We don’t think the short story gets enough love anymore. We adore short stories and the way whole worlds and the nuances of life can be conveyed in just a few pages.
With the aim of promoting women writers and getting a peek inside the heads of women who have lived and loved and failed and flourished, we hosted our first Short Story Contest, judged by these accomplished women.
It was difficult to narrow the 72 entries down to these four here. All submissions were judged blindly without names attached; it was the strength of the writing and narrative that won the judges over. We want to thank all who entered and all who love to read. And big congratulations to our four winners, here. Christina Kapp’s story is here; look for stories from the other three to be published over the next few weeks.
We hope to run the contest again next year, and we’re planning a Personal Essay Contest in the fall or winter. Stay tuned.
First Place: Christina Kapp, author of “Mother Daughter Reunion,” $500 Prize
Christina Kapp lives in New Jersey with her husband and two teenage daughters. She teaches at the Writers Circle Workshops and her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Vestal Review, Passages North, Hobart, The MacGuffin, PANK, Gargoyle and elsewhere. She welcomes you to follow her on Twitter @ChristinaKapp and visit her website: www.christinakapp.com.
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When did you start writing?
What is now close to three decades of writing stories started in college. I began my freshman year as a psychology major, but a friend talked me into taking a fiction writing course with her and it sounded like fun. Actually, if I’m honest, making stuff up sounded like less work than any of the other electives I was considering, so I figured I might as well go for it. I did not expect to love it. I did not expect that it would be the spark that would change my major to English and begin a whole lifelong trajectory through book publishing and higher education. I also learned that I was wrong about writing. It is a lot of work!
Do you mainly do short stories or do you work in other forms?
I do work in other forms, but I primarily write short stories. Sometimes I enjoy writing creative nonfiction, which for me just means that it’s a short story with an added bit of guilt that the people and places in it are real. I always worry that someone will be upset about finding themselves in a story, but so far no one has. I also love writing poetry, but I’m a little bit insecure about it. I have drafted a couple of really awful novels that someday I might get around to working with again, but short works are what I love and that’s primarily what I write.
What prompted your story Mother and Daughter Reunion?
My mother lives in Virginia and I live in New Jersey, so due to COVID we went almost a year without seeing each other. In March I drove down with one of my teenage daughters. It was wonderful to see my mom in person again, but the experience was also a bit jarring. Having gone so long without seeing one another, there’s an initial awkwardness that’s hard to dispel. I suddenly realized how much hadn’t been said over the course of so many months. My mother and I are older than the mother and daughter in the story and we’ve both been fortunate to have had a pretty safe and uneventful year, but the experience made me wonder what it would be like if there had been something significant happening in one of our lives. How do you convey deeply personal feelings like the ones in the story when there is no way to be physically present? They’re both withholding so much and they need to figure out how to break down those barriers again.
What other writing projects are you working on now?
I’m writing new stories—I’m always writing new stories!—but my big goal right now is to find a publisher for a collection of short stories. Aside from that, I’ve been working on a memoir about my grandfather that I’m building out of his unpublished recollections of being in the merchant marines and the Navy in World War II. Blending his experiences with my own memories of him and my life as a Gen Xer is a bit of a labor of love on my part, but I’ve always wanted to bring his writing to life in some way. Right now the draft feels pretty wide ranging and uses both poetry and story to build a connection between the generations and find some common ground across the nearly 100 years between his birth and present day.
Runner Up: Stephanie Gangi, author of “One of the Good Ones;” $100 Prize
Stephanie Gangi is a poet, novelist, short story writer and essayist living and writing in New York City. Her debut novel, The Next, was published by St. Martin’s Press and her second, Carry the Dog, from Algonquin Books will be published in November 2021 and has garnered early praise. Gangi’s work has appeared in Arts & Letters, Catapult, LitHub, Hippocrates Poetry Anthology, McSweeney’s, New Ohio Review, NextTribe, and The Woolfer. She’s at work on her third novel, The Good Provider.
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When did you start writing?
I have always been a secret writer. Across the years, I career-hopped but continued to write poetry and fiction as a “hobby,” without really knowing how to turn hobby into vocation. In my late fifties, divorced with two daughters launched into their own lives, I decided to teach myself how to write a novel. My debut was published when I was 60, and my second novel comes at 65. During those 5 years I’ve published poetry, essays and shorter fiction.
Do you mainly do short stories or do you work in other forms?
“One of the Good Ones” is only my second published short story; the first, called “The Rescue,” was published just this past February in Arts & Letters! I’ve had a number of essays published, won a couple of poetry awards, but I do love fiction.
