It’s a pleasure—and also a great privilege—to announce the winners of this year’s Streetlight Essay/Memoir Contest. This year’s submissions made an admirable crowd; it wasn’t easy to pick only three winners. We’ll be posting some honorable mentions too, but more about that later. Now is the time to consider the winners. First prize goes to Rigel Oliveri for her essay, “Find the Difference,” a brief, but harrowing and touching, account of one day in the life of a single, widowed mother facing a medical emergency. It’s a story that throws a light onto the perils … Continue reading We Celebrate Our Winners by Susan Shafarzek→
Bonnie usually loved the drive to Aunt Edda’s house. She’d peer out the backseat window as her mother drove along the section of highway overlooking the car factory where her father and Uncle Henry worked. Smokestacks jutted from the enormous building, filling the air with fluffy clouds. Bonnie always imagined her dad inside the factory feeding a giant furnace, making clouds shaped like cotton candy, just for her. She’d close her eyes and try to change the puff-ball clouds into bunnies with the power of a wish, but it never worked. Dozens of times, her … Continue reading Bonnie’s Spell by Tonja Matney Reynolds→
Colors behind your eyes A slow pastel dusting Forming speckled images Of a distant ocean roar Your pillow listens in To the lawless deep blue That can sometimes churn Waves in your stomach Taking you back to a time When you were young Where you can be innocent Once again in a place Far from the world of sin That pushes against The coastline of your body Harsh Ramchandani is a Hong Kong based writer whose work can be found in various online and print publications. Though primarily a writer of poetry, he is also … Continue reading Sweet Dreams by Harsh Ramchandani→
Unlike my previous writing efforts, I am presently engaged in compiling a history of the local garden club (of all things!) The subject is not one I would have chosen and I never thought I would get my knees dirty in this way. It chose me. By way of a short history, the local garden club donated four or five boxes of their records— which begin with the founding in 1935— to the county historical society. As a member of the society, I happened upon these records and wrote four articles on them for our … Continue reading Evolution of a History by Fred Wilbur→
Framed on my mother’s real estate office desk was a small poster from the ‘80s. Twenty years later, it was still there in a space where a family portrait might have been. It pictured a well-coiffed woman with a sarcastically smug aristocratic sneer, a champagne glass in one hand and a riding strop in the other, dressed as to the manor born: tweed jacket, cravat, English riding pants and knee-length boots, one resting on the bumper of a Rolls Royce, parked in front of some grand estate. The image illustrated the caption: Poverty Sucks. This … Continue reading Poverty Sucks by Scott Hurd→
Ireland’s goddess Brigid, patroness of practicalities such as farming, infants, and dairy labors, is associated with Spring and also poetry. And why not? How many metaphors are woven into the season, how rich with avenues that lead from the physical world into the realm of myth. Somewhere in history the goddess Brigid morphs into St Brigid in a merger of Christian and Celt practices. Interesting that in the fifth century AD there was much blending of faiths, as though it was not entirely an either/or adherence but an and. Celtic tradition created bridges between the … Continue reading Spring! by Sharon Ackerman→
Beth Copeland has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2022 Poetry Contest Raking Leaves Dry oak leaves are riddled with BB-sized shot-holes. Is it an encoded warning from the universe, a map of stars, a chart of scorched sun spots? They remind me of paper rolls used on player pianos or of old hole-punched cards we once fed into huge computers. Are these holes a score of whole notes played as November wind whistles through trees? I think about the holes as I rake leaves away from the walls of the house before they rot … Continue reading Raking Leaves by Beth Copeland→
Despite a mountain of unfinished drafts, I am compelled to start another book. While drafting an essay something clicked, a connection was made in my brain, and I want to share those thoughts in a way that will create similar connections for the reader. Maybe this will be the one I actually complete. Excitement drives the ceremonious opening of a new Word doc. After typing a couple hundred words it occurred to me that some of what I had just written would work well for another book I’ve thought about writing. No harm in jotting … Continue reading What AM I Looking For? by Paula Boyland→
Once upon a time, there was a woman who wanted to have a baby. Or rather, this woman, named Jane, didn’t particularly care whether she had a baby at the time this story takes place, but her husband, a good, solid man named Jack, felt it was time for the two of them to have a baby, and since she often felt his wishes ought to be hers as well, she also thought it must be time. Every Sunday, the two of them would trudge from their tiny little apartment to church, where they would … Continue reading White by Holly Day→
First off, I’m just going to put right out there that I have been known to watch live courtroom TV like it’s a job, attending to whatever case is being broadcast into my living room as if auditioning for a seat as an alternate. I can opine about guilt, innocence and the social context affecting a legal outcome with (possibly oversized) confidence. I especially enjoy learning the backstories (gossip) about the various participants. Defendants, attorneys, bloggers and turf-guarding journalists. They’re all fascinating. (In another life I might’ve been a court reporter.) Quick aside: I recently … Continue reading Lowcountry Tragedy by Erika Raskin→
Streetlight Magazine is the non-profit home for unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, and art that inspires. Submit your work today!
