Still Water
A Midsummer Tale ~ Second Place Nancy Bouchard Photo Credit: Bobcatnorth My daughter wades in knee-deep ocean water, afraid of being eaten by a shark even though I’ve told her the water is too warm,...
View ArticleStepping into Summer
A Midsummer Tale ~ Third Place Tony Press Photo Credit: Mike Linksvayer It is colder than it looked from my living room. After three glorious days of sunshine, during which I had been pent up within...
View ArticleThe Grace of Grass
Creative Nonfiction Shaina Rafal Photo Credit: Carol Blyberg The cool summer wind whips wisps of hair along my neck as I scan the rocky shore before me. I hear faint giggling up the hill—and at first I...
View ArticleAnd He Remembers
Creative Nonfiction Daniel Beaudoin Photo Credit: Fabrizio Comolli The drive into Tel Aviv from the airport goes smoothly so early in the morning. This grants him more time. He brakes gently so as not...
View ArticleCrying Cancer
Creative Nonfiction Hayley Cooper Photo Credit: Deann Barrera I was only a Nurse’s Aide at the nursing home for a little over one month when I saw someone die. The first week of work wasn’t so bad....
View ArticleAnd Another Thing
Creative Nonfiction Nathan Evans Photo Credit: Taylor Sloan Despite all appearances to the contrary, I am very far from an ideal husband. For a start, nothing is ever my fault. I realised this very...
View ArticleBrief from Oma
A Midsummer Tale ~ First Place Laura Story Johnson Photo Credit: Laura Story Johnson When their family finally got off Ellis Island, my great-great-grandfather purchased his five daughters and one son...
View ArticleBeing My Mom
A Midsummer Tale ~ Second Place Amy Gantt Photo Credit: Amy Gantt In the spring of 1992, when I was seventeen years old, I got out the purple pen I’d bought myself with the money I earned cleaning the...
View ArticleThe Adolescent Letters
A Midsummer Tale ~ Third Place Anna Shuster Photo Credit: Anna Shuster A warm August wind followed me down the street to the mailbox, playing with the corners of the envelope in my hand. Inside that...
View ArticleSuitcases
Creative Nonfiction Matthew Zanoni Müller Photo Credit: Deb Collins My father had a few shirts he wore all the time. I remember one in particular. It was black, and showed some form of wooden gate in...
View ArticleSuckers
Creative Nonfiction Melissa Leavitt Photo Credit: Bill Selak I almost flunked my interview when I applied to volunteer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The volunteer coordinator looked at me, straightened...
View ArticleQingyundian Vignettes
Creative Nonfiction Hannah Samuels Photo Credit: Alexandra Moss 1. ping-pong A gate just a few apartment buildings down from where we live looks exactly like the doorway to Bilbo Baggins’s home, a...
View ArticleInheritance
Creative Nonfiction Susan Lago Photo Credit: JL Stricklin When I was twenty-five I thought I was going blind. One day I was driving home from work and when I stopped at the light I saw a glowing circle...
View ArticleAs I Walk Out One Evening
A Midsummer Tale ~ First Place HC Hsu Photo Credit: Anthony Kelly Beautiful It was early in the evening. I was walking down the street, on the side of a big, busy road. I was walking, and walking… and...
View ArticleWith Accompaniment by
Creative Nonfiction HC Hsu Photo Credit: Mary/goldsardine A few days ago I saw a video online; it was Mai Yamane singing “Amazing Grace.” The place was probably somewhere in Tokyo, Japan, in what...
View ArticleWhen We Still Knew What It Meant to Be Kids
A Midsummer Tale ~ First Place Krista Varela Photo Credit: Éole Wind That summer before high school, the desert was ruthless. The weeds had become overgrown, shooting up through the ground to graze our...
View ArticleAdvice
Creative Nonfiction Ron Riekki I want you to watch Buffalo ’66. I want you to read Sarah Kane. I want you to see Václav Havel’s Temptation. I want you to make out with people from every ethnicity on...
View ArticleTransmutation
Creative Nonfiction Marsa Laird My mother died fifteen years ago. The last time we spoke she revealed to me confidentially that she had once had two daughters. All I could think of was King Lear. After...
View ArticleFreedom to Wander
Creative Nonfiction Mary Lewis On the Tundra In the days when we first started hearing about windchill on the radio, a cold spell in southern Minnesota brought the felt temperature down to -92, though...
View ArticleA Field Guide to Missing
Creative Nonfiction Emily Pifer First, you must leave or get left. The truth is: you have less control over the getting left, and more over the leaving. Not to mention, if you’re left, it doesn’t feel...
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