EPIC Members!
Enter EPIC's August Writing Contest by August 31, 2020
It's free, winners receive prizes and have their winning work published
August's Theme: Market Day
See the Guidelines below and enter today
Guidelines:
- Email your submission to epicshortworks@gmail.com. Subject line to include: Short Works August 2020 and your name. Include contact information in the body of the email.
- Original work, prose OR poetry. Prose up to 500 words. Poetry up to 40 lines.
- Submit in a WORD document. Times New Roman, 12 pt., double-spaced for prose, single-spaced for poetry. Your name must NOT be on your submission.
- Work will not be proofread for typos or grammar by the judges.
- NO politics, derogatory references to religion, gender, ethnicity. No graphic violence or language.
- You may submit a new piece up to three times a year – only one per month.
- Winners announced and published on the EPIC website.
- Prizes: a gift certificate to Café Louvre in Edmonds and an EPIC coffee mug.
- NOTE: winners work is considered published and may not be eligible for other competitions.
DEADLINE: August 31, 2020. Winners announced in the September newsletter
June Writing Contest Winners
Congratulations to Patricia Power and Eric Nixon
Prose
On The Road Again
by Patricia Power
“My mother can’t take this anymore and frankly, neither can I,” Angie said. Jack was busy squeezing out the last drops of ethanol-free, high-octane fuel from the pump. He jiggled the handle and jerked on the trigger a few more times than needed. The fumes weren’t all that the Arizona sun was heating up on the asphalt drive-through at Costco.
“She can’t take what, exactly, Angie? Can’t take sleeping in our bed, because it’s more comfortable than the convertible singles in the front? Can’t take monopolizing every one of our conversations on the road when she’s awake enough to care? What exactly is it she can’t take? Because, frankly, I don’t know how much more of her I can take.” Jack slammed the nozzle into its socket and waited for the receipt to pop out of the slot.
“It isn’t like she broke her leg just so she would have to come with us at the last minute. She’s nearly eighty and hard of hearing. Can’t you muster up a modicum of empathy here?” Jack did his best to feign concern for his mother-in-law, a diminutive she-devil to whom Jack was no better than a persistent gnat. He tried to find a conciliatory word to offer up but failed. Angie had no problem with words; they blew at him like spicules of shattered glass.
“This escape from reality in an RV was your idea,” she said, “Remember? It was you who felt the world closing in You who thought a mortgage and car payments and paying gardeners to maintain flora you couldn’t name was oppressive. You who wanted to live ‘the simple life.’ You cashed in our IRA and bought this, this, THING that barely breaks fifty but goes through gasoline faster than a jet fighter. Decide, Jack. Either we turn around and go home together, or you can weather your mid-life crisis alone. I can order tickets for us online and we’ll be out of your hair this afternoon.”
Jack stood at attention with one foot poised on the corrugated metal step that led up and forward through the narrow aisle of his motorhome, and up again into a man-sized driver’s seat with dual arm rests and an adjustable neck roll—the air-conditioned throne from which he, and he alone, could direct his assault against the futility of living an obligatory life. His other foot was planted on the sticky blacktop opposite his beleaguered wife. He reached up and cracked open the aluminum door.
“Angie? Is that you? Isn’t Jack done out there yet? It’s nearly noon and hotter than hell in this tin can.”
Jack opened the door, mounted the steps, and turned to face his wife. “Best you use the American Express card then, just in case you change your mind.” He dropped his sunglasses onto his nose, walked the aisle and smiled as the leather seat crackled beneath him. He turned the key, aimed the vent at his chest and set the a/c switch to max.
# # #
Poetry
From Here To There
by Eric Nixon
The distance between
Here and there
Seems, at times, unbridgeable
An impossible distance
Separating us
From what we know now
To what we’ve always dreamt –
Apprehensively, cautiously, just in case
It were ever to somehow happen
And life would become unbearable
With overwhelming joy
But that’s the best-case scenario
So far away from where we stand
In the middle of the worst year
Like a child, whose socked feet
Are sunken into the cushion,
Staring at the lava-covered floor
Wondering how they’ll get
From the couch to the safety
Of the cool tiles of the kitchen
With the coffee table missing
Removing hope of safe passage
Necessitating another way –
Forming new beliefs
Of being stronger
Of being fireproof
Of believing in possibility
Of bridging the gap
Imagining crossing the span
As if it were like nothing at all
Like walking across the floor
Fearlessly, easily
From here to there
Reaching the dreams
And living that better life now
# # #
On The Road Again
by Patricia Power
“My mother can’t take this anymore and frankly, neither can I,” Angie said. Jack was busy squeezing out the last drops of ethanol-free, high-octane fuel from the pump. He jiggled the handle and jerked on the trigger a few more times than needed. The fumes weren’t all that the Arizona sun was heating up on the asphalt drive-through at Costco.
