Revisiting Fiction 101.
I am one of life’s winners! Well, that’s not, of course, strictly true. But I am one of life’s runners up, which I prefer to ‘losers’.
I won the Ventura County Reporter’s Old Country Lemonade Award for one of the 101-word short stories I wrote for their Fiction – 101 stories.
The stories of the gits, people that beat me can be found here:
http://www.vcreporter.com/article.php?id=3134&IssueNum=62
Here is mine:
In Praise of Quantity, In 101 Words
A warm, dusty breeze on the salt-bleached deck. Maisie and Bert, on a rocking chair, look out at the waves.
“I’ve always valued quantity over quality,? said Bert to Maisie.
“Hmm.”
“The ocean, toilet-paper, pebbles on the beach: all much better in bulk.?
“And love and hope,? said Maisie
“Eh?”
“No point in having one ounce of top-class hope once on a Tuesday when what’s needed is a wide, perhaps even threadbare, expanse of it to just get to next Tuesday. A daily shred will do. Same for love.”
“Yup.” said Bert, looking at her.
Sami Zahringer
I posted the others I entered here: http://problemchildbride.com/blog/?p=17 and here: http://problemchildbride.com/blog/?p=18 a while ago but never included the one above because I thought it was the absolute drivelling worst. I only entered it because it was a change of tone from the others.
Go, and as they say, figure!
March 13th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Sami, what canI say? Except that I can boast that I went to school with a winner of the Ventura County Reporters Old County Lemonade Award for 101 word fiction. You make us proud, girl.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
Wow. Well done! And I love the story. Hopefully I’ll have time later to come back and read the others.
March 13th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
The old story of the softball rivalry – the head of the marketing department said their team came in second in the tournament, while the sales department team came in next to last, so obvously marketing was superior. Fact failed to mention: only two teams were in the tournament.