By Shellie Westlake
2012 Winner: Young Adult

I could think of about a hundred and forty-seven things I’d rather do than spend the next two months on a goat farm. And just for the record, none of those things involved hitching a ride in something that barely qualified as a flotation device with a hairy chauffeur named Andre. At least, I thought that was his name—it was hard to understand through all the fur on his face.

Did I mention fur-face was wearing a cloak? Like a full on, hood over the head, hem sweeping the floor, thick black cloak. This may have been normal if he had picked me up somewhere like, the Antarctic, but it struck me as an unusual choice of clothing, seeing as how we were within thirty degrees of the equator. [Read more…]

By Paula Boon
2006 Runner Up: Young Adult

LIGHTS, CAMERAS…

Set for Life! trumpeted an army of royal blue signs in one corner of the lobby as Jason stepped off the elevator. Leaving behind the grey-haired lady who’d been eyeing his dragon tattoo since the third floor, he walked across the marble tiles, feeling conspicuous in his ripped jeans. He wondered once again if he was crazy.

The signs, swaying slightly in the air-conditioned breeze, framed a strange scene: more than a dozen teenagers were milling around in an intensely lighted space, and their every move was being recorded. [Read more…]

By Ruth Walker
2014 Winner: Young Adult

One: Outside Main Station

Keep low, tight to the ground.

Lesser sun is still high but soon prime sun will set and I haven’t enough to fill my tell. I stop. Listen. Lift my nose just high enough to catch what’s on the air.

Undeserving animal. Close by. The sweatstink as clear as Blessed Leader’s vision.

I hold my breath. Wait. And then I hear it. Breath of one in a struggle. Trying to keep still, knowing something’s near.

Truetell, I’m coming anyway. [Read more…]

By Lenore Butcher
2015 Winner: Young Adult

TORY

The night before she saw the Burning Man for the first time, Tory went on her fourth date with the baddest boy from Karn Avenue and she saw her first ghost. Thinking back on it much later, after she’d gone through everything else, she couldn’t sort out if the two were related or not.

The date was at a local restaurant, a little place calling itself a ‘bistro’ that used to be a dance bar. Before it was a dance bar, it had been an upscale restaurant and before that it had been a heritage landmark, the former dwelling of one of the town’s upper muckity mucks.

It was definitely not the kind of place you’d expect to see the local drug dealer and her biker boyfriend. Tory loved shaking up the straights, going places she knew they didn’t want her. [Read more…]

by Kevin Craig
2014 Honourable Mention: Young Adult

CHAPTER ONE

I’m trapped in my bedroom again, impatiently waiting for the screaming to end. I know it won’t. I sit cross-legged in the middle of the bed and rock back and forth. My therapy position.

Mom and Dad are down the hall in the living room, screaming about dividing assets. Again. She claims the contents of the den, and he gets the credenza in the dining room. Sheer madness. Not once in the hour since the blow up began have either one of them volunteered to take me. Through the whole entire list of the inventory of their lives, I have been left off the tally. In fact, my name—my existence—hasn’t even come up. [Read more…]

by Kevin Craig
2011 Winner: Young Adult

CHAPTER ONE

My circle is usually just made up of Adam, Sadie, and me. Just the three of us. It’s always been this way and I imagine it’s the way it will always be. Though, it’s kind of hard to visualize our future together. Not exactly the normal family unit, is it?

But what’s normal, right? [Read more…]