“She can’t take what, exactly, Angie? Can’t take sleeping in our bed, because it’s more comfortable than the convertible singles in the front? Can’t take monopolizing every one of our conversations on the road when she’s awake enough to care? What exactly is it she can’t take? Because, frankly, I don’t know how much more of her I can take.” Jack slammed the nozzle into its socket and waited for the receipt to pop out of the slot.
“It isn’t like she broke her leg just so she would have to come with us at the last minute. She’s nearly eighty and hard of hearing. Can’t you muster up a modicum of empathy here?” Jack did his best to feign concern for his mother-in-law, a diminutive she-devil to whom Jack was no better than a persistent gnat. He tried to find a conciliatory word to offer up but failed. Angie had no problem with words; they blew at him like spicules of shattered glass.
“This escape from reality in an RV was your idea,” she said, “Remember? It was you who felt the world closing in You who thought a mortgage and car payments and paying gardeners to maintain flora you couldn’t name was oppressive. You who wanted to live ‘the simple life.’ You cashed in our IRA and bought this, this, THING that barely breaks fifty but goes through gasoline faster than a jet fighter. Decide, Jack. Either we turn around and go home together, or you can weather your mid-life crisis alone. I can order tickets for us online and we’ll be out of your hair this afternoon.”
Jack stood at attention with one foot poised on the corrugated metal step that led up and forward through the narrow aisle of his motorhome, and up again into a man-sized driver’s seat with dual arm rests and an adjustable neck roll—the air-conditioned throne from which he, and he alone, could direct his assault against the futility of living an obligatory life. His other foot was planted on the sticky blacktop opposite his beleaguered wife. He reached up and cracked open the aluminum door.
“Angie? Is that you? Isn’t Jack done out there yet? It’s nearly noon and hotter than hell in this tin can.”
Jack opened the door, mounted the steps, and turned to face his wife. “Best you use the American Express card then, just in case you change your mind.” He dropped his sunglasses onto his nose, walked the aisle and smiled as the leather seat crackled beneath him. He turned the key, aimed the vent at his chest and set the a/c switch to max.
# # #
Poetry
From Here To There
by Eric Nixon
The distance between
Here and there
Seems, at times, unbridgeable
An impossible distance
Separating us
From what we know now
To what we’ve always dreamt –
Apprehensively, cautiously, just in case
It were ever to somehow happen
And life would become unbearable
With overwhelming joy
But that’s the best-case scenario
So far away from where we stand
In the middle of the worst year
Like a child, whose socked feet
Are sunken into the cushion,
Staring at the lava-covered floor
Wondering how they’ll get
From the couch to the safety
Of the cool tiles of the kitchen
With the coffee table missing
Removing hope of safe passage
Necessitating another way –
Forming new beliefs
Of being stronger
Of being fireproof
Of believing in possibility
Of bridging the gap
Imagining crossing the span
As if it were like nothing at all
Like walking across the floor
Fearlessly, easily
From here to there
Reaching the dreams
And living that better life now
# # #
Signs from The Edge – A Serial Novel!
As relief from reading Journal of a Plague Year, Station Eleven, and The Plague, the board of EPIC Group Writers penned a serial novel for your entertainment called Signs From the Edge. Since each author could only see the immediately preceding chapter, there are numerous plot twists and wild goose chases. Fortunately the “instigator,” Diane Naab, was able to pull the whole novella together after it veered wildly off course from the original story.
Please click on the file below and enjoy!
As relief from reading Journal of a Plague Year, Station Eleven, and The Plague, the board of EPIC Group Writers penned a serial novel for your entertainment called Signs From the Edge. Since each author could only see the immediately preceding chapter, there are numerous plot twists and wild goose chases. Fortunately the “instigator,” Diane Naab, was able to pull the whole novella together after it veered wildly off course from the original story.
Please click on the file below and enjoy!
| Signs From the Edge |