textBOX
Our Current Issue
TMR’s Audio Contest
Poem of the Week
Author Archives: Darren
TMR Editors' Prize Contest Deadline Extended
Dear Contest Submitters,
As you may have noted, we have made a short extension of the deadline to next Wednesday, October 8. In addition to some submitters using the old address, this is the first year we’re being hosted on the university server. Hopefully, all goes well for those submitting. However, if you’re experiencing any slowness and wondering if your manuscript was uploaded, don’t worry. We manually check every transaction to make sure we have your manuscript. If there’s any problem, we’ll contact you. Thanks for entering the Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize Contest, and thanks for supporting The Missouri Review.
The contest editors
2000 Editors' Prize Winner: "Coney Island in Winter"
The deadline for this year’s Editors’ Prize is only days away. Continuing our look at previous Editors’ Prize winners, the 2000 fiction entry “Coney Island in Winter” by Dana Kinstler Standefer. It’s the story of a woman, who, concerned for her weight, drinks only iced coffee or Tab for lunch. She works for the androgynous Bob Scheinman, a designer of party dresses, and the story revolves around their relationship, and her own aspirations to become a designer. There’s an odd sexual tension to their relationship from the start that begins to escalate once she makes her designing aspirations apparent to him. He even suggests they make a baby together. However, Bob is dying—it’s never revealed what he is dying of, but it’s not hard to guess. The story has a theme which, interestingly, explores both weight-obsession and androgyny, observing how the fashion world appeals to a fantasy of what women want to become, making the “normal” woman more of an androgynous figure. Read the story:
http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=1022
For more information on this year’s contest, click the link on our homepage, or got to http://missourireview.com/contest
1999 Editors' Prize Winner–"Tad Lincoln's Ladder of Dreams"
Continuing our look at previous Editors’ Prize winners, the 1999 fiction winner was “Tad Lincoln’s Ladder of Dreams” by Emily Pease. The story opens with the imagery of death–a small boy dying in bed, the sound of rain from an opened window. A mother and father experience a great loss, presented to us in effective detail. It is not until the second page that we discover the father is Abraham Lincoln. And it is not until this same page that we discover the narrator of the piece is someone who could not have witnessed the death presented so vividly in the first scene. The narrator is Thomas (Tad) Lincoln, the third son of Abraham Lincoln. The dying boy was the first son, who died before Tad was born, so this scene is his re-imagining of what happened, perhaps constructed from events he has been told, or perhaps simply what he feels must have happened. We soon learn that Tad, born with a cleft lip, is not only living in the shadow of the first son’s death, but also in the shadow of the second son, his older brother Willie, whose features—his eyes and lanky frame—are more like his father’s. Tad’s imagination continues to be a dominant presence in the story, often exceeding what he would actually know, often revealing to us his father’s thoughts as if they were his own. He imagines what his father sees, what he fears. Lincoln is shown from the perspective of a son who is amazed that his father has attained a god-like stature to the people around him. The son imagines Lincoln’s fear of death, and his determination to do what is right in the face of this death, and his desire to go back to a normal life. But death is never far away in the story. The numerous family tragedies that Thomas witnesses encompass a meditation on death which is both thoughtful and moving. There are many quietly powerful moments in the story. There is honesty in the prose. There is detail in the description which goes beyond the researched aspects of the story, making the reader accept the truth of the piece. There is verisimilitude, one of the more difficult tricks to pull off in a period piece. Read the story at:
http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=179
For more information on this year’s contest, click the link on our homepage, or got to http://missourireview.com/contest
2002 Editors' Prize Fiction Winner: "Rationing"
As the deadline for this year’s Editors’ Prize fast approaches, we continue our look at previous prize winners. The 2002 Editors’ Prize Winner in fiction was “Rationing” by Mary Yukari Waters. It deals with the relationship of Saburo with his father, a survivor of the World War II bombing of Japan. The story examines the relationship of the father and son and how it was affected by the lingering changes in Japanese culture after Hiroshima. See the story at:
http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=1087
For more information on this year’s contest, click the link on our homepage, or got to http://missourireview.com/contest
2003 Editors' Prize Fiction Winner: "Custodian"
The deadline for this year’s Editors’ Prize is just a few short weeks from now. Continuing our look at previous Editors’ Prize fiction winners, 2003’s “Custodian” by Daniel Coshnear, follows Manny, a janitor at a private high school, who is dealing with his son, a high-school senior, who has suddenly become a father. The son fathered the child with one of the rich girls who attends the private school, and has moved in with the girl and her mother, and doesn’t want his father coming around because he is worried that he will embarrass him. Meanwhile, Manny is trying to take care of an old friend who is suffering debilitating complications due to ill-management of diabetes. The two stories intersect as Manny tries to give his son a lesson in responsibility. Read the story for yourself at:
http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=71
For more information on this year’s contest, click the link on our homepage, or go to http://missourireview.com/contest
2004 Editors' Prize Fiction Winner–"Family Planning"
Continuing our look at previous Editors’ Prize fiction winners, the 2004 winner, “Family Planning” by Valerie Laken, is about Josie and Adrianna, a couple who go to Russia to adopt a child. They face an obstacle that a straight couple would not, in that the Russian government would not permit a lesbian couple to adopt a Russian child, so they must pretend that Adrianna alone is looking to adopt, and that Josie is just a friend accompanying her. For Josie this is frustrating because she is the one who truly wants to adopt a child, but for financial reasons must let Adrianna take the lead when they go to the orphanage. This leads to a difficult decision for the couple, as Josie begins to realize that she has become a participant in a bizarre shopping trip, where everything comes at a high price. Copy/paste the link below to read the story:
http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/text_detail.php?text_id=100
For more information on this year’s contest, click the link on our homepage, or got to http://missourireview.com/contest