Winners of the Short Fiction Writing Contest:

 

1st Place ($100):

 

The Carnation of Madison Avenue - by Liz Kelley

 

         'Mrs. Francis Bacon is looking at her face in a makeup mirror and taking inventory of the crows which have trampled small footprints around her eyes. Outside, just a block down, a pigeon is trampling the sidewalk on the face of Manhattan, and wondering what it would be like to be a horse.'

 

2nd Place ($50):

 

Narcan - by Mike Weddle

 

         'She wasn’t outside smoking when we got to the house. She was dead. That kind of thing just didn’t happen in Cob City. Maybe Rich pretended not to know, or pretended it wasn’t as serious as it was.'

 

Honorable Mention:

 

Cyril Devine - by Heidi Wicks

         

         'Baby Brother stares in horror, shaking his head. Big Brother has the cat’s head rammed into a muddy plastic Labatt’s Blue cup, its’ body writhing in panicked agitation, the dirt under his own too-long fingernails fiercely stabbing in where a collar would be.'

   

 

New Short Fiction

 

99 Cents - by Joseph P. Thayer

 

          'Through the window, by the fire escape on the second floor, I could hear the endless baritone that played background music to my life; my father, cursing about someone or something would pause only to reach his head out the window and swear death upon the miserable mutt that was barking in the yard.'

 

Oranges - Tamara T. Linse 

 

          “No,” Tamsen said. Then she turned to look at the kitchen. On top of the fridge was a plastic net of oranges. She considered them. They weren’t supposed to eat them. Last week, Tamsen had been trying to peel an orange when Mama jerked it from her hand and threw it against the wall with a dull thump, juice splaying wide across the wall like a drawing of sunbeams.'