Fiction

Issue 20 2011 Prize Winners
Winston Speaks

by Jill Caputo.
“Winston sold candy at the bus station on Wednesdays because that was the only day Georgia could give him a ride there. He kept the goods in the pack on the back of his chair: Snickers, Milky Ways, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, M&Ms, both peanut and plain…”

To The River

by Kelly Flanigan.
“I walk into Scott’s kitchen, sweaty from basketball and needing something cold to drink, and there’s his mom in just her underwear…”

The Hand You’re Dealt

by Jerry M. Burger.
“I say I’ll keep taking the lithium, but the doubt I see on Dr. Pederson’s face as he hands me the pills tells me I probably won’t. And then it’s time to go. Only the real nutcases stay at the VA more than a couple of days anymore. Better for you on the outside, they say…”

The Beautiful Ones

by Don Zancanella.
“I grew up in a working-class suburb of Denver with a mother who was a functioning alcoholic and a father who sold office supplies and was frequently on the road. I dropped out of school at sixteen and started supporting myself…”

Finding Honey

by Daniel Reiss.
“To find honey, I must first find a bee. It’s not that hard to find a bee. I just wander the woods till I find a source of water. If I come to a creek or a river, I’ll nearly always find bees…”

Issue 5
The Cult of Me

by Allison Amend.
“I’m not a suspicious person; I think that the quickest way between two points is a straight line and that the simplest explanation is the truest. I don’t care if our atmosphere is being eaten away by toxic gas.”

Issue 9
Coulrophobia

by Jacob M. Appel.
“My father fancied himself a shrewd landlord—he refused to rent to lawyers, the children of lawyers, even a college girl who “had law school written all over her”—but he probably bit off too much when he sublet to the mime.”

The Veil Thins

by Fiona Ennis.
“She was being tugged somewhere unearthly, towards a radiant light source, the same colour as those long fluorescent white lights that buzzed in the kitchen in the convent.”

Issue 1
Thinking in Clichés

by Denitza Blagev.
“After all the pain and blood, you almost begin to think of death as the next therapy, because that’s what it is, you realize. Death is part of the process.”