2016 Golden Donut Short Story Winners and Runners-Up
Each year the Writers’ Police Academy sponsors a fun and challenging writing contest called The Golden Donut Short Story Contest. The rules are simple—write a story about a photograph we supply using exactly 200 words, including the title.
The 2016 photo-prompt is pictured above.
Below are the first, second, and third place contest winners selected by international bestselling author Tami Hoag.
Congratulations to each of you, and to everyone who entered the contest. Each and every story was absolutely wonderful.
2016 Golden Donut Award Winner!
Click. Clack.
by A. R. Kennedy
Click clack.
That is all I have heard for days.
Click clack.
My fingers producing the only noises in the still ship.
Click clack.
We ran aground twenty-one days ago.
The penetrating waves. The driving rains. The pounding winds.
I sat at this typewriter as we rocked, as we swayed and, finally, crashed.
Click clack.
Only us four had survived the first night.
The others drowned in the high seas.
Plenty of other beds were available now.
All the other cabins were available now.
But we had stayed together.
Out of loneliness? Out of friendship? Out of fear?
I could not answer for them.
For me, I could not leave my Underwood. My only true friend.
It always told me what I wanted to hear.
Click clack.
Just us four until day fourteen.
The yelling. I could not take the bickering anymore.
The hunger. I could not take the starving anymore.
Click clack.
My bunkmates stopped talking to me seven days ago.
But their voices…their voices lingered in my head.
Their screams as I covered their mouths…They bounced around in my head.
But now, even that was gone.
And so was the hunger.
Click. Clack.
~
Second Place
Final Words
by Jan Utz
I slip into the room and quickly lock the door.
The sixties called, they want their dorm room back.
This is where I am going to die. I am okay with that.
I was there when history was made.
The worst mass murder on a college campus.
Everything moved in slow motion as I watched rounds of automatic rifle fire slice through young bodies. The two slugs I took to the gut were things of beauty.
I need to record something, anything, to mark this occasion.
The drawers hold nothing but receipts. The ribbon on the ancient typewriter is dry.
Ah! But an ink source oozes between my fingers as I clutch my wounds.
Sitting on the edge of the old chair, I dab blood on the ribbon.
Faint letters appear as I type my last words and remove the narrow receipt.
I hear cops searching door to door.
My frozen in time room will be next, but it will be too late for me.
As the cops break in, my rifle slides down, snagging the pink lace on my skirt.
I take my last breath as the blood soaked message drifts to the floor.
Sorry. Not sorry.
~
Third Place
Writer’s Getaway: Inspiration Guaranteed
by Chelle Martin
The brochure had promised a quaint retreat, with tranquil gardens and the opportunity to relax and interact with other writers. So far, I was a party of one in an aged Victorian house that would probably collapse from a strong wind. I would have checked my weather app and prayed for a gale, but cell service disappeared fifty miles ago.
To say my quarters were cramped was the proverbial understatement. My writing desk was sandwiched between two “handcrafted” bunk beds with warped drawers. If I accomplished a draft, it would be a miracle. To top it off, my agent had recommended this place. “I have only heard good things about it,” she had said.
Anger engulfed me as I rolled a sheet of paper into the carriage of the antique Royal typewriter and pounded away on the keys like the Phantom of the Opera playing a menacing symphony on his pipe organ. Clack, clack, clack. Ding!
The story flowed with a fierce pace, opening with a badly treated author murdering her agent and then escaping to a place no one would ever look for her–a little Victorian house that disguised itself as a writer’s retreat.
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