Carnivals and Masquerades
"We humans are performative creatures—the masks and costumes we put on are varied and many. But what happens when we take off the masks and costumes?"
Stefan Bindley-Taylor
"The head works funny these days, tilting toward sensations, yearnings, itches, inklings, everything in the body rearranging to lean into it soft and slow. I stand outside the house."
Janice Eidus
"'He comes in. He goes out. He comes in and he goes out. That’s all.' Anna listened and played with the topaz birthstone ring her parents had given her two years before, on her thirteenth birthday."
L.A. Harris
"The blacktop shimmered July heat as the bus rolled out with the morning sky thirsty for rain."
Scott John Murray
"The first thing I remember about the line: I was already in it. Before I had time to take stock of the situation, someone was grabbing my shoulders and pushing me ahead from behind."
Doug Ramspeck
"It was coming down hard enough that it was difficult to see. Some of the cold snow worked its way beneath the collar of his jacket."
Anna Scotti
"In the worst version, which is also the true one, they’ve left the windows open, but they feel safe because they’ve dragged the queen mattress into the living room so they can all watch TV..."
Patrick Sylvain
"Carnival came to Jacmel the way a drumbeat comes to the ribs—sudden, intimate, impossible to ignore."
Tara Van De Mark
"In an abandoned lot, just a block from the grand theater where the puppet show has started, sits the carousel.  It’s exposed with no pavilion covering it."
Hope
"Miracles are all around us. We just have to slow down long enough to be aware of their presence. The miraculous is an engine for hope."
Lily C. Buday
"It was common knowledge that Ms. Delphine Temple loved the suicide girls—the drowned ones especially."
Vanessa Hemingway
"Ever since Michael had started working as an aide at Redwood Psychiatric three months ago, he had wanted to lead these poor people together in prayer."
Adam Zhou
"Back when we used to live in the bungalow next to the graveyard, I had a ritual. Every night after dinner, I sat on Yeye’s rocking chair on the veranda, listening for any sign of footsteps."
Pushcart
Nominees
The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize that publishes poetry, fiction, essays nominated by small presses.
Vince Reighard
"Center field can be a lonely place. Surrounded by an acre and a half of grass, most of the time you have no one to talk to, and nothing much to do, except plant your hands on your knees and try to look tough."