And the winners are:
1st place: Train Through the Actinic Mountains by Leigh Loveday
Judge Matt Bell said: I loved the image-driven worldbuilding in this speculative story, which started off reminding me of Snowpiercer and then went somewhere maybe even stranger. (Also, what is more cinematic than a train?) More than any other story in this year’s contest, “By Train Through the Actinic Mountains” lit up my visual imagination while also doing all the things only fiction can do.
2nd Place: Suburban Slaughter: Twenty Years Later by Carlos Contreras
Judge Matt Bell said: “In the same way that books are made of the books that have come before, films rely on other films, building on what’s come before. This story lifts off from the tropes and history of The Blair Witch Project and lands somewhere all its own. The meta-frame of the critical essay works well here, too, allowing the writer to compress an entire movie’s runtime into an efficient story.”
3rd Place: Can I Help you, Miss by David Landau
Judge Matt Bell said: “Film is all about the images, and “Can I Help You, Miss?” starts off with telling image after telling image, building its story out of smart visuals long before anyone gets a line of dialogue in. It’s not hard to imagine this story adapted into a black and white film, a ninety-minute rush of surprising, revealing detail.”
We’re also publishing: Arbitration by Noah Isherwood, Driverless by EJ Kavounas, and Dredger by Danny Menter
- Crossing Season by Emma Brewer
- Hunting Brianna by Lauren Buckingham
- Suburban Slaughter: Twenty Years Later by Carlos Contreras
- Eyes of Love at the Creature Corner Bookstore Café by MFC Feeley
- The Obscure Historical Sorrows of Canines by Nikoletta Gjoni
- No Straight Lines by Robert Gryn
- Arbitration by Noah Isherwood
- Driverless by EJ Kavounas
- Vagabond by EJ Kavounas
- Can I Help you, Miss by David Landau
- By Train Through the Actinic Mountains by Leigh Loveday
- Hunting for Uncle Fester by Sara Prueitt Lovtang
- Dredger by Danny Menter
- Invisible Hand by H. L. Onstad
- Cold City by James Parenti
- Dog Toothed by Michael Pearson
- Ron the dog and my brother Jude by Elizabeth Poulos
- Facing Forward by Whitney Weisenberg
- This is a Ghost Story by Brin Williams
- People Are Talking About America by Sasha Wolff