Last month’s contest had folks writing little stories inspired by a used postcard from my collection. We’re switching it up a bit this month; allowing you to express yourself any way you want. Is everyone here familiar with Installation Art? Good. We’re going to try something that may not be new, necessarily, but it’ll be new to me: Digital Installations.

If you go here, you’ll see art from the book, fronts and backs of postcards, and various other postcard-related images and text. There are a hundred images so far and I may add more over this coming week. These can be your starting points if you want. Make art. Make a collage or use an image or some text as the starting point for an illustration. Wrap a story or a poem around something from the collection that inspires you. A little comic. A short song. Just create something...

…and then install it somewhere. Install it on a message board or into your MySpace layout. Install it on Facebook or Craig’s List or Last.FM or Flickr or YouTube. Wherever it’s installed, send me the link – I’ll keep a running list of installations on this website and, at the end of the month, pick my three favorites. Then it’ll go to a vote again.

The only rule is that the installation needs to be postcard related (preferably used postcards). It doesn’t have to tie specifically to the book and it doesn’t need to include a link back to the site. It just needs to be guerrilla digital art – something that catches eyes, makes people wonder what the artist’s intentions are, and inspires them to create their own art.

If your installation has a chance at being labeled spam and taken down, grab a screenshot of it and send it with the link. Here’s a quick installation I made – I’ll make some more as the month goes on.

So get to it and have fun. Hopefully we’ll have some more fun with this one. The best installation will win the following signed copy:

Labels: contests, postcards

Well - just got home from some dinner and drinks and I see Xander Bennett up by one vote...40 for him, 39 for Lynn, and 13 for Jesse. It's an hour past midnight, however, so I do feel kind of bad with the poll being so close. I'll give Xander the signed book but if Lynn doesn't have a copy yet I'll send one signed by me, at least, her way.

Xander and Lynn - send me your addresses.

The September contest is going up tonight or tomorrow. It'll be a slightly different spin - keep your eyes open for it!

Labels: contests, postcards

Well…this is weird. We had a little over twenty entries for the August contest and there’s only one I’d call unreadable. Everything else was good. That’s…not the usual trend.

It was a tough decision. Some stories lost points for simply being out of the time period, some lost points for being a bit too long without necessarily needing to be long, and some lost points for trying to shoehorn clever into a perfectly even and well-executed story. There are actually four stories that I really liked and before getting to my top three I’d like to give a bit of honorable mention to Pete Anderson’s entry “One Evening in St. Paul.” More on that in a minute…finalists!

1) Xander Bennett’s untitled story…the first one I received. Very simple and well executed. It was between this one and Pete Anderson’s, mentioned above. They were similar stories but, when it came down to it, I simply liked the way this one ended – focusing on the forgotten postcard. That sort of captures the feeling of the POSTCARDS project more; forgotten postcards with amazing stories behind them found decades later. Xander’s ending seemed like a subtle nod to that and I appreciated it a bit more because of it.

2) Lynn Turner’s “Wrestling in San Antonio.” When I first read this I was a bit put off by what I considered to be historical inaccuracies. The story felt very modern and the postcard obviously isn’t recent. However, I let it slide this time since the postcard wasn’t mailed - there wasn’t a date stamped on it. I thought this piece was well executed. I kept expecting some sort of “I’m Clever” ending but, instead, it bridged into the obvious story behind the postcard without being too on-the-nose. It was a cute piece – a little uneven at times, but it made me smile and that’s always good.

3) Jesse Hanna’s untitled story is a great example of clever done right. It didn’t try to hard and took advantage of the 500-word maximum to come up with a story that didn’t attempt to disguise its ending but didn’t give the reader enough time to figure it out.

So, there you have it. Thanks to everyone who submitted a story – I hope you had as much fun writing them as I had reading them. I will be doing something similar next month if anyone wanted to take another crack at it. So you know, a super-signed copy of POSTCARDS went for $250 at the CBLDF auction. I guess that makes this a nice little prize.

Vote below – I’ll close this down on the 31st at 11:59PM EST.
CLOSED

Labels: contests, finalist, postcards

It was just supposed to be an April fools joke.

Frank had gone off to New York to see about a advertising job. We had been going out for two months and we were even talking about moving in together.

