2021 One Syllable Winner: “Fine” by Sandra Fischer
The call she knew would come came. He’s gone, they said. Died in his sleep. Tears fell, some for joy that he was free. She could let him go at last. In a sense, he’d been gone for six long years since they first heard why his speech was mixed and strange. The words […]
2021 Multi-Syllable Winner: None
There were no entries in the multi-syllable three hundred word contest.
2020 Multi-Syllables Winner: “Empty Rooms” by William Polf
He drove straight through, despite his full bladder and his aching left knee. He wanted to get to the summer house before sunset, and he still had twenty miles to go. He had considered stopping at the general store, but that would mean another round of condolences from whoever happened to be there, and he […]
2020 One Syllable Winner: “Just Once” by Jane Shlensky
Since the stroke, his words won’t come—hide and seek, smudge and slur, thoughts and tongue as thick as mud yet clear to him. “Speak?” He is urged by his nurse, his wife, his son, as if he will bark and wag for a treat, sit, heel, stay. “Drink? Eat? Sleep? Pee? Pooh?” they […]
2019 One Syllable Winner: “Life’s a Tale You Write as You Go” by Judith Stanton
Or so said Gran, the old witch. Who knew what she saw, what lay in the way; the then, the now, the what would be. For me, who loved her, and the tall pole beans she grew out back, and the wild red rose in her front yard where the red oaks soared high […]
2018 One Syllable Winner: “Don’t” by Pat Shipman
I don’t talk much. They say I should. They say it is rude. They say I am strange, not right like them. They say they get scared when I don’t speak. I do not say mean things. I do not say at all. But if you talk, they learn who you are. The sounds […]