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Letter from the Editor

Trish Rodriguez—Editorial Director, Philadelphia Stories

This year, I had the honor of choosing the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction finalists after several years of reading for the contest and being the contest coordinator. This has been no small feat. I worked with Teresa FitzPatrick, our Fiction Editor and Fiction Contest Coordinator, as we narrowed the hundreds of stories to submit the most resonant and well-crafted to this year’s judge, Oindrila Mukherjee, Ph.D. Oindrila was a previous second-place winner in 2015 with her story, “Cul de Sac.” She has gone on to great acclaim with her debut novel, The Dream Builders, published by Tin House Books this year.

It is also with bittersweet feelings that I must announce that this will be the last year for the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction. We will miss working with and receiving support from the McGlinn/Hansma family. They have decided to focus more on the devastating disease that took their precious Marguerite away from them, pancreatic cancer, which has touched and devastated many of us. We appreciate the time, effort, and support for the McGlinn fiction contest that the McGlinn/Hansma family has provided to Philadelphia Stories these past ten years. To the McGlinn/Hansma family, we at Philadelphia Stories extend a heartfelt thank you. We would also like to thank all those who have submitted to the contest, read for the contest, and our past contest winners. Personally, I am thankful to have been a part of it. I am glad to have read so many excellent stories.

Reading for a contest is one way to recognize how subjective getting published is. There are so many great stories floating about in the world. Only a few can fit in the small, allowable space. I chose the stories I connected with out of those filtered by Teresa and our contest readers for Oindrila to decide which would receive the top prize. We read anonymously without knowing the writer’s background or publishing history. We just wanted to be moved by great stories.

Here are the winning stories with comments from Oindrila Mukherjee

First Place:

“Mirage” by Astha Gupta, Ann Arbor, MI

“Mirage” is a haunting story about grief and how it follows us everywhere, told in lyrical prose that evokes the melancholy beauty of landscapes, both geographical and emotional. It left me feeling both heartbroken and hopeful at the same time.

Second Place:

“The Doppler Effect” by Madeline McGrain Githler, Pittsford, NY

This quietly gripping story about memory and loss is set in such peaceful surroundings, and yet it has the low, sinister rumble of a train running through it, building suspense to an almost unbearable crescendo.

Third Place:

“The God of Ugly Things” by A.J. Bermudez, Boston, MA

“The God of Ugly Things,” set against a chilling backdrop and told in such authoritative prose, is a stunning depiction of how power and control can shift suddenly in a relationship, changing everyone forever.

The Editor’s Choice:

“Vicks Vapor Rub Covered Baby” by Jeannine Cook, Philadelphia, PA

With its rich details and strong voice of family legacy, “Vicks Vapor Rub Covered Baby” struck such an emotional punch that we had to include this story, which can be read online.

The other finalists were, in no particular order:

“Stunt Boy Bishu” by Nivedita Majumdar, San Bruno, CA

“Levittown” by Tina Smith Brown, Philadelphia, PA

“Daniel 9:22,” by Atlas Chambers, St. Petersburg, FL

“Anomaly,” by Laurel Sharon, Stamford, CT

“The Blond Bullfighter and the Police Parade,” by Viviane Vives, Spicewood, TX

“Chicken Grease,” by Mikhayla Robinson, Athens, GA

Dear Members of the Philadelphia Stories Community,

Once again it is my pleasure to announce the winners of the McGlinn Fiction contest and to thank the McGlinn and Hansma families for their continued support of PS and the contest. In this issue you will see the first and second place stories, and an editor’s choice. The third place story will be printed in the Winter issue.

This is what the contest judge, Camille Acker, had to say about the first place story by Robert Sorrell Bynum. “’Here Is As Good A Place As Any’ deftly re-imagines apocalypse not just as the outer world collapsing, floods and abandoned highways, but also the inner, alcoholism, long-term relationships, and motherhood. The writer plays with form and language to create a beautifully strange and poignant world.” And this is what she had to say about the second place winning story by Gina Angelone. “’Portrait of A Stranger’ plunges face-first into the frustrated voice of a daughter navigating a distant, dysfunctional relationship with her father. The story is told with heart, ending on a loving note while still acknowledging how complicated love between a parent and child can be.”

Trish Rodriguez (our fiction editor) and I chose the editor’s choice story, by Holly Woodward. “’Tryst’ is a daring and heartbreaking story of love and friendship during the devasting days of AIDS in the 1980s.”

Philadelphia Stories has come a long way since our founding launch in September of 2004. Our budget and reach have grown over the years, and we’ve remained open to new ideas and modes of publication. At the core of everything we do is our mission, “… to cultivate a community of writers, artists, and readers in the Greater Philadelphia Area through publications, professional development, and promotion of area writers.” I know that I speak for executive director, Christine Weiser and the board of directors when I say thank you to all of you for your support over the years and congratulations to the winners of this year’s contest.

