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Writers in Whistler: Winning Postcards

The Whistler Select Writing Awards, presented by the Vicious Circle, Watermark Communications, Whistler Blackcomb and Pique Newsmagazine, announces the winners of the Postcard Jam.

The Whistler Select Writing Awards, presented by the Vicious Circle, Watermark Communications, Whistler Blackcomb and Pique Newsmagazine, announces the winners of the Postcard Jam.

The newly established Whistler Select Writing Awards recognizes that great writing is the result of an intersection between place, perspective, craft and community. In addition to celebrating travel writing and non-fiction, the Awards’ Postcard Jam contest showcases the best undiscovered creative writing talents from the region. Forty entries were received by the Aug. 25 deadline in the Postcard Jam category.

The judges hailed the winning postcard stories as “fine slices of writing. A pleasure to read and no wasted words.”

Highly commended pieces were Pam Barnsley’s Olympic Rap and Nora Ryan’s Bewitched.

The first three winners will perform their stories for the Audience Choice award at the Whistler Readers and Writers Festival’s Saturday, Sept. 13 th Evening Readings, to warm the crowd up for keynote speakers Leslie Anthony, Candas Jane Dorsey and William Deverell, 8 p.m. at MY Place.

Be there to cheer on your favourite scribe in the race for Postcard Grand Poobah.

Tickets for the readings and jam-session are available online at www.theviciouscircle.ca , or can be purchased at the door, and are just $20.

 

 

First place: Don’t leave…

 

By Rebecca Wood Barrett

“Don’t leave,” says Nathan.

Richard stretches his toque over his ears. “I can hike out of here.”

“Be dark soon.”

Richard scrapes the ice crust from his snowboard. He doesn’t look at Nathan, doesn’t want to see the blanched patches on his nose, his earlobes, the creeping blue on his lips.

Nathan says, “Remember that guy who nearly died when he got his arm trapped under a boulder? He said he had some irrelevant, annoying song stuck in his head. That’s what got him out.”

Richard pats his chest with his glove, checks for the hard outline against his ribs. Comfort. He’ll open the flask when he’s out of sight. “When I come back, the rescue guys’ll long-line you out, Nate. Be the ride of your life.” He cinches his gloves tight.

Nathan says, “I can’t think of any songs I hate.”

“Jesus,” says Richard. He sinks into the snowdrift. “I don’t think you get to choose.”

Nathan says, “You should go.”

Richard feels the sting of ice pellets scrape his cheek. He looks at Nathan and says, “Rocket Man.”

“Elton? I like Elton.”

“The William Shatner version.”

“Mmmm,” Nathan coughs, sucks in the raw air. “Not annoying enough.”

Richard feels for the flask, protected in his inside pocket. “I should go.” He stamps his boots, stands up.

Nathan’s voice is as thin as the air. “Rich, I don’t want a downer song. No cellos or violins. No crows, no river dories, no fog. I don’t want a white light. I want blue skies. Trumpets and trombones. Give me a big band, with a conductor. I want Mambo dancers and Bjork doing backflips and I’m wearing spats and a fedora. And I sing like Sinatra.”

Overnight, the snowstorm passes. At dawn Richard says, “Nate, wake up. It’s blue skies.”

 

 

Second place: Mice are stupid

 

By Feet Banks

Mice are stupid. You can kill an entire horde simply by putting the same trap with the same cheese in the same place day after day. You’d think after the second mouse disappeared the rest would start to clue in.

Sort of like — “Hey, where’s Harold? Last I heard he was heading out to the frontier and I haven’t seen him since.”

And then the next mouse says — “Weird, that’s what Tobias said and he’s been gone for two days. Maybe we should mount a search.”

And on the way they make gay cowboy jokes about their two absent buddies until…

“Holy fucking shit. There’s Harold. He’s dead, man. He’s crushed under… what is that thing? And where’d that nice looking hunk of cheese come from?”

And the other — “Noooooo. Harold, no… He was so young… and… Shit. Help me, dude. Help me get him out of this clamp so we can at least give the guy a proper funeral… Uhhnngg, it won’t budge. Why? Why God, you stinking turd? Why Harold?”

And the first — “Hey dude, calm down. There’s nothing we can do. At least Harold died out in the field, man, exploring and doing what he loved. Not holed up in the wall like some friggin’ termite. Harold lived more in one day than most mice do in their lives… He’s gone, but not forgotten.”

And the first mouse pats the other mouse on the shoulder, adding — “And Tobias too. Come on Eddie, let’s go home.”

“Yeah, sure, but grab that cheese.”

And so the mice go to mourn and feast and remember the good times.

And the next morning you’ve got Eddie in the trap.

 

Everyone likes to talk about how cats are so smart but it’s easy prey that makes them look so great. Stupid, easy prey.

 

 

Third place: The Perfect Match

 

By Katherine Fawcett

There once was a salty girl who tired of tumbling in the sea. Her hair was woven with kelp, her face freckled from a reckless night with a seahorse, her eyes dark as squid ink and breasts that could rescue drowning sailors. When she surfed, men accidentally knocked over their beers and forgot their names. She could have been a mermaid, if not for those carmelly legs, her delicate seashell-tipped toes and the tiny jellyfish tattooed on her ankle.

But she was bored. “I’ve had it with Australia,” she said one day. She picked the seaweed off her shoulders and removed a barnacle from her earlobe, although sand remained in her various folds for quite some time. She gave her surfboard to her brother who later auctioned it off, left her bikini in a dune, and walked away from the ocean.

There was once a caffeinated boy who tired of creating filter-proof e-mail sales campaigns for pharmaceutical companies. He was pale and nervous and blinked more often than most people. His pony-tail was the colour of toast. With delicate hands he clicked out slick, un-SPAMable ads that persuaded millions to improve their lives through drugs. Clients adored him, although most had never met him. His boss loved him because clients adored him.

But he was bored. “I’ve had it with Toronto,” he said one day. He deleted his hard drive, gave his apartment keys to a homeless man, changed into flip-flops and walked away from the hot-dog stand where he always ate lunch.

The salty girl and the caffeinated boy met at the top of Jacob’s Ladder on Blackcomb Mountain. By the end of the week, they were sharing a room in a five-bedroom house and had adopted a dog.



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