomas Bergamini
• “World of Harms” by B.C. Bond
• “Wrath of Venus” by Joey Krzeminski
• “Yellowstone: A Mystery” by A.L.Padden

Mainstream/Literary Short Story

1. “Offline Friend” by Angie St. John
2. “Do Or Dash” by Patricia Ljutic
3. “Wingman From Hell” by Peter Morris
4. “Mother’s Milk” by Steven Sax
5. “Donovan’s Calling” by Stacey Marinuzzi
6. “The Wheat and the Tares” by Austin Lovelace
7. “Persuasions” by Jill Martin
8. “Arctic Peonies” by Birgit Lennertz Sarrimanolis
9. “The Wreck of the Triumph” by Baird Harper
10. “Snapshots: A Triptych” by Ernest Wiggins

Honorable Mentions

• “81 Bowery” by Holly Lau
• “A Handful of Smoke” by Greg Jones
• “And Only I Remain” by Michael Pearson
• “Blackbird” by David M. Herman
• “Bucket List” by Kelly Beachell
• “Burying Chago” by Morgan Smith
• “Child In Time” by Keby Boyer
• “Cripple Creek” by Stephany Zoo
• “Eat Your Heart Out” by Jennifer Slee
• “Festival” by Ronan Ryan
• “Fishing” by Karl Luntta
• “Gigi, September 1, 1985–August 15, 1988” by J. Milanes
• “Grandmother’s Blueberry Basket” by Katelyn T. Nelsen
• “Her Watch” by Nicole Senyi
• “Holy Ghost” by Kate Fitzgerald
• “House-Haven-Home” by Kem Joy Ukwu
• “How She Happens” by Frances Drayus
• “Lemongrass” by Nicole Chea
• “Lost and Found” by Patricia McMahon
• “Luck” by Megan Baxter
• “Mermaids” by Laura Souza
• “Of Course You Will Go to Grad School” by Beilin Ye
• “On Fire, a Halo for Eternity” by Michael Pearson
• “Only You” by Sonny Fillmore
• “Over” by Dan DeNoon
• “Phoenix” by Heather Foster
• “Polka-Dots” by Angela Kirby
• “Pushin’ Through” by Barb Miller
• “San Jose Ways” by Kate Fitzgerald
• “Sanctuary” by Patricia Ljutic
• “Seams” by Florence Ashley
• “She Believed in Numbers” by Martha Williams
• “Shiloh” by M. K. Brackett
• “Sins of Authenticity” by Bret Wengeler
• “Squeak” by Konner Mel
• “Sweat” by Marta Woodward
• “The Body in the Valley” by Anyelly Herrera
• “The Circus” by Katie Harms
• “The Clocks That Worked” by Edward Carthew
• “The Fragrance of Bitter Oranges” by Charles Frode
• “The Math of Universe” by Christine Panas
• “The Planet of Love” by David Gurman
• “The Pomegranate Lady” by Lucy Fielding
• “The Sultan of Flip” by Dana Fitz Gale
• “The Sweet House” by Eaton Hamilton
• “The Things They Carried: Women’s Edition” by Lori Crispo
• “The Wages of Sin Are Low” by Ken Elliott
• “This Is All Your Fault” by Tanya Menoni
• “Til Valhalla” by Eric Swanson
• “Well” by Gail Bradburn

Humor

1. “Imperfect Endings” by Judith Carlough
2. “Thursday Night Flights” by Jeanne Favini
3. “One-Star Reviews” by Jake West
4. “Ari and Dean (Harry and Dino)” by Nicholas Gaitanakais
5. “Breaking Burque—The Eyebrows” by Sneaks Montoya
6. “Blacksmith and Maiden, a Little Fairy Tale” by Carl Imboden
7. “The Answer Is …” by Don Michalowski
8. “Perfect Crimes” by Chuck Collins
9. “It’s Complicated” by Pauline Hepler
10. “Worms With Those Fries?” by Terry Sachko

