Tag Archives: 2nd place

Unzipped by Sheri Reynolds

Black and white photo of nude woman bent over
 

  Sheri Reynolds is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight‘s Flash Fiction Contest The garbage disposal made a horrible racket, a gritty, grinding, clonking commotion. Avocado pit, she thought, and reached for the off-switch just as a knife flew up from the sink’s black hole. It was a paring knife, the one with the slender purple handle, silver blade so thin and sharp that the gleam still shined in her eye as it hit her throat, bull’s eye, like her throat had been its one true target. She’d been making guacamole to take to book club … Continue reading Unzipped by Sheri Reynolds

Love in Life’s Tunnels by Linda Styles Berkery

Photo of hands in shape of heart around candle in dark
 

Linda Berkery is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight‘s 2023 Essay/Memoir Contest Ten years ago, I was the one with memory loss. I was repeating questions in a loop. What day is it? Oh, Sunday. What did I do today? My husband called an ambulance and I was wheeled to the MRI tunnel. Since there was no sign of stroke, and my memory returned, I soon had a diagnosis, Transient Global Amnesia, and a warning from the neurologist. “You can’t get those memories back, no matter how much you try, so don’t try.” The frightening but … Continue reading Love in Life’s Tunnels by Linda Styles Berkery

Down the Shore by John Adinolfi

Photo of heart drawn in sand washing away
 

John Adinolfi is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2022 Flash Fiction Contest     All the times of their lives happened at the shore. She was a lifeguard. He was beach patrol. He tripped over her rescue board and she bandaged his wounded leg. Six weeks later they were married at sunrise, with ocean foam slapping at their feet. Soon, she was building sandcastles with their youngest while he taught the older ones how to surf cast. Later, grandkids would overrun their beach house every summer. Then, when it was just the two of … Continue reading Down the Shore by John Adinolfi

Pandemic Casserole by Catherine Pritchard Childress

Photo of casserole in white dish
 

Catherine Pritchard Childress is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2022 Essay/Memoir Contest Offering food as a form of comfort for those in mourning is as much a part of my Appalachian upbringing as Vacation Bible School and dinner on the grounds. Where there is death there will be cream soup casseroles and fried chicken, jugs of sweet tea and deli trays. Condolences unaccompanied by a Pyrex dish (name written on masking tape and secured to the bottom) or a lidded Rubbermaid container  (“Honey, I don’t need it back”) are lacking—or so we’ve been raised … Continue reading Pandemic Casserole by Catherine Pritchard Childress

Treatment Team by Victoria Korth

Two Stained Glass Windows paired together
 

Victoria Korth is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2021 Poetry Contest Treatment Team Found lying in a parking lot on Union Street, close to the shelter where she’d been in flight from a husband who sex-trafficked on and off: a delusion she was prone to, one resistant to meds. Found splayed across chalk lines, knitted cap knocked off, balding head’s few strands splotched tar—she had breast cancer in addition to bipolar, you see was childlike off her meds, lost to our expertise. That’s the way it is, an ember melting us together, annealing, it … Continue reading Treatment Team by Victoria Korth

Places To Go, Things To See by Richard D. Key

Photo of viewing maching
 

Richard D. Key is the 2nd place winner in Streetlight’s 2021 Flash Fiction Contest In this episode of PTGTTS I’ll be talking about Earth, a little planet out at the edge of the galaxy, not to be confused with Erth-Ra, the much larger and more popular planet destination that you may be more familiar with. Earth (pronounced URTH) is off the beaten path, but worth the effort if you’re headed in that direction. Time on Earth is divided into “months” based on the one orbiting satellite, called “the moon.” Most of the inhabitants believe that … Continue reading Places To Go, Things To See by Richard D. Key

The Wedding Guest by Melissa Sinclair

Photo of roses in glasses
 

Melissa Sinclair is the 2nd place winner in Streetlight’s 2021 Essay/Memoir Contest   “Can u go to the parler with me today if u don’t have any plans?” This text is from my friend Nighat, who is getting married today. I do not have plans; I have been wandering around Houston in the rain. My Lyft driver pulls up to an immaculate house in the farthest exurbs of the city. The stylist, Shaireen, is a brisk Pakistani mom of three. Her eyes are the color of the sea just before a storm. She spreads white … Continue reading The Wedding Guest by Melissa Sinclair

Elegy for a Young Copperhead by Charlotte Rea

Photo of jade dragon
 

Charlotte Rea is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2020 Poetry Contest So proud you must be, atop the fence rail, its flat black the perfect matte for your copper. Your telltale yellow tail-tip aglow under the vines,I’ve come to clip gloveless, blind to your sinuous stretch just a strike from my fingertips. Who is frightened more by our fateful brush with peril? You given no chance to respond as the shovel severs your tender neck–death quick as your tiny hourglasses bleed out time. Your climb is all hope you remember, synched dance of scale … Continue reading Elegy for a Young Copperhead by Charlotte Rea

Next to Godliness by Sheila Longton

Bird's eye view of tractor
 

Sheila Longton is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2020 Flash Fiction Contest     What I remember of my mother is this: She is down on her hands and knees, crawling backwards along the hallway, scraping old wax from the hardwood boards with a hairpin. *** John Thompson lies in a bathtub. He lies in a bathtub, without water, and waits. He is eighteen. He lies in a bathtub thinking help won’t come in time, that he will die. Without finishing high school, without going to college, without ever becoming a rock star like … Continue reading Next to Godliness by Sheila Longton

Beautiful Monster by Amy Stonestrom

Photo of inside of hot air balloon
 

Amy Stonestrom is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight Magazine‘s 2020 Essay/Memoir Contest A strange February morning, gray sky lined with tangerine. Ten degrees. From my spot in the front seat, bursts of flame appear to shoot from piles of snow, tall as the houses across the street. Well-insulated children perch on the jagged banks as they wait for technicolor giants to emerge from the earth. Babies bundled in strollers, old men in blaze orange and camouflage. Women in long puffy coats, fur rimming their faces. No place to park. The entire population of the … Continue reading Beautiful Monster by Amy Stonestrom