By Tena Laing
2014 Winner: Adult
A Field Guide to Dragons (and Other Exotic Animals)
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…]
Double Take
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…]
Glimmer
By Paula Boon
2005 Winner
CHAPTER 1: Anna
My life was fine before I met Crystal. I knew who I was and where I was headed, and I never really thought about why. Okay, it wasn’t exciting or inspired. There wasn’t much whimsy or delight. But it was fine.
Crystal changed everything. For a few precious weeks, she turned the white light of my world into rainbows. With her, I looked at things more closely, felt more deeply, and started to be more honest with myself and others.
That was before everything went wrong. Afterwards I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know if I could trust anything she had said or done – or, in fact, if I could trust myself.
I suppose I should go back to the beginning, to that first flash of light from across the bay. [Read more…]
The Last Battlewipe
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…]
With Sword and Salt
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…]
I Was A Teen Aged Zombie
By Lenore Butcher
2014 Honourable Mention: Young Adult
She was facing a long night alone in the house and she didn’t think she could take it anymore. She had to get out. If she stuck around the house, she thought she might end up getting drunk again and she didn’t want to be that pathetic loser who got drunk by herself every night. That was someone else entirely, definitely not Katie Byron.
She put her jacket on and left the house. She had no idea where she was going, just she couldn’t stay home tonight. [Read more…]
Shoes, Socks & Other Body Parts: A Collection of Shorts
By Jennifer Turney
2019 Winner: Adult
Step, Swing, Slide, Stomp : The Tree-Planter Returns
It was another Friday in June; the day they had been waiting for all week. There had been frost on the windows that morning that had since melted away as the sun climbed. The nights were still cool enough to keep a fire burning low in the stove. For once Matty’s mother hadn’t had to rush him to finish his lunch so they could walk into town. His shoes were already tied as she came down the stairs, at least, as tied as a five-year old’s can be when in a hurry. [Read more…]
That’s Me In The Corner
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…]
Half Dead & Fully Broken
by Kevin Craig
2010 Winner: Young Adult
CHAPTER ONE
Lately, people cry whenever they come near me. Whenever I come near them.
My life wasn’t always this way. They used to be indifferent. Before the accident, I sometimes wondered if I even existed at all. Not anymore. Now, all I have to do is walk into a room and someone is bound to burst into tears. Guaranteed.
I don’t really blame them. I haven’t been able to look in a mirror since the 6th of May, myself. I can’t bear to do it. [Read more…]