Monday, August 08, 2011

Sox Knocker contest winner!


As usual you torment me with your talent.


Not quite a story in and of itself, but holy hell, these entries enticed me:

JaredZ 12:18pm
Patty Blount 12:57pm
JustWriteCat 2:59pm

GregKShipman 4:51am
Sass 10:43am
Michael G-G 11:12am



My favorite new word: excogitating
M.R. Jordan 1:16pm




clever, clever, clever
Dave 10:40am



Great line:
my fevered eyes darting between the two men in front of me: the whole and the severed.

Maja 5:44pm


One minute she was spreading jelly on my sandwich, the next she was looking at me like I was a t-bone.
Adrienne 8:11pm




He'd seen so many dreams roll down the alley and into the gutter that he'd lost all hope of a break.
Celdaran 11:52pm



You’re not even my type—a t-bone tossed at a vegan—and yet I’m stark, cravin’ mad.
Catcaller 2:27am





Karl pinned his foot, drunk with Autobahn fever.

Steve Forti 8:46am



Great opening lines:

Centerville's annual Food Fling Fever Festival always attracts its most reclusive citizens. Every year at the appointed hour, hermits, misanthropes, and agoraphobes swarm the main square, bleary-eyed and unkempt, dragging their precious launchers behind them.

Shaunna 12:05am











These four made the first cut, good stories all

Patrick DiOrio 2:00pm
Curtis 5:06pm

Terri Coop 9:26pm
Kate Outhwaite 5:40pm





These next three made the second cut a VERY hard choice
Kregger 12:17pm
jesse 3:16pm
steven 3:37pm





These are the three finalists:


K 9:22pm

The echocardiogram took forever. Hard to believe that heart was worth anything, yet a 23 year old grad student with a congenital defect had fingers crossed.

Organ donors were bleeding-heart socialists in Mike’s world.

But his brain had been jelly since he rolled his damned mid-life Camaro over the bank to be t-boned by the oncoming truck. Brain dead, on life support and burning with fever—what was left of his life lay in my hands.

The dead blonde riding shotgun made it too easy.

“I’ll sign,” I said. Mike’s heart was still mine to give away.



Germaine Dulac 3:48am


When he asked me what I wanted, I said broiled t-bone, two fried eggs, side of hashbrowns, hot roll with butter--fresh churned, if they had it.

He brought the food himself. Even kept me company while I ate.

Afterwards, he offered me a Jolly Rancher. I thanked him, popped one in my mouth and waited. We talked sports. A man came to see me, said a few fevered words and left. I checked the clock. Footsteps echoed. Finally he took out his keys.

The walk was short.

When he strapped me down, I didn’t say much. Just thanked him again.



Becke Davis 4:38pm

Life was a jelly roll, T-Bone decided.

He drooled a little just looking at it—the damn thing was a fever in his blood. He knew the rule about no table scraps. His master’s voice said it so often the words were a constant echo, giving him a headache.

But was it technically a “scrap” if it was still on the table? Perched on his master’s plate, in fact, while he went for a refill of coffee? He thought not.

Sluuuurp!

“T-Bone! Where’s my jelly roll?”

Jelly roll? he burped. What jelly roll?




I'll have you know it was no easy task to decide the winner this time. Each is wonderful in its own way. I thought about taking the easy way out and saying "they ALL win" but didn't. I changed my mind at least twice about who the final winner is too. So really, you all did win, at least once.  The one who wins last though is K 9:22pm 



The prize is terrific too: an ARC of A CORPSE'S NIGHTMARE by Phillip DePoy. I read this last week and it knocked my sox off. No surprise there: the editor is Keith Kahla and Keith is largely responssible for this backlog of work I have cause whenever he sends me a book I can't seem to stop reading.



I printed the warning on a mug to remind myself to NOT OPEN THOSE PACKAGES:




the back of the mug is the first line of the book:



so yea, you want to read it.  Unless you are K 9:22pm you can Pre-order here! If you are K, drop me an email and I'll send you the book and the mug!

And thanks to everyone who entered!

17 comments:

Patty Blount said...

Congrats, K! I loved your entry, too. :)

Terri Coop said...

Congrats K - great flash tale. I love the irony and the reveal.

And to all the finalists. Fantastic use of the key words!

And thanks to Ms. Reid for the shout out. What she doesn't know is I am subbing my manuscript 100 words at a time. At the appointed moment, nanobots will reassemble all of my 100-word entries and load itself onto her Kindle. ::evil laugh::

These contests are the greatest! Thanks to Janet and to all the writers who give me such fun reading.

Terri

jesse said...

Congrats everyone. These contest just get better and better.

DreaJack said...

Hooray for everyone! This was my first contest and it was so thrilling reading all of the stories. Lots of talent!

Anonymous said...

Those entries were great. Also, the first line of that book? Wonderful. *writes down author's name and title*

Adrienne said...

I love these contests! Keep 'em coming. Congrats to everyone!

K said...

Squeee! Many thanks. I'll be watching the mail...

Kregger said...

Ms. Reid

It's no wonder you had a hard time picking through the three finalists. Out of nearly a hundred entries, I remembered all three.

Congrats to all,

Kregger

Kate Higgins said...

Congrats K. I'd love to read more of this story...so much said in so little words!

Michael G-G said...

Congrats to all the finalists: good stuff, y'all.

That is one helluva opening line. Preordering away.

Debra Lynn Shelton said...

Congrats to the participants and the winners. It takes devilishly tempting bait to beguile The Shark.

Terri Lynn Coop said...

Superb opening lines from Shaunna. I've been to flings and she nailed it perfectly. I, of course, was . . . cough . . . just an observer. Okay, okay, I was part of a pumpkin cannon team. It was college! Leave me alone!

Alex said...

K 9:22pm you had my vote!

great entries everyone.

by the way I'm hosting a weekly flash fiction contest at my blog.

www.boxingwithpencils.com

Come check it out. The competition is frenzied!

angie Brooksby-Arcangioli said...

Congrats to all.

Steve Stubbs said...

Absolutely right. They are all wonderful, but that one is the best of the lot, hands down.

I can also see what your taste is now. You like a story with a fillip at the end. I assume you already know this, but if you are in your thirties, the original TWILIGHT ZONE was long off the air before you were born, so in case you have not heard of it: Outstanding TV series, available in entirety on DVD, and most of the stories (the best ones)had that structure. I am referring to the series that started 1959 and continued to 1964 or thereabouts, not the later shows with the same name.

Kate Outhwaite said...

Fantastic! Loved K's story but what a selection of riches to choose from. Love these contests! Thanks, as always, to Janet for running them.

Becke Davis said...

Great choice on the winning entry - if that was the opening to a book, I would read it!

I'm excited that T-Bone's vignette was a finalist - thank you!!