Reading, all in a row, a big stack of stories by local writers is quite an experience.
This reader thinks she knows Tampa a little bit better now, after 30 years here. Stories are a rich and vivid expression of our community, and we grow through the understanding they give us of ourselves, collectively and individually. Barry Lopez famously wrote: “Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.” We have lots of talented writers in Tampa, luckily, ready to provide this vital sustenance.
But even if we’re starving, our tastes in fiction are everything. I like to be teasingly talked to in a story — and charmed by surprising developments, even as I am conscious of invention at every turn. I like parts to be buried, elusive. I can wait a little and wonder, hopeful and keen, if the narration is lively and the complications are heady.
I found this in Brian Lott’s “This Is the Worst Day of Your Life (A Love Scene).” The narrative voice is expressive and energetic, the sentences lovely, but some essential understanding is held just a little away for a while. I’m led deftly through a story that becomes many stories, and finally into the very tight frame of a closing that I know is the right one, subtle and satisfying. A winner.
READ THE JUDGE'S PICK FOR FICTION, "THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF YOUR LIFE (A LOVE SCENE)"
Love takes many forms, as do love stories. I was struck by the variety and quality of the many submissions I had the honor — and difficulty — of judging. In fact, the theme complicates the matter, since love itself won’t sit still to be studied and gauged. The circuitous stories stand the best chance of getting something right, but they can become tortuous, so easily.
READ THE READERS' PICK FOR FICTION, "OVER AND DONE"
Like the best things in life, love stories are worth trying again and again… to eventually get it right. —Lisa Birnbaum
All fiction submissions were judged with the authors’ names removed. The top 10 finalists were selected by CL Staff and Fiction Judge Lisa Birnbaum, who chose the winner. Lisa is an associate professor in the Department of English and Writing at the University of Tampa. Her novel, Worthy, was published in 2016 by Dzanc Books, and her essays and poetry have appeared in such journals as Connecticut Review, Grand Tour, and Kestrel. She was Fiction Editor of Tampa Review for more than a decade. Lisa is married to poetry judge and fellow UT faculty member Don Morrill.
(Read the Readers' and Judge's prizewinners in poetry here.)
This article appears in Feb 1-8, 2018.