He was leaving when the school was getting ready for our class finals. I was more then willing to skip it and go with him, but he insisted that I stay here and finish school. Just in case he didn't get the job, as he liked to say.

The day he left I went out with my sister and we went shopping. We saw the postcard in a gift shop and thought it would be a good joke, seeing how April fools was right around the corner. I wrote down the hotel's address and mailed it that very afternoon.

I didn't even know that he had even received the postcard until his mother called me asking about where he was. She said he didn't go to the interview and the hotel hasn't seen him for three days.

The hotel said he checked into the hotel and later that night one of the desk clerks gave him his mail. He stared and the postcard for a minute or two and walked straight outside and hailed a cab. They haven't seen him since.

His mom wasn't just calling about where her son was, but was also calling about the postcard. I was furious with him at the time and thought I'd sure like to tell his mother what kind of a man she raised.

I guess I must have left out the part about it being April fools and that I was joking, because she took it awfully serious.

She spent the next few weeks taking care of me. She called the school and got them to let me take my finals later. We would spend the days out looking for apartments, buying furniture, normal expecting mother stuff. There were times when I almost broke down and told her, but she always seemed so happy, and I knew it would crush her.

She insisted to take me to the doctors and get checked on. I didn't know what I would say when the doctor came back. I kept telling her a lot of these aren't very accurate and we could try another doctor. She would just pat me on my hand and tell me not to worry. The guilt got to be too much and I was just about to tell her, but then the doctor walked in, and said a few words that would change my life forever.

Congratulations, He said, would you like to know if it's a girl or a boy ?

Labels: contests, finalist, postcards

Frank caught me by surprise when he showed up with his luggage and those tickets to San Antonio.
"San Antonio?" I inquired. "You mean the Texas San Antonio?"
He was already dragging my suitcase from under the bed and opening dresser drawers.
“Put on a sundress or something. I hear it’s hot down there.”
I’ve learned not to question Frank when he gets a wild hair. I packed some lingerie and a bathing suit and a couple of cotton dresses, threw some toiletries into a cosmetic bag, brushed my hair, put on some Rita Hayworth Red lipstick and announced myself ready.

I held my tongue throughout the three hour plane ride, setting a new world record. We checked into a pink motel with a clay tiled roof, stowed the suitcases in Room 6, and were off again, Frank grabbing my hand and pulling me past the pool and the potted palms, under the archways out to the street. There Frank took off at a good clip with me having to run to keep up.
“This better be good,” I told myself for the umpteenth time. At the second corner, we cut across the street to Uncle Pedro’s Used Cars. Frank stopped, and, as if he were about to unveil the curtain on Showcase Number 2, announced, “Well, there it is. What do you think?”

I was staring at a two-toned baby blue and white Buick with portholes on the sides. A ’53 I think, one of those “classic” cars they restore and show off at Fabulous Fifties parties. “It’s beautiful,” I remarked, moving in for a closer look. I peered through the driver’s side window.

Frank slapped his forehead. “Not the car, girl! The lot! It’s mine! Well, ours. Uncle Pedro, well, he’s dead now, six months, and when they read the will, guess what! He left me the business. The whole business! The used car lot, the property, all the cars, all the money, everything! So what d’ya think? Are you happy? It’s all ours!”

“You mean yours, Frank. Why do you keep saying ‘ours’?”

“Oh, I forgot that part.” He was digging in his pocket for something. Then, quick as a wink he handed me a black velvet jewelry box and bent down to one knee, and before my mind could register, “¡Ay, caramba!” he proposed to me. Just like that.

“There’s a little wedding chapel down the street. I checked it out.” So the rascal had planned this all along!

An hour later we were enjoying our honeymoon at the Old Mexico motel. Enjoying it and enjoying it until pink sunlight streamed through the curtains in the morning.

Frank decided to stay in San Antonio to take care of his affairs while I went back home to pack up my apartment for the move. He saw me to the plane.
“I’ll be back for you in a month or two,” he told me, kissing my hair. “Send me a postcard and let me know how you’re doing.”

Labels: contests, finalist, postcards

http://xanderbennett.blogspot.com

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.

Labels: contests, finalist

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!

Labels: contests, postcards