August Contest: Win a Signed Copy of POSTCARDS
I have signed copies of my new anthology project, POSTCARDS: TRUE STORIES THAT NEVER HAPPENED. The stories in the book are based on antique, used postcards. Artists look at the front of the card, read the back, ponder the subtext, and extrapolate several sentences into a complete story.
You can win one of these books by coming up with a story behind the following postcard:
You can get your story to me in a number of ways. Email me your story. Snail mail it to me. Post it on your blog (just make sure you send me the link). Post it in the comments section. Get your story to me however you want, really. On August 24th I’ll post my three favorites – it’ll be up to the visitors on this site to vote for the one they like the best.
I’ll be doing this once a month until I run out of signed books. Here’s a scan of the one you can win in August:
It features sketches and signatures from: Phil Hester, Joshua Fialkov, Gia-Bao Tran, Michael Gaydos, Rob G, Rick Spears, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore, Tony Fleecs, James W. Powell, Antony Johnston, Ande Parks, Matt Kindt, Micah Farritor, Jason Copland, Robert Tinnell, Jason Hanley, and Jason Rodriguez.
So, that’s that. Get to writing. Short (500 word) stories are preferred but, if you’re going longer, make sure it’s great from the very first line. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
You can win one of these books by coming up with a story behind the following postcard:
You can get your story to me in a number of ways. Email me your story. Snail mail it to me. Post it on your blog (just make sure you send me the link). Post it in the comments section. Get your story to me however you want, really. On August 24th I’ll post my three favorites – it’ll be up to the visitors on this site to vote for the one they like the best.
I’ll be doing this once a month until I run out of signed books. Here’s a scan of the one you can win in August:
It features sketches and signatures from: Phil Hester, Joshua Fialkov, Gia-Bao Tran, Michael Gaydos, Rob G, Rick Spears, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore, Tony Fleecs, James W. Powell, Antony Johnston, Ande Parks, Matt Kindt, Micah Farritor, Jason Copland, Robert Tinnell, Jason Hanley, and Jason Rodriguez.
So, that’s that. Get to writing. Short (500 word) stories are preferred but, if you’re going longer, make sure it’s great from the very first line. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
August 2, 2007 9:31 PM
She said, “I don’t know you but I think I love you. Do you love me?”
As they lay together under satin sheets, surrounded by old and worn-out things, she waited for his answer. It never came. He must have been sleeping, she thought to herself, and hadn’t heard the question.
But he wasn’t asleep, and he had.
---
It was, by far, the largest gathering of antiquers and arcanaphiles in North America. Each of them was a seeker after truth – the truth of older, better days. Whether collectors, traders, browsers, archivers or resellers, they were all looking for a little piece of the past. They came for the books, furniture, tools, cards, lamps, signs, toys, and more; but they stayed for the people.
They met at late Victorian cutlery. She was browsing the table, examining a gilt-edged spoon, and he’d said, “That one’s marked. You’d prefer this one.”
As he took the spoon from her, their hands brushed lightly together.
---
Three weeks later, she got the news.
Of course, he had to be the father. But what did she really know about him? A name, an address, and that was all. Just some man she’d met at an antique convention, and they’d slept under satin sheets, and she’d asked him a foolish question.
She had to know more. She had to test the waters – find out what kind of person he was.
She selected a vintage postcard from her own collection. It was certainly appropriate – he’d be sure to laugh at the lightness of it all. Taking her pen (a 1930s Carmichael nib, a real collector’s item) she wrote two words, and signed it.
In hindsight, perhaps she should have written more. But the message had already been written, and the card had already been posted.
She waited.
---
It was Friday. He was opening the mail in his study, and there it was. The postcard.
He weighed it in his hand, lingering over the image of the cats, chuckling a little at the joke. Then he turned the card over and read the back.
No. This wouldn’t do, he thought. This wouldn’t work at all.
What did she want from him? It wasn’t his fault. They’d been there for the same reasons, and as far as he was concerned, his obligation had been fulfilled. The very idea of starting over, raising a family… it sickened him. To be perfectly honest, it scared him.
He hated the newness of it. He just wanted to be alone with time, with his belongings, with himself.
He walked to the shelf, placed the postcard under a stack of old and dusty books, and left it there.
Very soon, he forgot all about it.
---
by Xander Bennett
xanderbennett.blogspot.com
August 3, 2007 1:39 AM
He wept openly, his coworkers sat puzzled as to what in his lunch had upset him so much. 'Guess What!' the postcard said with a picture joke about cats having kittens. He took a moment and straightened himself up. He put down the postcard a moment and picked up the lab results to make sure he had read them right. No. It was all there in a word: Infertile. She didn‘t know about the test though. He could live with this, right? “You okay Frank?” asked a coworker. “Sure,” he said. “I’m gonna be a father.” And he flashed a smile that he could only maintain for a single moment before it crawled away.
by Brandon Longstreth
myspace.com/lordcrotch
August 3, 2007 11:24 PM
I want to win....I want to win
http://saulcolt.blogspot.com/2007/08/book-postcards-true-stories-that-never.html
August 11, 2007 1:44 AM
“No, I only see when you turn to face the door,” Inga said. Mrs. Carlson frowned.
“Oh, it’s hopeless. This corset doesn’t hide it any more,” she said. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to tell him.”
Anne Nolback felt ashamed for taking to Inga like this. Inga was a widowed immigrant who asked for very little from the Nolbacks—just fare to the brownstone walk-up on Chicago’s southside, to leave early on Wednesdays to help Pastor Nielsen prepare for Lutheran church services on Wednesday, and very humble wages. Anne would pay her more if she could, but business was not good and Frank did not seem to know what to do; what with five children, and little Roger so sick, there wasn’t enough to go around. Anne didn’t think she could live without Inga (though with one more mouth to feed she might have to let Inga go) and here she was selfishly spreading her worries to Inga.
“So, now I go to the store for you. Then I will iron until the children come home,” Inga said. She never mentioned her own children. Anne knew there were two, teen-aged boys, with Swedish names. Eric? Lars? Kurt?
“I leave tea for you. Anything else I should leave?”
“No, thank you. I think I will lie down for a bit. I’m so tired. Will you wake me when you return home?” Inga patted Anne’s hand and left clutching her list in one hand and her pocketbook in the other.
Anne was startled by Inga’s call to wake up. She felt as though she were in an unmoving fog, as though she had been asleep for years and had missed so much of her life. She hated herself for it, but it was true, she was sad she was having another child. She stumbled to the kitchen.
Inga offered Anne a glass of water. “Mrs. Nolback, I have something for you from Gillespie’s.”
She unclasped her pocketbook and withdrew a colorful postcard and timidly offered it to Anne.
“It was my own money, not the grocery money,” Inga blushed, and walked to the table, opening and closing her purse again. She did not look directly at Anne. “I think maybe you can tell Mr. Nolback with a happy joke. Mr. Nolback is a kind man.”
Anne read the card. It was something she would never dare to purchase. The humor was crude, shocking, and flip as a wink. It was nothing close to anything she would say to her husband. She looked at Inga, who had tears in her eyes. Anne turned the card over and addressed it to Frank. “Guess what!” she wrote.
“Inga, what would I do without you?” Anne laughed freely, and after a moment, Inga laughed too.
August 25, 2007 8:55 AM
It's August 25th! So where are the finalists' stories?
August 25, 2007 10:42 AM
I'll have them up Monday morning.
August 28, 2007 8:25 PM
Hey can you post the poll or link to the contest from here? I had to search your blog to find it and was kind of hard.
Thanks-