To Our Readers
Welcome to the fifth 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students in Portland State University’s Publishing Program held a short-story contest in winter term 2009 calling for unpublished short stories that explore the theme “Loose Change.”
A rich variety of stories came in. Some writers concentrated on “Loose,” others on “Change,” and coins appeared in abundance—in jars, in pockets, in outstretched hands. We enjoyed stories about an elderly woman who gives peanut-butter cookies to street people; a man secretly in love with his bank teller; a sewer worker who may or may not invite a homeless girl to dinner; a young “Signer” who begs at freeway intersections and classifies her stoplight clientele; young men at loose ends who play “Bloody Knuckles” with a quarter.
Every class member pored over every submission. At last, we settled on the four winning stories. Each winning author is a writer to watch.
Congratulations to Sean Davis, our second two-time winner. Sean’s story “Movement to Contact” appeared in the 2008 Editors’ Choice e-journal, available on this website.
Karen Kirtley
Karen Kirtley teaches advanced editing in Portland State University’s Publishing Program.
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Click on the image to view a complete PDF of Loose Change.
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2009 Winners:
Dolphins and Crocodiles by Sean Davis
Together, Separate, Nowhere by James Norton
Eleanor Roosevelt by Bryan Beck
What We Lost in the Storm by Helyn Trickey
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