Honorable Mentions

• “Playing Doctor” by Amy Mills
• “A Moving Experience” by Alicia “Panama” Canal
• “An RV Wife” by Karna Bodman
• “Big Break” by Aaron Hawkins
• “Braving Anniversary Trip #2” by Davene Coutts
• “Brotherhood versus Motherhood” by Patricia Stettler
• “Chainsaws Are Loud” by ER Castaneda
• “Copier Schmopier” by Julie Prince
• “Countrified” by Amber Dawnne
• “Emperor of Etiquette” by Michael Oakes
• “I, Marlon James, or The Case of Marlon James and the Unidentified Body” by A. Rafael Johnson
• “In A Pickle” by Gretchen Ayoub
• “Ina Johansson vs. The Scotcheroo Bandit” by Kate Swenson
• “King of the Cowboys” by Rick Niece
• “Not quite child proof” by Lucianne Poole
• “NYC Driving Directions” by Cynthia M. Balagtas
• “Please Rate Your Self-Driving Dogsled Activity in Finnish Lapland” by Wendy Diliberti
• “Sex, Blood, and Sugar” by Lars Chinburg
• “Spring Break 1977” by Mary Pat Burke
• “Their Stupidity Was Criminal” by Michael A. Fuoco
• “Three Swipe Rights Gone Wrong” by Lori Mulligan
• “Tired in the U.S.A.” by Molly Devane
• “Water, Water Everywhere … and Lots of Drops to Drink” by ER Castaneda
• “Wedding Whiplash: How I Lost a Friend and Regained My Sanity” by Cheryl Free
• “What’s In a Bowl and Basket” by Tresslyn Brown
• “What’s So Funny About Tennis” by Paul Fein
• “Who is going to move the body?” by Mary Finnen
• “Wild Goose Chase” by Andrea Poniers
• “Wonder in the Small Things” by Alex Lee

Rhyming Poetry

1. “Inexorable” by Sarah Costin
2. “Torus” by Linda Drattell
3. “The Liberace Terza Rima” by Holly Eva Allen
4. “Enigmatic” by Felicia De Chabris
5. “Foot-Notes” by Landon Porter
6. “The Backyard of the Universe” by Michael Olson
7. “17. Anonymous” by Jess X. Moor
8. “Transform” by Kathy O’Grady Bose
9. “While We Slept” by Landon Porter
10. “You’re Not in Kansas, Either” by Robert Daseler

Honorable Mentions

• “Baldwin Beach” by Konner Mel
• “Blackburn’s Devils” by Jack Bannon
• “Cabin Poignant” by Erik S. Nites
• “Cobwebs” by Christin Haws
• “Convalescent Summer” by Konner Mel
• “Dawn Moonset, Sunset Crater” by Konner Mel
• “Departure’s Eve” by Patrick Walker
• “Edinburgh Twilight” by Konner Mel
• “Far From (Religious)” by Ato Dankwa
• “For Blaise Pascal, in Regard to Public Transport” by Patrick Walker
• “Fractured Sonnet on the Survivors of Catastrophic Loss” by Clif Mason
• “Fruit Fly Genocide” by Patrick Walker
• “Grand Canyon Dawn” by Konner Mel
• “Hourglass” by Gloria Herdt
• “Kxai-Kxai Dawn” by Konner Mel
• “Little Old Men Who Live in the Desert” by Ockert Greeff
• “Loose Change” by Konner Mel
• “Missiles” by Jacob Schapiro
• “Nigel No Mates” by Steve McDonald
• “Night Passage” by Francis Flavin
• “Oaks and Such” by Robert Allen Nelson
• “Okaloosa” by Mikayla Holland
• “One Lightning Bug” by Anna Lena Phillips Bell
• “Outlaws” by Robin Johnson-Drogo
• “Passing” by Louise Kantro
• “Point—Counterpoint” by James Cook
• “Prelude to Cinematography” by Joshua Burton
• “Roses” by Kimberly Shaw
• “Smile” by King Shawn Da Dawnn
• “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome” by Kache’ Attyana Mumford
• “Tanaga Cycle: Class of ’99” by AJ Layague
• “The Borrowed Anthology” by Anna Amatuzio
• “The Color Blue” by MJ Craft
• “The Seduction” by Kathy Humenik
• “The Selfish Sacrifice” by Areej Khan
• “The Terse Calligraphy of Sunset Clouds” by Patrick Walker
• “Theophany” by James Cook
• “three tall blondes” by Michael Miller
• “Uncle Bob” by Patrick Walker
• “Weasel in Winter in the Summer Cottage” by Sally Cobau 

