The Creative Writing School of AWC announced the results of the 2010 100-word short story contest yesterday. Nearly 100 students, faculty, and staff submitted to the contest. Below are the winners and honorees chosen from a field of very impressive submissions.
Student Category:
1st Place: Adriana Hernandez for "Beauty I See"
2nd Place: Grace Gregory for "The Defining Bus Ride"
Faculty/Staff Category:
1st Place: Lindette Lent, Professor of Psychology for "Respect"
2nd Place: Ed Schubert, Professor of English for "The Lineup"
Honorable Mentions:
- Sam Colton for "What Child is This?"
- Ed Schubert for "Yuma County Roads"
- Ellen Riek for "Ode to Woolf"
- Adriana Hernandez for "New Flavor"
- Carla Hastings for "Bees Wax"
- Andrew Torres for "An Aspiring Engineer's Perspective"
- Sonny Bergqvist for "Break it Up"
- Rachel Roman for "On Three"
- Helen Morgan for "Characteristics of Living Things"
- Jesus Ayala "Like a Little Boy"
The judges for the contest were Dr. Michael Miller, AWC Professor of English, David Coy, Former AWC Professor of English and Creative Writing and Porchia Moore, Former AWC Professor of English and Creative Writing
Student Category -- 1st Place:
Beauty I See
By Adriana Hernandez (student)
I stand by the door, waiting. Her body's slightly angled from the large squared light-lined mirror.
Shiny fabric enhances her curves. Another pink-smudged tissue litters the dresser.
"This time," she says. "Promise."
Holding a small magnifying mirror, she tips her chin up, outlines her lips pink. Light falls on her neck trailing to the hollow of her throat.
Sighs. "I'm ready."
She looks herself over once more. Satisfied, she leans towards the switch. Her dress flares to life. Blinding. Click. The room goes dark. Hardly visible, she approaches. The hallway's light gets caught in her eyes. Two dazzling sparks.
Student Category -- 2nd Place:
The Defining Bus Ride
By Grace Gregory (student)
I realized I was twenty cents short when the bus came to the stop -- my first dilemma at the age of 5. The doors on the bus whooshed open and the driver gave me a weird look. "Kid, you're holding up the line!" No one stood behind me. I stuttered, "I-I-I'm 20 cents short sir."
"Guess I'll drop you off 2 miles short." I shrugged and got on. When I got off, the bullies were there; I ran...I ran so far away...I ran...I ran all night and day. This is why I joined A Flock of Seagulls.
Faculty/Staff Category -- 1st Place:
Respect
By Lindette Lent (faculty)
Three generations spread ever northward: East and west to the oceans, covering America in giant pyramidic steps. A fourth is born, eats, and flutters its little three inches all the way from Canada to Mexico.
No brain to speak of. Prismatic scales though. Pretty cool.
Caterpillars build pupae, liquefy themselves, reorganize their genes, and emerge WITH WINGS, tasters on their feet, AND an ability to get from here to there without getting lost (all of which I seem to be completely lacking).
So, if you see me weaving down the Imperial Valley highway, I'm not drunk. I am butterfly dodging.
Faculty/Staff Category -- 2nd Place:
The Lineup
By Ed Schubert (faculty)
The punctuation marks were marched before the witnesses: ! @ # $ % & ? ; .
"Exclamation seems so excitable," the spinster said.
"Don't prove nothin'," the surly dockhand replied. "Keep your eye on the Period."
"Percent is cross-eyed," the accountant observed. "How could he have done it?"
"I saw At at the scene," the pretty schoolteacher reported.
"Dollar don' have no motive," the porter said.
"Who was And with?" asked the nigh-clerk.
"Pound looks like he belongs behind bars," the bartender opined.
Chief Kelly and the D.A. exchanged glances.
"Looks like we got our man!"
Honorable Mentions :
What Child Is This?
By Samuel Colton
What could it be, is but what it was. Not the cold dark mystery that others thought but then again perhaps. Just the same the villain who was is the saint that had once lived on Alcatraz. Reformed for the better, but for want of a letter had turned again to that which he had been before. A poet, scholar, a man without a family or a friend, but the story if this is one to be told is not of a child but of a man who grew old. Justice is what justice wants, age is the cruelest punishment.
Yuma County Roads
by Ed Schubert (faculty)
Mobius strips of black asphalt wind through the orange groves -- a time/space discontinuum where all direction vanishes. Some have never returned.
