Winners of the Summer '07 50-50
Short Fiction Writing Contest:
 
 
1st Place ($100 USD):
 
At the Factory - Bob Thurber
 

          'I said, I thought maybe if it's okay with you I might go to the funeral and then wander in here. You know. Sometimes it's better I work and not think too much. 

He studied my face. He looked at me hard. Then he agreed that sometimes working was better than thinking.'

 
2nd Place ($50 USD):
 
 
        'I do not want to not win the contest, but in order to avoid not winning the contest, I must enter the contest, so that I have a chance of winning.  But if I have a chance of winning, then I have a chance of losing.  The solution, of course, is to enter the contest by mistake.'
 
Honorable Mention:
 
 
          'When we got outside Carey pulled a pair of scissors out of his bag and cut off my ponytail right there on the sidewalk then put it in his pocket. There, that’s better, he said.  I guess I should have known then that he was really something.'
 
Fiction Short Story(s)
 
 
Monet's Hair - Brian Katz
 
     'I know that when I get off this bench and the full detail of security guards – Laurel, Hardy, Larry, Moe, Curly, Wayne, and Markus – pounce on me before I can even try to go about the rest of my evening pulling the last strands of my life like dry lengths of hair from a balding pate that I'll forget what it is that I'm doing...'
 
Great Blue Heron -J. A. Tyler
 

        “It brings the oil up. It brings the oil up from the depths, where there are dinosaurs still.”
The boy looked up at his grandfather with disbelief and pleasure.
“The dinosaurs were old and they died. And their bodies make us oil. And we bring it up with these big machines”
“They look like dinosaurs too,” the boy said. The tufts of his bangs floated on the breeze.'