Meet the Winners and Finalists of the Wordclay Short Story Contests:

•Grand Prize Winner of the Short Story Collection Contest :

Legogote: Tales from the Bottom Township by Patricia Coble

Comment from our judges, Joel Pierson and Joseph Kerschbaum, about the Grand Prize winning collection:

Patricia Coble's collection of short stories took the top prize in Wordclay's 2008 short story competition. The finalists included several very talented writers, all with compelling stories to tell. The ease and naturalism with which Patricia told her tales stood out for the judges, transporting us to the faraway places of her stories, with a great deal of respect for the land and its people. There is a unity to the stories, linking them together within a larger framework, while giving each individual tale its due. These unpretentious and very readable stories appeal to all five senses, and are the hallmark of someone to watch on the literary scene.

The following is an excerpt from the story "Isaac" from Coble's collection:

From his perch on a sturdy bough of the marula, Isaac Nylunga watched the animated play of the barefoot children beyond the vegetable garden. Four of the six were his younger brothers and sisters, and from the seclusion of his favorite leafy retreat, Isaac was able to keep them within sight and hearing. Their sing-song chatter drifted up to him from the expanse of grassy field where they frolicked between the campus kitchen and the garden, and Isaac knew that from his lofty vantage he could maintain observation; in fact, he had discovered that if he trained his ears to be alert to the tones of the children's voices, it was not absolutely necessary to watch them constantly. He could cast his gaze in other interesting directions while listening for a cry, or a change in the pitch of the voices that might signal distress. Since he had learned to read, he had even taken to climbing up with a book occasionally, although this had proven to be risky. Reading had an uncanny power that consumed his attention completely and caused him to jolt in alarm when he realized that the sound of the children had faded from his consciousness for an undetermined length of time. Consequently, he had promised himself that he would only read in the tree if he could discipline himself to glance down toward the children at the end of each page.

Today, he looked beyond the field of children and the painted tin roofs of brick buildings, clean and new, scattered about the spacious campus grounds. The administrative building, the cafeteria and kitchen, classrooms, dormitories and faculty houses, one of which was his family's home, all situated in leisurely fashion around the beautiful central church, were set back from the highway on a sunlit hillside dotted with shade trees, both marula and acacia. The scene was one of tranquil beauty, and Isaac relished the security he felt as he surveyed his home, the only place he had lived since his birth ten years before.

 

© Patricia Coble

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•Runner-Up Winner of the Short Story Collection Contest:

Growing Up Girl by Anne Greenawalt

The following is an excerpt from "Tattoo," a story from Greenawalt's collection:

When I was fourteen, I fell in love with a tattoo artist. I found his studio while I cruised the streets of north Philly. My friends and I would kill time by walking up and down the streets for hours after the 2:55 bell rang. I used to go home after school, but after my mother left I tried to stay away from home as much as possible. My friends and I must have passed the tattoo studio every day, but I never noticed it until the painted wooden sign appeared above the door that said "Zak's Tats." On that day I saw him peeking out the dirt covered window at me. He was looking right at me, not at Sanja, Janie, or even at Kelis, who all the other boys liked to look at. She was tall and thin and had skin like chocolate milk. I got enough stares of my own growing up in that part of Philly. I was the token white girl in my class in school, except for Dina, but she didn't last long. My father used to tell me that I stuck out like a wart on a witch's nose.

I saw the artist's stare through the smoggy window, but I didn't look back. I walked a few more blocks before I stopped and told the girls to go on without me. I said I forgot to pick up some bread at the grocery store for my mother. I hadn't told them that she'd left over three weeks ago. When I asked my father how long she'd be gone, he said permanently. She'd moved to Florida . Packed up and bought a Greyhound Bus ticket the day after my fourteenth birthday. Dad said she'd left because she couldn't stand the northern winters.

The girls kept walking. I turned around and went back to Zak's Tats. I pulled open the door and stepped inside. I found myself in a tiny atrium with a brown couch that looked like a rodent's den. A desk, or rather a slab of wood with legs, with a telephone and a mess of paper, was pushed against the wall a few feet in front of the door. At first glance I couldn't see the other door because the room was so dark, but there was an entranceway to the left side of the desk.

