Here’s a refresher on how this works:

• All Weekly Finalists and Winners are automatically entered into the monthly contest.
• Of them, each month, one will become the Monthly Winner.
• Of all the Monthly Winners, one will be named that Grand Winner after the contest runs for 12 months.

Weekly Writing Assignment received many great entries in the past month, but only one will win. Following is a list of all the Monthly Finalists. While we don’t have a voting system (yet…coming soon, I swear), let us know which one you think should be the first ever Weekly Writing Assignment Monthly Winner!

The Monthly Winner will be announced on Monday, August 24.

Weekly Finalist: Stories from an Incompetent Wine Taster, by Jessica Schmidt

My father was a renowned wine maker in California. Everyone knew him, everyone loved him, he had such a buzz about him, he drew people in, he commanded attention. I did not. I was a bit of a screw-up, I spent half of my college and early adult years showing off my bravado and trying [...]

Weekly Finalist: Untitled by Gavin St. Ours

“I’m worried about you.”

She appeared at my office instead of worrying over the phone. I knew something was different when I buzzed her up.

Weekly Finalist: Settling by Sarah J. Storer

I awake to the cacophony of pans hitting Formica. He is cooking breakfast again. The kind of breakfast that you eat and eat until you’re so full, you feel like your esophagus rests on a pillow of eggs and ham.

Weekly Finalist: Vanity by Ted

I just finished eating my fairly Spartan dinner of Dinty Moore beef stew and rice. Rinsed the bowl and put it in the sink. Sat back down at the kitchen table, book still in hand, head still in the story. Pushed my chair back and rested my left ankle on my right knee as I sat back.

Weekly Finalist: Mirrors by Lauren Flax

Mirrors
Would he be able to tell just by looking at her? Sarah stood in front of the round mirror in the foyer. Her cheeks were pink and her skin looked clearer and brighter than usual against her black curls, black tank top and dark eyes. It was just a kiss. She had fixed her lip [...]

Weekly Finalist: Self Portraits by John Lindner

Self Portraits
He observed that there were two of him in her sunglasses, identical twins, one of him in each lens. And each image was a miniature portrait, head and shoulders painted dark, backlit by an April sky, each copy sharing its frame with a likewise duplicated white cloud. And as long as she gazed at [...]

Weekly Finalist: Untitled by Brian Shea

Untitled
Sean ran his fingers through his hair for about the eighteenth time. Then he sighed, protruding his lower lip in another futile attempt to make his bangs flutter. He envied girls who could do that. If he could do that at the perfect moment on stage, maybe a girl in the audience looking at one [...]

Weekly Finalist: The Mirror by Alexandra Paun

The Mirror
The silver moon was astounding, he thought. The cold light made everything appear as if belonging to a recurrent dream from his childhood. But ever since that night he couldn’t dream anymore. He would often lie there, on his bed, head sinking in the pillows, and he would imagine how it felt like to [...]

Weekly Finalist: Untitled by Andrew Cloud

The solitary hawk surveyed the landscape. Sun. Heat. Clouds lazily cruised through the solid blue sky. Breeze. A small, brown blur is spotted through the foliage. Rodent. Food. Flight. Wings spread, it takes off. Feathers ripple, wind feebly tugs at the edges of the being. The blur is much closer. Dive. Consume. And that is [...]

Weekly Finalist: Fly on the Wall by Lea Stahl

A thousand, thousand screens reflect what I see and what I see is you. I’m your unknown stalker who watches your every move, who follows you wherever and everywhere you please, and knows you like no other. I am one of many in this world, but will never survive the next day; Part of a [...]

Weekly Finalist: Stanley by Lauren Flax

Sheila started with all of the past life business after her brother got cancer. She started buying weird books from the hippie dippy bookstore downtown, and sometimes at night she would lean into the garage while I was working on my bike and say stuff like, “Stan, come in and spend some time with me, [...]

Weekly Finalist: Barbara Flynn by Nick Piche

In an era when skeletons are better left in the closet, when things are not talked about, and everything is a façade on the face of truth, Barbara Flynn does her best to keep the status quo. However, with the looming revolution of the sixties she is ready to open up.Barbara [...]

Weekly Finalist: Wayne Ward by Rachel Cormier

Wayne is a man in his mid-40’s, recently coming to light when he responded to an ad for a medically knowledgeable copy writer. He was from out of town, somewhere in the mid-West, where he grew up and married and then abandoned his high school sweet-heart.
He attended medical school in Texas but could not complete [...]

Weekly Finalist: Mad Men Story by Brendan Wilhide

The young man smiles nervously as he waits in the reception area of Sterling Cooper. He grips his hat firmly in his hands and taps it over and over with his fingers. His tan overcoat spills across his wrists and over his briefcase and glistens ever so slightly from the misty [...]

Weekly Finalist: Nina, the Newest Associate at Sterling Cooper by Elissa Strati

I was strolling down Park Avenue the other day when the revolving door at 857 caught my eye and drew me in. I found myself in the lobby of an office building, people hustling to and fro. Ding! The elevator doors were opening. A crowd rushed off and I got on. When we came to [...]

Tags: monthly finalist

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 11:11 pm and is filed under Monthly Finalists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.