After dark, the mad Solipsist roars down these lonely roads, His shark-blue-white high-beam eyes burning through windshields and mirrors -- His skull, the night.
No one has ever seen Him (of course, there is no one to see Him) and His wild eyes blind.
If you drive the Yuma County roads at night, you will find Him behind you.
Ode to Woolf
By Ellen Riek (faculty)
And as the wind blew and the trees waved their leaves vigorously, capturing the rain in their fervor, she realized what she had not understood before: her presence in the house made others feel safe and secure, despite her tendency to withdraw from them and seek her own space, alone in her little room at the top of the stairs.
And so she slowly made her way up the staircase, opened the door to the room that offered her respite, and gently but courageously reached for one of the many notebooks by the window and began to write.
New Flavor
By Adriana Hernandez (student)
"I can't go tonight," she says.
"Alright," he answers. "We'll catch the movie another time."
They sit on the steps leading to the entrance of her work during her lunch hour. The gray brick building looms behind them.
"Let's go get some coffee, then. We still haven't tried that new flavor."
Her eyes remain on the street. "There's a full cup on my desk."
"Okay. You want -- "
"I have to get back to work."
She stands and leaves.
He watches the door swing shut behind her. He's going to have to try the new flavor on his own.
Bees Wax
Carla Hastings (student)
Long ago, before the world was truly formed, and there was only light and dark; there lazily lay a demon in the dark, and an angel who was perfectly perched above him in the light.
"It's stuffy and boring over there, isn't it? Why not come over here where no one cares what you do, wrong or right!" Said the demon to the seraphim.
The angel shook his head to the hellion. "That's just it, no one cares about you! Wouldn't you rather come over here where people care?"
"And have everyone in my business all the time? No thanks."
An Aspiring Engineer's Perspective
By Andrew Torres, Jr. (student)
Andvari Torony's boss used d fraze "Diminishing Marginal Returns" 2 describe how products continue 2 get smaller while prices continue 2 rise. I askt him 2 explain this 2 me bc I couldn't mmr whadit was; when he finisht explaining he was very proud of himself & even gloated, "Wow! I can't believe I know something u don't!" He was wrong; after his gloat I mmrd dat DMR is a ratio between labor expense & profit, but I di'nt have d heart to tell'im bc no1 likes a know-it-all.
Break It Up
By Sonny Bergqvist (student)
Spinning on his head, Kani gathered a noisy crowd on the AWC campus. "Do it again! One more!" rang out from all sides. His brother stood beside, manning the music. As he turned up the decibels, the crowd clapped, cheered and stomped with enthusiasm.
"Break it up! "Move on!" Not shouts from appreciative students, but rather campus police attempting to disperse the reported flash mob.
"Sure, I'll break it," replied Kani and moved into killer footwork followed by a freeze.
"Get out of here! Now!"
As Kani's brother shouldered the ghetto blaster and sauntered away, he shouted, "Tomorrow at noon."
On "Three"
By Rachel Roman (student)
The stakes were high, all eyes on her, the city lights became mesmerizing yet distracting all at the same time. Sirens were echoing in the distance. Droplets began to fall softly on her face, some kept falling, as if they knew what was about to happen. The air was cold making her balance unsteady. It rushed through her face making it harder to breath. Voices from below grew silent, none wanting to "pull the trigger" for her.
"KÖon threeÖoneÖ.twoÖÖ."
Suddenly, a man's voice pleaded out from behind. "Mamm!!! Please!!! Don't do this. Just give me your hand."
Characteristics of Living Things
By Helen Morgan (student)
The airline lost my luggage the day before, so I wore Mom's old dress while untangling her dang Christmas lights.
"Dad always had lights up. He'd like that," she said as she watched me from her recliner.
"Can't put them up for you today if it keeps raining," I said, irritably.
The phone rang fifteen minutes later, just as I got the lights untangled.
"Miss Tims? We found your luggage."
I turned to tell Mom the good news and found her sleeping in a golden ray of sunshine, my dog lying in her lap without a care in the world.
Like A Little Boy
By Jesus Ayala (student)
Everybody can see that this child has a new wardrobe. He no longer wears bright clothes nor tucks in his shirt but rather prefers to wear dark clothes, which blend him into the night. He no longer speaks with children his own age. He associates himself with the fellas down on the street corner. In his mind he has become a man; he talks like a man, he drinks like a man, and he fights like a man, but in the solitude of his room, when he comes home late with bruises and cuts, he cries like a little boy. AWC's 100-word short story contest winners announced
