The 2015 Fiction & Poetry Contest
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First Place in Fiction: "Founder's Day (The UFO Diaries)"
Halloween 1998 When I was 9 I told my younger foster brother Rory that he was an alien. At first I was joking because he was going as one of the Martians from “Toy Story.” And he always looked kind of goofy. I mean, he had these big thick glasses, and messy red hair. I actually tried to get him...
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Second Place in Fiction: "The Goddamn Chuck Mangione Song"
The itch hit me between Sporting Goods and the Garden Shop. Up ’til then it was just another Wednesday morning in Decaymart– the Limburgh K-Mart, and I’m not just calling it that to be clever. The place looked like it should’ve been dragged behind itself and shot. Most K-Marts these days have those...
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Third Place in Fiction: "Meet Me Near the Sign for 2 For $3 Fish Filets"
Let’s not smoke cigarettes tonight. OK, she said. We agreed that smoking had led to nothing but an unattractive cough. Plus she is an opera singer with a voice to maintain. And She is Christine, my girlfriend. We both live in New York. But not together. But maybe one day. Unconsciously we both...
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Tie for First Place in Poetry: "Train a Hypocrite"
Megan, I think it’s great to train our brainsTo accept booties of all sizes But couldn’t you just tell us you’re all about that bass And leave out the no treble? Because after you felt insulted by barbs barreled at bigger babes You went and slung spears at the so-called stick figure silicones Be...
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Tie for First Place in Poetry: "Snowy Remembrance"
Snow in Gaithersburg is no big deal unless you’ve never seen snow! Say you’re from Ethiopia or Eritrea! Then snow is a big deal! That’s the way it was that day when I worked at Rowley-Scheer! It was eight in the morning—the first snowstorm of the year! Geoff Conway the shift supervisor announced...
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Tie for First Place in Poetry: "Growing Discontent"
Machinations from this rusted mind roar to life as I sit down to juice or stop for a bread loaf: the persistent rivers upon the weary brow that repay the worker bee for his woesome brawn the nobler intercourse twixt keen man and sharp tool where they cultivate the much too-pregnant soil those bare...