2016 SHort Prose COntest RESULTS

WINNER: ERIC VAN HOOSE
"SUNDAY NIGHT"

"Carrie and her mother have gone to bed, but Richard cannot sleep. He’s reclining, browsing news on the family’s laptop, and has clicked the largest headline. The suicide bombers were part of a militant terrorist group. That’s what the first sentence of the article says."

RUNNER UP: EDGAR KUNZ
"FREE ARMCHAIR, WORCESTER"

"He pinches the j between his first two fingers squints an eye against the ribbon of smoke sliding up and over his cheekbone. It’s me my buddy Ant and Ant’s step-dad Randy a half-ass house painter who’s always trying to hit us up for weed or pills even though we’re thirteen and don’t do pills or have any idea how to get them."

RUNNER UP: MEGAN GIDDINGS
"UPRIGHT DEATH"

"Make a duplicate of your body. Shrink it down. Touch your tiny hands. Consider if this is what it means to be a mother. Go to the store and buy a green felt board. Smooth it soft. Pull an insect pin from your desk drawer. Stick it neat, swift through your torso. Notice how your miniature’s scream sounds like a boiling lobster’s."

runner up: ryan habermeyer
"A genealogical approach to my father's ass"

"Olaf Haber, respected oat farmer, ate raw human buttocks in the closing days of the third Silesian War. He never fired his weapon in combat. He never saw the ocean. He never met his son. It is written he was an accomplished kisser."