“She ain’t nothing but a $5 hoe,” our booknerd, stripper friend chides while she two-step shimmies towards the pole in the center of her new home’s private library. We are in her house, Young Money’s Seeing Green playing on repeat in the background. This is her den of delectable book treats. Surrounded by the smell of seductive stunken leather and crumpled paper backs, this is where she reads and entertains. “Like Sula,” our friend reinforces her statement with eyebrows raised as she grips the titanium-gold pole and wraps her legs around it, careful not to stab herself with her spiked four inch heel.

The $5 hoes that she is talking about are activists who partner with corporate brands for trinkets and the long-term effects those relationships have on communities. We are talking about how much modern day branding is like the physical branding done to ancestors of the past. Always some colonialist loser with their hot irons and pitchforks wanting to inflict their names and their labels and their pain on someone else’s chest or ass or thigh. And how branding cannot be misconstrued with reparation.

And she is changing the subject to Toni Morrison’s 1973 book, Sula, knowing damn well we have been drinking. We are sitting at our booknerd stripper friend’s meticulous and neat desk pontificating over an Old Fashioned in our ripped jeans and a bleached-brown-from-black Strategic AF tee shirt. We could use some lotion–and some socks. She is one with her pole.

“A $5 hoe like Sula?” our booknerd stripper friend pokes at Toni Morrison’s free-spirited protagonist and title character. In this deep character study of a novel, Morrison channels two best friends, Sula and Nell. Readers get to experience the two women’s lifetime of decisions on love, friendship, community, loyalty, and philosophy. We get to examine their dubious choices and more importantly examine our own through them–asking ourselves throughout the story, which character we are more like under different life circumstances. Sula or Nell?

Then our booknerd stripper friend effortlessly flips herself upside down, legs spread V to the sky. Talk about core strength.

Morrison has created an ongoing sore spot in our friendship.

We state:

“Sula was spontaneous.”

She states:

“Sula was inscrupulous.”

We state:

“Unscrupulous.”

She states:

“Bitch, you know what I mean.

She lands in a split that makes our cheeks ache.

We were asking her to imagine a world where Rosa Parks was sponsored by Aunt Jemima-selling syrup as she sauntered away from her seat in southern Alabama, where Fannie Lou Hamer was sponsored by Uncle Ben’s, pushing rice while delivering rants against racism at mass meetings in Mississippi. It is unimaginable.

“Don’t you dare say an unkind word about Ms. Parks,” she glances over her shoulder at us.

“What about Hamer?” Our hand gestures adamant towards the sky. “Morrison is speaking about the whole human,” our fingers like a maestro conducting our words. “We all a lil’ Sula from time to time. Not connecting our decisions to what is best for the community, not caring. We are all a lil’ Nell from time to time. Over sacrificing at our own peril. No need to choose between these two. Instead stand in the middle.” We rest our flailing arms at our sides.

Modern day branding tactics are sneaky and not nearly as visceral as cooking someone’s flesh with a burning hot piece of metal. Because of this, the tactics are a little harder to spot. They may disguise themselves in marketing lingo like partnership, campaign, and collaboration or hide behind financial backing calling themselves grants, fellowships, and awards knowing damn well they have an ulterior motive—let us put our names on your back, shoulder, or face like chattel.

“We had a woman reach out wanting to present a youth poetry award at the bookshop,” we say looking through our friend’s super neat Nicki Minaj cover collection.

“Sweet,” she is on the floor stretching. “You should stretch your hip,” she says tapping the floor where she wants us to sit down next to her.

“Right. No problem. Sure.” We ignore her and get back to our story. “But the closer we got to the event, the youth poetry award woman finally shared that the award was being sponsored by Gucci and that they wanted to pay us for using our venue as long as one of their representatives was able to present the award and speak to the press out front. But Gucci had literally just dropped their Blackface turtleneck line. We were like, ‘Sis, we could never host them after that.’ And the crazy thing is she couldn’t understand why not. They’d just given her a community ambassador fellowship, she said clutching her pearls. Five thousand dollars and that turtleneck thing was a thing of the past. So is slavery,” we rolled our eyes as she and her little check pranced out the door.

“Precisely. In my industry, the best of us live by a standard. We work by a code. We have to have each other’s backs. But there are those who don’t.” Our booknerd stripper friend is laid flat out on her back taking in deep breaths. “We say this is a hoe willing to mess it up for everyone else by accepting $5 to do some shit that the rest of us would never do at all because it doesn’t serve anyone—it doesn’t even serve the hoe. We chop those dumb bitches the fuck up at the end of the night because they make it harder for the rest of us having people think we are all $5 hoes,” she Floyd Mayweather jabs and uppercuts the air.