Non-Rhyming Poetry

1. “His Name Was Yitzhak” by Redd Ryder
2. “Minotaur in Love” by Redd Ryder
3. “Broken Pantoum” by Jessika O’Sullivan
4. “Slave Ship, Alabama” by Redd Ryder
5. “I am Trying to Ask the Dead Their Names” by Zachariah Claypole White
6. “Condemned” by Dennis Rhodes
7. “Nineteen Kinds of Moss” by Sonya Schneider
8. “Dissociation” by Kim Kavanagh
9. “The Squirrel Made His Way” by Alicia Cook
10. “Adding Flavor” by Paul Tifford Jr.

Honorable Mentions

• “1974” by Kimberly Shaw
• “A Red Hawk” by Enid Valdez
• “Amid the Luminous Grit” by Jeffery Allen Tobin
• “An Early Autumn Walk” by Elizabeth Elder
• “Before the Exorcism” by Mari Farrand
• “Cocoon” by Christy Wise
• “Demeter’s Drought” by Marion M. Walsh
• “Distant Recurrence” by Mickie Kennedy
• “Dogma” by Mary Paulson
• “elegy for two at the river thames” by Dean Gessie
• “Falling Watermelon” by Neal Wong
• “Finding My Boyfriend in Bed, 1993” by Mickie Kennedy
• “Full Self Driving” by Candice M. Kelsey
• “Guarding the Coop” by Mickie Kennedy
• “I Am of Big Woods” by Barbara Messick
• “I Saw You Crying” by Rick Kearns
• “In Between The Sheets” by Tanya Bartlett
• “In Safed” by Yael Ezry
• “Known For” by Dennis Todd
• “Lake Monster” by Andrew Beerworth
• “Lineage” by Marena Fleites Lear
• “Modesto’s Knitting Circle” by Redd Ryder
• “Muse” by Katherine Atwell Herbert
• “My body: a host for parasitic morality” by Julia Mauro
• “Myrmecology” by Alexandra Ozols
• “Need” by Mary Paulson
• “Nothing but Black” by Jane R. Snyder
• “Ode to a Letter of Recommendation” by Janice Zerfas
• “Ode to My Autism” by Melody Miller
• “Ode to the Clothesline of Trevi” by Suellen Wedmore
• “Omakase” by Afton Kolbe
• “play cousins” by Nicole Adabunu
• “Prostate Hierophany” by Mickie Kennedy
• “Restless in Arenal” by David DeGusta
• “Rosemary” by Leah Applebee Lojo
• “Sophomore Year” by Rebecca Buller
• “Tether” by Alison Luterman
• “The Beaches of Normandie” by kari martindale
• “The Boy Who Could Not Give Up” by Ockert Greeff
• “The Good Driver” by Joseph Kuhn Carey
• “The Neighborhood” by Kristen Wilson
• “The Post Office” by Rebecca Buller
• “The Vanishing” by Laurie Paternoster
• “The Visitation” by Kathleen Rugel
• “Uncle Ronny on the Local News” by Mickie Kennedy
• “Wait” by Veronica Schorr
• “Wall of Clocks” by Kathleen McCoy
• “What a Summer Was” by RG Thielen
• “What the Strength Card Said” by Alison Luterman
• “you when i find you” by David DeGusta

Nonfiction Essay or Article

1. “Rational Drug Design: Gertrude Elion and Her Medicines that Changed the World” by Leonardo Chung
2. “Candy Girl” by Matt Cheek
3. “There are No Patients. There are Only Dancers” by Ember Reichgott Junge
4. “The Holy Righteous Queen Tamar: Christian King of Medieval Georgia” by Angela Waldron
5. “Anatolian Sikke” by Angela Waldron
6. “Rosie the Riveter” by Cynthia Furlong Reynolds
7. “Meiringen, 1891” by Niki Fakhoori
8. “What’s in a Gnome?” by Justin Marlowe
9. “In the Footsteps of Valentino” by Cindy Gentry
10. “Watermelon and Buttercups: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” by Veronica Brown

