Kristen Dorsey
"I dress carefully, ensuring my uniform is clean, pressed, and free of “Irish pennants.” My drill instructor reminded us every day in a very loud voice that woman Marines are “separate but equal,” and we have to work extra hard to get the “equal” part."
Richard Gilbert
"William, I’ll call him. His real first name was likewise one that people always slap a nickname on; but in the formal way of some country folk, he didn’t abbreviate. So, a gracious air of olden times arose with his mention."
Bridget A. Lyons
"My father is obsessed with the American chestnut tree. This might not seem odd if he were a biologist, an arborist, or a forester. Or if he, over the course of his eighty-two-years, had ever taken any kind of interest in landscaping."
Pushcart Nominees
Todd Davis
"The hayfield is half cut and catches June light at the edges. A sweet dust floats down over the farmhouse as I park the truck along a line of century-old sugar maples. I hear a tractor which I can't see because it’s hidden by a hillock while it makes a loop in the lower meadow. "
KaToya Ellis Fleming
"Uncle Mike says that on summer nights in the country it would get dark enough to make you go blind. A deep, boundless black that would heighten your other senses so intensely, you could hear every cricket in Harlem, Georgia chirping in chorus."