CREATIVE WRITING EXCERPTS

From “Water Down Drains,” by Mark Burnham,
winner of the Shirle Dorothy Robbins Creative Writing
Award:
Not to say my dad didn’t look out for me. One of my earliest
memories of him is one like that. I was four years old, he was
twenty-seven, and we were across the street from the apartment, at
Ellis Lake; not really a lake so much as an ugly pond. But there
were ducks to feed bread to, and swings, and that’s all I
needed. I was four. So I was perfectly elated feeding the ducks
down by the water’s edge, the thought of McDonald’s and
Sesame Street in my head, when out of some cave comes this
ravaging, mean, bitch-ass old goose. The goose looked at me and
immediately felt hate. Not really taking the time to ponder or
evaluate this hate, the goose merely resolved itself on savoring
it, relishing. I, on the other hand, only felt love for the goose,
and wanted to pet the goose and stroke its silky down. I think the
goose had horns; I was a simple child. The goose decided it would
rectify and assuage its hate for me by wholly devouring my body,
and it started by taking a honk-powered nip out of the skin above
my knee. My father took a couple quick steps from behind and
quickly scooped up me whilst I screamed in complete horror, and set
me gently down behind him. I remember he said, “It’s
Ok. Stay here.” He turned and faced the goose. He looked into
hateful-goose’s icy eyes; it was dad vs. goose now.
Hateful-goose charged a’honking; it would eat us both if it
couldn’t have just the small one, but my dad was ready for it
and he kicked that fucking goose square in the chest. It was a
monstrous kick, an adult kick. Hateful-goose honked in pain and
waddled away perhaps a little wiser, the bastard. And
honest-to-God, I’ve felt protected by him ever since. There
is a bear-like quality I would say to his presence, and the man is
a tank: 5’6 and I honestly have no idea how many pounds, but
stocky and menacing, ogre-like. When I was younger and we used to
wrestle, like play-fight or whatever, his style was slow moving but
extremely powerful; he was a grappler, an expert with holds. He was
brutal but playful at the same time. Instead of this being a
repellant it was a comfort. At least he was crazy enough to defend
the house if someone should actually try to break in.

From “In the Forests of Nottingham,” by
Aaron Fai, winner of the Ruth Brill Scholarship
Award:
Shortly after taking over the business, Wendy had taught me how to
cut men’s hair. Male customers made her hands stiff and
uncooperative, and we received the most complaints from those who
had suffered under those hands, of lopsided sideburns, of massages
that had only tangled the muscles in their shoulders even more so.
She believed it was because most men enjoy other men cutting their
hair and that’s why most went to male barbers. It was a
cooperative sport, like gambling or baseball, and the presence of a
woman hairdresser made them feel like the bookworm who’d
chosen to sit out. The man’s coarse hair was a dark grey I
remember, and he said a few things about the weather, which that
day shared an equally deep shade. He pointed to my reflection in
the mirror and asked accusingly how I’d kept the black on top
of my head. I laughed and poked at a box of hair coloring on the
shelf with my comb. He laughed and said that he’d take one,
though he didn’t mean it when he paid, no tip. At that time,
my hair had never grayed, not one strand. I looked in the mirror
and saw wrinkles, prominent crows-feet, small pockmarks adorning my
cheeks, but it was beneath a great mop of blackness. Ten years
later, in the months after Wendy had disappeared, my son already
gone, my hair, as if it had been holding it in like a breath
underwater, turned white in the course of a week. By Saturday, I
combed my hair and the plucked strands that sat between the teeth
of the blue comb shone the color of glittery snow. I changed into
my running clothes in the storage room and jumped the fence between
the back alley and the park grounds. It was raining and a couple
hooded bicyclists whooshed by me on the path, each kicking up some
mud to meet my bare calves. The trail was lumpy and pebbles
clustered in random formations and you could tell you weren’t
running on a concrete foundation. My feet were moving on top of
rich dirt good enough to use as potting soil. The park’s dead
prairie plain was flat and bare and a cold wind flew down its face
before hitting the two far rows of Douglas firs where I was headed.
The trees greeted me almost like one of those old canopied streets
you see in pictures of Maine, engulfing my world entirely with its
smell of winter rot and its green. It was easy not to notice the
shovels left around the site and the sprinkler heads peaking out
from underneath the grass and imagine that I was in Washington
again or even further north in the forests that populate that part
of the map of North America where the continent just breaks up and
dissipates. The man walking down the trail towards me had a black,
wide-brimmed hat and he smelled like at least an hour’s worth
of rain and a hint of camphor. I learned the name of his dog,
Titan, who he held by a short leash, when I looked at its tag a
half hour later after the man and I were done and finished, not
even saying goodbye, but I never learned the man’s name.
Because he had the look of someone who had a question, I slowed
down, which is when I first heard it, the password, with a rolling,
slightly formal accent. “Two thieves meet in the forests of
Nottingham,” he said. Many times since, I have turned this
phrase over and over again in my head, like a coin, examining its
many significances and meanings. It is a long password, one that
I’ve heard shortened by men too embarrassed to repeat the
whole sentence, choosing to blurt out, like coughing, “Two
thieves,” or even just “Nottingham.” But this man
with the dog said the sentence clearly and he flicked the end of
each word as if pushing them up into my ears and the still of the
air.

From “Riding the Seduction Express with Max
Powers,” by Erika Herman, winner of the Shirle Dorothy
Robbins Creative Writing Award:
Clare lunged then plowed into the pricing for various ad
categories. She became all business, donned the perfect poker face.
Her voice was still so clear, so knowing. I found myself not
wanting to talk (something really unusual for me). As I sat there
in silence, a strange thing happened: she got even more beautiful.
The panther, stealthily posed, ready to pounce, slackened its
tensed haunches. She was dominating me. Her voice grew more and
more penetrating. I noticed the elegant curve of her clavicle that
crept from beneath the lapel of her fitted department-store (bless
her!) pinstripe blazer. She was becoming more and more vivid. She
was becoming. Period. Before my eyes, like fast-motion footage of a
rose blooming, the light coming and going and coming again around
its surrendered, stoic posture. And all I had to do was shut up. Is
this the way to see beauty? I thought to myself. My mother was
always telling me to Hush up! or Simmer down! when I was a boy. I
don’t think she foresaw my obedience yielding something as
transcendent as this, but I wished I had listened to her. I was
thirty-three and only really seeing things for the first time.