At this point, some of us may ask ourselves, why would anyone accept less than they deserve? And the answer is because we don’t know what we deserve and haven’t asked ourselves this question enough for actual feedback.

We stay quiet. We know very little about booknerd stripper culture. The closest we’ve come in support of our friend’s self-proclaimed, good hoe goals is cornrowing her braids into a crown that fit snugly beneath her platinum 40 inch.

“What about freedom, though?” we ask after a long minute of silence. “Aren’t people allowed to do whatever they want? Free will?”

“Yup, and those free hoes who do so without a standard among people who they can trust are easy prey. They always get picked off. Those people, like Sula, end up chopped and alone with people like me and Nell who have to come along and give them medicine and pick up their pieces.”

In Morrison’s novel, Nell ends up serving her lifelong friend, Sula, in her dying moments, even after what she perceives is Sula’s severe betrayal.

“What we always felt was missing from Sula and Nell’s relationship was a plan. A decision. A meeting of the minds,” we say looking down into our glass of Old Fashioned.

“Yup and the moral of the story is never be a $5 hoe, my G,” she says dozing off to sleep.

Ase. And so shall it be.

For the last 10 years, Jeannine Cook has worked as a trusted writer for several startups, corporations, non-profits, and influencers. In addition to a holding a master’s degree from The University of the Arts, Jeannine is a Leeway Art & Transformation Grantee and a winner of the South Philly Review Difference Maker Award. Jeannine’s work has been recognized by several news outlets including Vogue Magazine, INC, MSNBC, The Strategist, and the Washington Post. She recently returned from Nairobi, Kenya facilitating social justice creative writing with youth from 15 countries around the world. She writes about the complex intersections of motherhood, activism, and community. Her pieces are featured in several publications including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Root Quarterly, Printworks, and midnight & indigo. She is the proud new owner of Harriett’s Bookshop in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia.

by Carla Spataro, Editorial Director – Philadelphia Stories & PS Books

Every year I have the honor of choosing the finalists for the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction. Over the past few years, I’ve been doing this in consultation with our Fiction Editor, Trish Rodriguez. As always there were many great stories to choose from this year. Sometimes Trish has to convince me to go back and read something again. Sometimes a second or third reading changes my mind, and sometimes it doesn’t. Usually, we end up with a list of either slightly less than or slightly more than 10 stories. If we’re on the fence about two or three, we look at the grouping as a whole and do our best to decide which stories will make the strongest connection with our readers. I almost always have a favorite, which is almost always never the same as the judge’s favorite – or Trish’s. This is why we have a judge, someone from outside the magazine, someone with a different take on the work and a different aesthetic. Judging art of any kind is purely subjective and writers who submit their work to contests, and for publication in general, need to keep that in mind. All it takes for a story to get published is for the author to find the right reader – and sometimes that takes a very long time.

I was so thrilled Rion Amilcar Schott agreed to be this year’s judge. When I first read his short story collection, The World Doesn’t Require You, I knew this was an author I wanted to meet and hoped that I would be able to convince him to come to Philadelphia. Sadly, this year’s Push to Publish Conference and events will be online again because of Covid concerns, and Rion Amilcar Scott will not be visiting us in person. However, we will still be hosting all the great readings, events, panels, and workshops that you’ve come to expect. And we’ll be doing it all on Zoom. You will still be able to spend the day with him by taking his short story Master Class, Dangerous Satires: Writing Ridiculousness for Ridiculous Times, on Friday, October 8, 2021 – and you’ll be able to “meet” the winners of this year’s contest and hear them read at our virtual celebration and reception on October 9, 2021. Find more details at www.philadelphiastories.org/push-to-publish-2021.

Here are the winning stories with comments from Rion Scott.

First Place: “Uncle” by Robin Lee Lovelace from Plainfield, Indiana. “Uncle” manages to be both funny and starkly gut-wrenching. There’s a tension that crept up on me and when it broke, left me feeling a real sense of loss.

Second Place: “Ameena Goes to America” by Rahad Abeer from Nashua, New Hampshire. In “Ameena Goes to America,” physical journeys become emotional journeys across time. The story left me with questions about the limits of love and forgiveness. It’s a really beautiful story.

Third Place: “Experimental Trials” by Olivia Fantini from Minneapolis, Minnesota. “Experimental Trials” is one of those stories that manages to be timely and timeless. A new vaccine causes people to float. And of course, there are the believers and the non-believers. Grounded, but with a sprinkling of magic, this story had me thinking about the borders of faith and science.

Finalists, in no particular order:

“Goodbye Mr. Lincoln” by Louise Smith, Arlington, VA

“Winged” by Natalie Gerich Brabson, Philadelphia, PA

“May All Be Happy” by Jyotsna Sreenivasan, Columbus, OH

“Ups and Downs” by Shelby Wardlaw, Jersey City, NJ

“Tejedora” by Kris Faatz, Parkville, MD