What prompted your story “One of the Good Ones?”
Ha! I was actually happy to be living alone during the worst stretch of early coronavirus days in NYC. I started to contemplate how any of my ex’s and I would have navigated a global pandemic and lockdown; how would I have carried out my own quiet resistance without doing violence?
What other writing projects are you working on now?
My novel Carry the Dog comes out in early November and I’m in shock at the praise from other writers I’ve received as it starts to make its way into the world. We’re in the drive-to-pub-date phase and it’s exciting. Meanwhile, I’m editing for clients, and working on essays and my third novel, The Good Provider. Now with pandemic-y panic subsiding a bit, and socializing on the rise, I have had to remember how to protect my writing time!
Runner Up: Teresa Burns Gunther, author of “Kinship,” $100 Prize
Teresa Burns Gunther‘s work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, most recently: Pure Slush Books, Mid-American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review,The Dr. T. J. Eckleburg Review,and others. Her fiction has been recognized in contests at Writer’s Digest, Glimmer Train Press, MAR, Cutthroat, Narrative, Tupelo Quarterly, New Millennium Writings, Best New Writing and many more. Her story collection, Hold Off the Night was a Finalist for the 2019 Orison Book Prize, and her interviews and book reviews have appeared in Bookslut, Glimmer Train Press, Zyzzyva, Shambhala Sun, Literary Mama and others. Teresa is an Affiliate of Amherst Writer and Artists and the founder of Lakeshore Writers Workshop where she offers developmental editing services and leads writing workshops and classes.
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When did you start writing?
I’ve always been a writer, in notebooks, and in my head and have always been a bookworm. Growing up I thought only rich kids became artists and writers and went to school to get a job. After a successful career in the environmental policy world, I went back to college for a second Masters (Creative Writing) in 2004 when my children were young and began writing and publishing then. I am also a painter.
Do you mainly do short stories or do you work in other forms?
I love the short story form. I like the freedom it offers and the discipline it requires of me as a writer to make every word count. I write novels, essays, and some very flawed poetry too.
What prompted your story “Kinship?”
The death of my father during the pandemic, losing my office, and other hardships had me thoughtful about this time of life, and how as women, we deal with so many losses and yet find the strength to continue, as works in progress, to seek out beauty in surprising places and to find kinship with people and in places that inspire us to keep reaching out to embrace life’s possibilities.
What other writing projects are you working on now?
Am currently completing the first draft of a new novel, after completing a major rewrite of an earlier novel entitled “Shadow Lake.”
Honorable Mention: Sally Harvey, author of “Winslow”
Sally Harvey has radio-collared kangaroos in Australia and hitch-hiked to student homes in Zimbabwe. She now lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where she taught in the public schools and directed the Arts In Education and Gifted and Talented Programs. She writes, paints, and is a volunteer teacher of ENL and a researcher with Earthwatch teams. Her short stories have been published in Crucible, American Writing, and Ryder Magazine.
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When did you start writing?
When chemo for the treatment of leukemia came to call it brought writing along for company. Chemotherapy embraced my body and writing took over my brain, heart and hand. Ever a lover of others’ literature, my own fiction and life stories have demanded center stage over the last two decades.
Do you mainly do short stories or do you work in other forms?
Currently I’m writing short stories and pre-teen novels and occasionally a poem flows from my pen, for I write in long-hand on legal tablets then enter and edit on the computer.
What prompted your story “Winslow?”
“Winslow” came from place, comment, events, and magic. Place gives me voice. Earthwatch volunteer expeditions, educator fellowships, and an adventuresome spirit have given me settings. “Winslow,” like all my stories, is a piece tied to place. I volunteered on an archeological dig at Homolovi led by Earthwatch. My first love was the place…the entire area…and breaking down the name: win – slow.
Upon my return I read an article by a local reviewer who wrote, “The author got the character in trouble fast.” Those words have stuck with me. The following day at a group luncheon a woman at the table held forth about how she just might possibly leave her husband. I didn’t know her. I knew her husband who seemed sweet, responsible, and intelligent. My writing subconscious started writing.
But a final event got words to my legal tablet. I stepped through the back gate with my two big dogs to walk the hilly field that abuts the woods behind the farm where my husband and I live. The dogs ran instantly, silently chasing an entire family of coyotes. The dogs didn’t catch them. The story did.
Time is an elastic thing. It just all came together. Magic.
What other writing projects are you working on now?
Currently I’m working on the fourth novel in my pre-teen Maggie series while also writing a “Trans” short story in honor of my nephew who was once my niece.
