To Our Readers
Welcome to the fourth annual Ooligan Press Editors’ Choice e-journal. The advanced editing students in Portland State University’s Publishing Program held a short story contest in winter term 2008 calling for unpublished short stories that illuminate the theme “After Dark.”
In three weeks, the contest drew many excellent entries from the Portland State community. Every class member pored over every story. We watched a young woman eagerly turning into a winged creature. A blind transcriptionist tapped her way home and shot an intruder. A pair of pot-smoking ninth-graders donned capes and went out to fight crime. A welder and his teenage daughter lived year-round in a tent near the Washington coast; a badly injured female robot was pursued in the desert; a woman became obsessed with “Radioman,” an early morning talk show host. The tales were intriguing and dark in a wealth of senses.
The class as a group selected a short list of eight stories. Then, laboriously, we settled on the top four. Each winning author is a writer to watch.
Karen Kirtley
Karen Kirtley teaches advanced editing in Portland State University’s Publishing Program
.
.
.
2008 Winners:
Movement to Contact by Sean Davis
Swamp Woman by Rebecca English
Thomas by Chelsea Harlan
You Got the Silver by Amanda Johnson.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.