Honorable Mentions

• “I Don’t Know What ‘Like This’ Is” by Ember Reichgott Junge
• “You’ll Never Walk Again” by Ember Reichgott Junge
• “A Bay Like No Other” by Doug Alderson
• “A Survivor’s Tale: Along Quebec Explorers’ Route” by David Lee Drotar
• “Armed and Dangerous” by Kathy Bradshaw
• “Channeling Her Inner Strength” by Kathy Bradshaw
• “Dementia: Meet Them Where They Are” by Ember Reichgott Junge
• “Donald Trump and the X-Bet” by Timothy Dixon
• “Duende in the Desert” by Elaine Howley
• “Expanding the Community” by Elaine Howley
• “Gravy Veins” by Ginger Sinsabaugh
• “Harmony and Union Come Home” by D. A. Dorwart
• “If Looks Could Kill: The Power of the Evil Eye” by Angela Waldron
• “Losing Luggage and Finding Hope” by Heide Brandes
• “Maud Without an E” by Naomi Horne
• “Mighty Mitochondria” by Elaine Howley
• “No Dance Partner? No Problem!” by Ember Reichgott Junge
• “Of Katydids and Mongolian Climes” by Elaine Howley
• “Primitive threat response” by Vivien Huang
• “Ryan Dusick Finds It No Longer Harder to Breathe” by Sheryl Aronson
• “Spy fiction is back in vogue. But did you know there are two basic types?” by Joan M. Kop
• “The ADHD Diagnostic Criteria Sucks at Capturing Females and People of Color” by Vivien Huang
• “The Civil Rights Connection Between the U.S.A. and Northern Ireland” by Forest Issac Jones
• “The Cold Way Women are Finding Relief” by Elaine Howley
• “The DSM may be wrong about anxiety disorders” by Vivien Huang
• “The Greatest Therapy of All” by Ember Reichgott Junge
• “The Missing Link: The Critical Connections Between Technique and Tactics in Tennis” by Paul Fein
• “The Mouse and I” by Troy W. Green
• “Let Us Entertain You” by Paul Fein

The post Announcing the Winners of the 93rd Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition appeared first on Writer's Digest.

What do you like most about writing in the short short form?

Short shorts can be so challenging to write. Sometimes I feel as though I’m creating a word puzzle; like I’m trying to touch all the bases with very few toes. I started writing shorts when my daughter was small and my life so overscheduled that larger writing projects were difficult to manage. I enjoy reading (and dissecting) short shorts, too. Taking a well-written story down to its elements is like figuring out how a magic trick is performed.

Where did the inspiration for “Fountain of Ruth” come from?

When I’m in the car alone, I like to drive in silence. Too much noise makes it hard for ideas to be heard. So, I was enjoying one of my silent drives when the first several sentences simply dropped into my head. It wasn’t just a vague idea for a story, but the actual start of it. I dictated those full sentences into my phone and kept driving. By the time I arrived home a few hours later, all the pieces were there. I just had to put them together—and then edit for months. I had more fun writing Fountain of Ruth than anything else. There was something a bit surreal about the process.

What did your drafting and revision processes look like for “Fountain of Ruth”?

Although writing the story itself didn’t take long, the editing and rewriting took much longer. Once the draft was together, I sent it to my writing group, my daughter, and a few writer friends. Their suggestions greatly strengthened the story. I went through every sentence repeatedly, to the point where I nearly had it memorized. I also read it out loud several times to catch repetitious words and other stumbles.

What interested you in entering WD’s Short Short Competition?

The WD competitions are so well-known and respected that winning or placing enables a writer to feel validated, which I badly needed at the time. Although I’ve been writing for years and even won first place in two previous WD competitions (short genre fiction in 2012 and 2008), I had stepped away from short fiction for several years and feared I had lost my chops.

But I had a lot more at stake with this contest than just the entry fee. I had made a dumb deal with myself.

