Winners from October 29, 2010

1st Place: Letters to the Heart by Rachel Kellis
Kellis charms us this week with her whimsical and bittersweet Letters to the Heart. While Kellis relies heavily on line breaks and language to set the tone of her piece, perceptive readers will also notice her staggered rhythm, intended--and to good effect--to leave the reader breathless, reeling, guessing. It's a talent of Kellis's to imbue her writing with a certain drama. Read a line of her poetry and suddenly, you're standing on a windswept precipice, only inches from falling to your death. Read a piece of prose, and you're locked in the vice of an unseen monster, battling for your life.
Download and read Letters to the Heart.
2nd Place: Baby Teeth by Caroline Bybee
What Bybee does to such great effect in Baby Teeth is capture the vernacular of irritable youth, combine that vernacular with the shrill cries of an infant--which we somehow seem to hear, right along with the protagonist--and top it all off with subject matter to which most of us can relate. The result? We both understand her protagonist and wish he would just shut up. It's a brilliant pairing--the shrieks of an infant with the infantile complaints of an older sibling. But then, we can hardly explain it in one small paragraph. You'll just have to see (and hear) for yourselves.
Download and read Baby Teeth.
3rd Place: Spiders by Liz Bushman
This short piece of imaginative humor is a fun read for anyone who has ever recoiled at the sight or suggestion of a spider, or wondered how to use italics to good effect. Bushman does an excellent job of exploring both. Bushman writes in a personalized dialect, as if she relating the story to you over tea. Readers intrigued by the humor genre will want to take note of her ending, which utilizes the expected but nonetheless startling finish to cap the piece.
Download and read Spiders.

Featured Publication

A Pilot's Guide to Washington

This book is a guidebook for private aviators in Washington State, or folks visiting the State. Washington State is among the most beautiful and diverse states in the Union. There are flat and dry desserts, stunning basalt formations, towering mountains, rolling grass hills, thick rain forests, island archipelagos, and lakes and rivers and straits and sounds. Well, one sound. And we have roughly a billion airports to visit. (I'm exaggerating slightly.) It would be shame to be a pilot living in or visiting Washington State and not deeply partake of the richness of this opportunity.

Order the book from: Amazon.