Writing Competition Results
Posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2009
Thank you to all Jackson Hole Writers Conference writers who submitted stories and poems to our online competition. Pieces were judged by readers, votes were tallied last night and writers shared their stories today. Out loud. In front of people!
Today was also the last day of another successful conference. So, three cheers for the folks that bring word lovers together every year, and three cheers for the writers that submitted pieces to Cloudveil.
The First Place winner is Tim Pogue, for his story, Two Matches (below). Second place went to Valley Peters for Memory as Muse. And third place went to Terry Rasmussen for Untitled. All submissions can be read here.
And thank you again to all the writers and readers!
Two Matches
Strike a match against a gritty surface and it will ignite a flame, but what do we strike across our psyche that sparks the imagination? The beauty of inspiration is that quite literally anything can be its source; but perhaps what’s even more profound, is that the source itself can inspire different things to different people. A winding, raging river may inspire one man to learn how to kayak, yet inspire another to write an essay on global warming. Seeing a child giggle at a public park could inspire one young couple to start a family, and yet convince another to vow to never have kids. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the source of inspiration is in his mind.
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It was 1985 when my best friend and I quit our jobs and left the Midwest for the “good life” of the West Coast. I left a promising career in bartending and my friend left his career as a gas station attendant. We were the same age, graduated from the same high school in the same year, and we both even had the same first name: Tim. We laughed at the same jokes, liked the same brand of beer and sometimes could even finish each other’s sentences. Most of all, we both wanted something better, and we knew it was there, waiting for us in California.
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The first stop on our journey was Oregon. We stayed in affordable but comfortable motels as we worked our way down the Oregon coast, enjoying the sun, surfing and meeting girls at the local taverns. Life was good. But we kept heading south and so did our accommodations. Our odyssey took us down the coast of California and by the time we reached Baja, Mexico, we were trading our belongings to local fishermen for our evening meals and sleeping on the beach. This four-month whirlwind was an experience I will cherish and never forget, just as it was for Tim (the other Tim).
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We went on the same trip, to the same places, in the same run-down Chevy Tahoe, yet the effect this trip had on each of us was remarkably different. The trip inspired Tim into a life-long love affair with the simple art of discovery through travel. He tried to go back to work for a while, but he hated it. He went back out on the road and he, right now as I’m typing this story, is riding his motorcycle through the mountains of Colorado. And me? The trip inspired me to get a job – a good job! Where Tim found joy and excitement in not knowing where we were going to sleep that night, I found fear and anxiety.
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Two Tim’s, like two matches in a matchbook, were struck against the gritty surface of the same four-month adventure. Yet one flame burned for freedom and the other for security. Do we ponder over why, or just find another gritty surface to strike?
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Tim – congratulations to you again. I am impressed with the quality of your work, the fluency and content of your article. You are on your way to being a very successful writer, screenplays or novels, whereever your creativity takes you. Love you, Aunt Barbie