Winners
Thanks so much to everyone who entered our First Page Contest!
We read so many amazing first pages, and are very excited to present
the winners.
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A hearty congratulations to the following:
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M
y mother died attempting a cartwheel outside the Rusty Pelican Restaurant in Newport Beach, California when I was twenty-two years old.
Krisserin Canary, ​"The Incredible Gustaufson Women"​
Women in the Gustaufson family have a history of dying incredible deaths. Twenty years after the death of her own mother, Marina is dealing with the realities of what the women in her family have passed down to her, and how she can prevent leaving the same inheritance to her two young daughters.
1st Place
F I C T I O N
2nd Place
ere's the thing about break-ups.
H
bethany bARTon, "Watching Paint Dry"​
Fiction. Young Adult. Truth "Ruthie" Ford is just another teenage girl that got dumped. At least, she thinks she got dumped. When her boyfriend's band is signed by a major label he's whisked out of school and plastered on the radio. How do you get over someone who's everywhere? From this oh-so-public crack in the perfect self she’d been projecting, she finds something more beautiful than what she started with. Something inside; the actual Truth.
C R E A T I V E N O N F I C T I O N
1st Place
1st Place
T
I
2nd Place
B
f you’ve ever politely averted your eyes from the unholy sight of a gangling, unshaved man wheezing his way across campus as he strains under the weight of an unreasonably large black portfolio, I’d like to explain myself.
Rafael Abrahams, "Atlas Lugged"​
A college student employed as a part-time map scanner for his university library describes the physical and intellectual weight of cartographic copies, and recounts the comical trials of his task.
ill Walton used to drive sixty miles from Philadelphia to the Uline distribution center in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania to pack his truck with 3 x 3 x 3 inch corrugated cardboard boxes.
Samantha Sharf, "From bits and pieces: Bill Walton's studio"​
My piece explores the life and art of late Philadelphia sculptor Bill Walton through the materials he left behind—his loved ones, his studio and his art. It is part profile, part memoir and part inventory. Walton is an artist in transition, although long celebrated within Philadelphia's arts community he received little attention outside of his hometown until very recently. Like his art Walton is hard to pin down. Either by design or by nature, he revealed himself slowly. He kept components of himself hidden so that few people claim to know the whole picture. Today I see the piece as a collaboration with the people who knew Bill best.
S C R I P T S
he sound of moaning drifts in and out of corridors as expectant mothers on gurneys line the hallways.​
Steve & Jeff Shank, LUREEN
Lureen, a large, powerful woman—who stands out but doesn’t fit in—finds meaning and purpose hunting down felons and meting out her own brand of justice. One day she encounters a 13-year-old boy (CORY) whose mother (ANNIE) has fled with her son from Texas to escape his abusive father (HANK), a rural sheriff. But, as Lureen tries somewhat awkwardly to interact with her newfound friends, she struggles even more with the realization that fully disclosing who she is and what she does could bring down the house—but that failure to do so would be a lie and a betrayal. All of this comes to a head when a man she is planning to kill is freed by Cory. When Hank then shows up to take Cory back to Texas, Lureen must choose between saving the boy…or forever losing a friend who doesn’t want to see his father killed.
2nd Place
single yellow traffic light flickers in dead silence.​
A
Teresa Huang, "Children of Eden"
TV Pilot. For the children of Eden, Massachusetts, it’s just another September morning. Gossip, hormones, and misplaced anger rule the school. Until all the adults around them suddenly stop what they’re doing and drop dead. Chaos ensues and leaders emerge as the youth struggle through grief and fear to build a new community and survive. Three adults are still alive – why them? When everyone learns the event was global, reality sets in. All the parents are gone – they’re on their own. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but in Eden, the children will raise the village.
