The winners have been chosen!
- Mary Miller — “Baby Baby” by Becky Adnot-Haynes
- Adam Novy — “The Bashful Tree Sculpture, Guarder of the Pond” by Courtney Maum
- Karl Taro Greenfeld — “El Desierto” by Suzanna Quintana
- Jess Stoner — “Scratch Patrol Presents: The Big Game” by Kate McIntyre & Joe Aguilar
- Elizabeth Ellen — “Stromatolites” by Robert Shaw
- Dylan Nice — “We Shall Fill Our House With Spoil” by Delaney Nolan
my wonderful friend, rob shaw, who can write the shimmer behind wheat, is one of these winners. he sent me this story when the trees were still soaking up road salt, and his stuff is all loam. it’s also montana and letters. in college, rob and i were one part of a bouquet of scraggly kid writers who sat at a cheap greek cafe in madison with velvet paintings and dank wallpaper. rob was my senior thesis partner in crime, and we drank johnny walker on the limnology building’s dock when we were finished and shouted at the water. we painted houses together that summer and biked to work and got high here and there in rob’s car or on roofs. much later we’d end up in france at the same time and decide to go into the tunnels in prague. now it’s a different summer and it’s been a long time. it was pointed out to me that i’m lucky to have had this group of writer friends, who have all gone on do mountainous things writing wise and still haunt each other about it (on the internet at the very least). i know this, but i’m not sure i have any clue yet as to what kind of forest we are/were to each other. we are still all waiting, a little longer i think, on those voices we ordered from the bar. that probably doesn’t make sense. but anyway, i just sent a message to one bouquet kid that says, where are you and we haven’t g-slopped in so long and our friend rob is moving big buffalo around and i’m watching them as they glance by.
