Posted on September 24, 2012 by writer
Character: Police station clerk
Action: Tightening a knot
Setting: A meeting for a subversive group
Prop: Decorative songbirds made from vinyl records
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Visiting Allie
by Elissa Nelson
George drives into Portland from where he lives, near the coast, near Florence. He’s not quite on the ocean—but he’s only about ten minutes away on his motorcycle, so good weather (really lots of kinds of weather), he gets over there a lot. Just to be by the ocean. Whoever would’ve thought he’d live ten minutes from the ocean? But he does. Sure, his house is smaller than it would be if he were farther away, but it’s big enough for him. Him and Frankie, who loves the ocean, and they’ve figured out how to get him there on the motorcycle! Took some doing, but they figured it out. Thank god Phil has her own bike, because he doesn’t know if he could stand to leave Frankie at home. Especially at this point, when they’ve figured it out. George is still working a lot—what the hell else would he do with himself, anyway?—but he does get to the coast most days. He has to swing by his house and get Frankie, unless Frankie came in to work with him, which he does a lot these days—then they head over to the ocean.
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Filed under: 2012 Submissions | Tagged: Elissa Nelson, Portland, prizes, short story, Sledgehammer, writing contest | 1 Comment »
Posted on September 24, 2012 by writer
Congratulations to Courtney Sherwood for winning in the 2012 Individual category!
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Character: Police station clerk
Action: Tightening a knot
Setting: A meeting for a subversive group
Prop: Decorative songbirds made from vinyl records
***
When Your First Bust Is a Santa Claus
by Courtney Sherwood
When your first bust is a Santa Claus, it can be hard to believe in what you’re doing.
I remember the little boy’s dusky tear-streaked face, his bold older sister as she crossed her arms and furrowed her brow in defiance. “It’ll be OK,” she asserted, as though she knew anything. Ages four and eight, the file said. How much harm could a little magic cause? I wondered, then stifled the thought.
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Filed under: 2012 Submissions, 2012 Winners | Tagged: Courtney Sherwood, Portland, prizes, short story, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 24, 2012 by writer
Character: Police station clerk
Action: Tightening a knot
Setting: A meeting for a subversive group
Prop: Decorative songbirds made from vinyl records
***
Occupy the Bacon
by Bob Ferguson
The tragedy of lightening is that it strikes randomly. It never punishes the deserving. Have you ever heard of lightening striking an “idiot congressman?” As Mark Twain, said “…but repeat myself.” That was the view held by Angus Thornberry, a cop who walked the “Old Town” beat until a quirky accident, changed his life.
While walking his night shift, a bicyclist riding a “fixie,” the type of bike with no gears, no brakes, and no brains, slammed into him. The rider’s thick helmet crashed into his cranium giving Angus a concussion. Like many other cops, Angus filed for the “golden disability parachute.” His reputation suffered when he claimed to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder shortly after taking acting classes.
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Filed under: 2012 Submissions | Tagged: Bob Ferguson, Portland, prizes, short story, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 24, 2012 by writer
Character: Police station clerk
Action: Tightening a knot
Setting: A meeting for a subversive group
Prop: Decorative songbirds made from vinyl records
***
Untitled
by Anne Adams
His parents probably should have never named him “Hades”—and in fact they didn’t—but that was the name that he’d chosen to go by, at least for Sunday Amateur Anarchy. In strategy sessions at the Hammer Café, he’d say stuff like: “When we react to plutocracy with complacency, we’re just giving them a free pass to keep fucking us!” while he bounced Safire’s baby on his tattered black knee. When the baby fanned its chubby fingers toward someone else’s red mohawk, he’d pass it down a row of waiting hands. As it went along, it tried to grasp a few dangling dreadlocks in its little fists and slobber on their cottony tips. Safire’s baby loved Sundays as much as the grownup Anarchists.
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Filed under: 2012 Submissions | Tagged: Anne Adams, Portland, prizes, short story, Sledgehammer, writing contest | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 24, 2012 by writer
Character: Police station clerk
Action: Tightening a knot
Setting: A meeting for a subversive group
Prop: Decorative songbirds made from vinyl records
***
The Park
by Amanda Robinson
It had been ten years since she had disappeared. Ten years since Henry had woken in the middle of the night and felt her absence, tangible and definite. It had been ten years since the onslaught of pity from his friends and family, who attributed her sudden nocturnal departure simply to “things not working out”. They offered him solace, and smiled piteously at his assertions that they were, in fact, very much in love. They eventually left him to grieve over his failed marriage despite his protestations that something more sinister had occurred. It had been ten years since he had filed a missing persons report with the local authorities. And it had been ten years of silence. One hundred and twenty months of crippling angst, of confusion and despair. For five hundred and twenty weeks Henry had been carrying his cumbersome emotions around like a suitcase. As the days and weeks and months passed and his mind began to break Henry quietly withdrew from the world around him. He slipped slowly into reclusion, spending days at a time locked away inside their dream house at the top of the hill. The only occasion Henry would venture out from his solitude was for his Sunday evening constitutional, which he took every week, rain or shine. Every week he would make his way down the hill to the park at the bottom, his delicate frame hunched over by the weight of his melancholy. Every week Henry would walk the trails that wound through the estate, half-hoping to lose his way and be lost forever, as his wife had been. He knew in his slipping mind that his wife was there in the park. He had dreamt it.
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Filed under: 2012 Submissions | Tagged: Amanda Robinson, Portland, prizes, short story, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »
Sledgehammer Writing Contest 