Even though writing has always been my first love, life got between us over and over again. For many years, I worked a day job, a night job, and freelanced, all while also raising my daughter. Now that she’s grown, my husband and I moved into a 125-year-old warehouse we are trying to rehab ourselves, while still working our day jobs. It had become so hard to make time to write that I began to wonder if perhaps it was time to put writing dreams aside and focus only on our building project.

Over the winter, when it was too cold for much construction, I wrote several new short stories. I submitted those stories to six different contests and told myself even a 10^th level honorable mention would keep me in the writing game, but nothing at all would be my sign it was time to close my laptop.

When the rejections began to arrive, one after another, I found myself wishing I had sent out more stories or chosen less significant contests—or believed in myself enough to not need validation to continue doing something I love so much.

By February, I had been rejected by every contest but one. The biggest of all I had entered.

So, thank you, Writer’s Digest, for keeping me in the game.

What advice do you have for other writers out there?

Don’t make stupid deals with yourself.

See the list of winners here!

The post Karin Patton: 2024 Short Short Story Award Winner appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Out of many great entries, WD editors selected the following 25 winners:

1. “The Fountain of Ruth” by Karin Patton

2. “Cotton” by Jasmine Griffin

3. “Sixteen, Summer” by Shannon Bowring

4. “Epilogue: The Story After the Story” by Jim Hunstein

5. “Unscratched” by NVMann

6. “Midrise” by Michele Ruby

7. “The Personality Writer” by Jenno Kane

8. “Ghosts of Winter” by Ronald McGuire

9. “Beyond the Fence” by Noreen Kilbride

10. “We Could Never Afford a Headstone” by Clayton Bradshaw-Mittal

11. “The Smell of Old Books” by David Osgood

12. “Twister” by Gary V Powell

13. “Last Writes” by William County

14. “Last Call” by Kate Adams

15. “Road To Nowhere” by Jennifer Braunfels

16. “A Crown of Azaleas” by Ramona Richards

17. “Hope Never Stops-at-All” by Tiffany Link

18. “The Last Migration” by Robyn Dabney

19. “The Thought of Remembering” by D’Spencer Luyao

20. “The Empress in the Front Yard” by Kristofer Schleicher

21. “A Numbers Game” by John Foley

22. “Dear” by Marilyn Hope

23. “Last Words of Ordinary Things: The Wristwatch” by L.C. Davis

24. “The Okie Dokie” by Rachel Childers

25. “Why Do They Call It Toilet Water?” by Amy DeFlavis 

The post Announcing the Winners of the 24th Annual Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Want to see your name on this list? Keep checking our competitions page for upcoming competitions.

1. “Songs of Gideon” by Calloway Song

2. “Passeridae” by Julie Novak-McSweeney

3. “For Lot’s Wife (A Parable of Fame)” by Judith Chibante

4. “Rain After a Drought” by Chuck Collins

5. “Ode to my Octopus Dilemma” by Simone Lyon

6. “Says the Witch” by Chrystina Hanson

7. “Ode to Edward Hopper’s Hodgkin’s House” by Suellen Wedmore

8. “The Summit” by Stuart Sheppard

9. “Let the World Fall” by M. K. Wessel

10. “Francis” by J.W. Rose

11. “Ballet” by Alison Luterman

12. “Harlem Noir” by Ryan Files

13. “Sitting in the Old House – Part Two” by Erin Callaway

14. “When We Were Magical” by Victoria Mary Fach

15. “Tied in Knots” by Laura Teste

16. “October Light” by Dennis Todd

17. “My Son Gets an ‘M’” by Lee Varon

18. “Soul Returned Home” by Lila Drowos

19. “The Journey” by Michelle Smith

20. “I Remember You” by Stuart Forrest

21. “How to interview for a job after Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Girl’” by S.M. Ward

22. “Free Advice” by Adrienne Parkhurst

23. “An Elderly Man” by Ron Speer

24. “At the local coffee shop” by SL Fogleman

25. “Half Price” by Yingchao Xiao

The post Announcing the Winners of the 2023 Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards appeared first on Writer's Digest.