Poetry and Prose from the Center for Writers
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Fiction
* WINNER, FICTION
Banjo Light by LAUREN OETINGER
The morning he left he had bread in his pocket, had every dollar he’d ever saved in his wallet, and didn’t say goodbye to his mother. If he said one word it would be fifteen and she would know.
My Life by MARCUS BROWN
The confusion started many years ago when they told me to kill my sister. I listened to them and now they have me in Whitfield. The guards call me schizophrenic. My mom calls me homicidal. Who cares, it’s only a freaking name.
Lovely Things by JOSHUA MICHAEL JOHNSON
The suspension of Lynda’s LeSabre popped and groaned as the aged car dipped through the underpass where East Main suddenly dove under a railroad bridge. The underpass was where Lynda always started to wonder if she was doing the right thing.
Security by TANJA NATHANAEL
What's this?
A book.
What?
It's a book.
Nights Without Sleep by HENRY B. SHEPARD III
It’s a soft noise. Somewhere on the far side of the room, where the closet is. A small tap of metal scraping metal, like a key slipping into a lock.
Waiting by S.L. WOODS
She sits and waits. On the front porch of the quaint beige house, she sits barefoot with her scraped elbows pressed to her scraped knees and her tiny face propped up on her small, doll-like hands. She sits and stares out into the yard through her sparkling brown eyes⎯a lock of her hair gently blowing in the slow, warm wind and caressing her cheek.
Non-Fiction
With Onions Come Tears by BEN JONES
Mom tells me all the time that God looks at us like we are onions: “He takes each layer of our life and peels it away. God makes us become so utterly weak and helpless and forces us to rely wholly on Him. God did this to your daddy,” she said.
Down 49 by JONATHAN SNYDER
It’s an unusually warm day in October, and I’m standing in Jefferson Davis’s front doorway. He’s not home at the moment; in his place is a rotund, middle-aged man who guards the door and lets people come in and not touch things.
Poetry
* WINNER, POETRY
...And the Water Absconded by MATTHEW GERMENIS
A City Kind of Pain, or How to Feel Blue
by HANNAH BAKER
Untitled 1
by MARCUS BROWN
My Child, My Child
by JAMES CURTIS
Total Darkness
by ALICE DOYLE
Untitled Ode to Getting Over It
by VICKIE HALL
Dad
by LENA LOUVIERE
Ruins of a Young Woman
The Strawberry Queen
by JEFFREY MACLACHLAN
Empty Movie Theater
B-Movie
by KARA M. MANNING
One Night: one of many, the same but not.
The Mechanics of Falling
by TANJA NATHANAEL
Dali Giger Intersection
by BRITTANY PASSONS
Stillborn Poem
by STAR ROSALES
I Am Suicide
by HENRY B. SHEPARD III
When We Were Drunk Last Tuesday
We Switched Lives