Geist Writing Contests

First Prize

Iris Wilde

I grew up under my mother’s skirt. Light filtered through climbing roses and morning glory. There was room for a child’s table and two chairs. When my friends came, we drank tea and ate finger sandwiches. Mom didn’t like cops and robbers. Too many bruises on her shins.

Second Prizes

Marial Shea

Cornell hates alcohol of all descriptions. “I almost died of the drink,” he says.

Jane Webster

That wedding got a little out of hand. I was sixteen and my father was anxious to see me married off because I had four younger sisters.

Third Prizes

Paulette Bourgeois

I killed a cat on the way to work. It darted under a fence and I felt a thud against my right rear tire.

Gail Buente

1. Go to bank.
2. Pick up bus tickets.
3. Find my sunglasses.

First Prizes

Terri Favro

You’re lucky. I only checked my messages because I came into town for ibuprofen and marshmallows. What’s up?

Christopher Geisel

For thirty-eight years, all I knew about my daddy was his last name: Buchanan, same as mine, and that was all right with me until Mama died.

Second Prize

Shana Myara

God forbid he’s watching over her at this moment. God forbid he’s taken pains to come watch over her right now and she’s just sitting on her ass on the couch staring at the cereal crumbs stuck in the corner of a notebook. God forbid he’s aware that she got this notebook from the kitchen cupboard that stores their family’s crappy miscellany—candles, shoe polish, jar lids, crumpled road maps of Vancouver Island—and that this is the dirty notebook in which she plans to summarize his life.

Third Prize

Judith Penner

It’s usually her mother’s story: what she was wearing, who came to visit, what kind of flowers were sent, the weather in Winnipeg. In that month of ripening sometimes there isn’t enough rain, sometimes too much. But on this hot August morning of someone’s arrival, others are waiting: having breakfast, reading books, making zwieback, looking for somewhere to live.