"I'll be right there!" I heard a voice call from beyond the hidden doorway. A half a minute later, a boy, or a man as I thought of him at the time, appeared from the dark entrance of the wall.

© Anne Greenawalt

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•Grand Prize Winner of the Single Short Story Contest:

"Simulated in Black and White" by Samantha Weiss

Here's what our judges had to say about the winning story:

Weiss has crafted a short story with elements of science fiction, noir, and suspense. Readers will find this story intriguing, as well as haunting. We are proud to present "Simulated in Black and White" as the winner of the first Wordclay Short Story Contest.

Look for Weiss' story in the Best Modern Voices, Volume 2: A Short Story Anthology.

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•Runner-Up Winner of the Single Short Story Contest:

"This Is Called Prowess" by Benjamin Solomon

The judges provided the following statement about Solomon's story:

Never has a broken Casio seemed so sad, and this is a testament to Benjamin Solomon's short story, "This is Called Prowess." The authentic voice that Solomon crafts for the narrator of this story is funny, sort of pathetic (in an endearing way), and most importantly, authentic. The narrative revolves around a young man who is in love with a girl who barely knows he's alive. The commonality of the plot elicits empathy from readers, but it is the unique way with which the story is told and unfolds, which makes it so successful.

The following is the opening to "This Is Called Prowess"

Suddenly I want to stand closer to Bianca, the girl who has a crush on my friend. My friend is the friend that girls always have a crush on. He creeps up behind Bianca at the party and straightens her posture. Later he does it again, and I can tell she relishes his attention. I get sad for Bianca because I know what my friend means: "You slump Bianca, and this is why I am never going to fall in love with you." But Bianca is delighted when his big hands grab her shoulders and his thumbs anchor for leverage on either side of her spine and he pops her whole body upright. He's touching her and that's all that matters.

Bianca was in jail last week. I examine her outfit while she tells me the story of getting pulled over in her sister's car with the expired tag, and forgetting her license at home, and the cop not finding her license in the system, even though she does have one, and the cop asking her why she lied and then putting her in handcuffs and taking her to jail.

She's dressed in plaid. The plaid of her shirt almost matches the plaid of her headband, but not quite. The squares of the headband are bigger than the ones on the shirt, and the colors are slightly different, but if you don't look closely they seem to match. Bianca's also wearing a wide tie, which has diagonal stripes, almost a similar color to the plaid of her shirt, but not quite. The guy she's with is a stylish nerd with thick rimmed glasses and very little chin. He was in jail last week too.

"Why were you in jail?" I ask him, and Bianca watches me as the nerd talks about his brother being unstable when he drinks, and his brother trying to punch him, and him hitting his brother with a lamp in self defense, and someone calling the cops and both of them going to jail because his brother's arm was bleeding. I can tell Bianca has heard this story before by how she doesn't look at the nerd when he talks. She's looking at me because I'm a friend of the guy she has a crush on, and this makes me worthy of observation.

When I leave the party I grin at them and say, "You kids stay out of jail now, y'hear?" My authority-figure voice is more exaggerated than it needs to be.

This is because I am feeling shitty tonight.

© Benjamin Solomon

You'll find Solomon's entire story featured in the Best Modern Voices, Volume 2: A Short Story Anthology.

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Skye Alexander: "Cat's Cradle"

Chris Bloss: "Porch Lights"

Gayla Chaney: "Helena Montana Franklin Cox and the Redwood Forest "

Lisa Clark: "The Beauty of Acid"

Temple Cone: "Diviners"

Monica Danetiu-Pana: "Falling Off the Edge of the World"

Andrew Fairhurst: "Crash Landing"

Bethany Foster: "Notes on a Firing Squad"

Michael Gardner: "Sensible People"

Shelby Goddard: "Domestic Animals"

Melinda Lang: "CLICK, CLICK, CLICK"

Amanda Parrish: "Stop"

Jeremy Simmons: "Corentin"

Benjamin Solomon: "This Is Called Prowess"

Samantha Weiss: "Simulated in Black and White"