The Librarians’ Choice contest was held February 24-May 30, 2020, and evoked a bit of sadness that we can no longer wander the aisles of public libraries.
Contest Judges Anne Macdonald (based in the Poudre River Library District, Fort Collins, Colorado) and Molly Thompson (Front Range Community College Librarian, Larimer Campus, Fort Collins) chose a “Lost in the Library” prompt, and 192 international writers submitted a wide range of creative entries.
Brilliant Flash Fiction extends many thanks to the writers who participated, and a giant thank-you to the judges who volunteered their time to select three prizewinners.
First Prize: Biter by Emily Roth
Emily Roth is a writer and librarian based in Chicago. She holds a BFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College and a Master’s in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University. She has been recently published by Hypertext Review, 101 Words, and TL;DR Press, and shortlisted for the SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction.
Judges’ Comments:
“We both thought that Biter interestingly reflects what librarians face on a day-to-day basis in a public library—lost children, mild flirtations, asking for book recommendations as a chance to chat; a sort of “day in the life of a librarian” but from the patron’s point of view. We also thought it included a bit of conflict with believable characters and character interactions. We both felt the fear that Meg felt on losing her charge, but also the irritation of the librarian having to look for the kid. We liked the slight irony at the end when Veronica bit the librarian.”
Biter
By Emily Roth
On Wednesdays, Meg and Veronica walked to the library after school. Veronica wouldn’t hold Meg’s hand—now that she was in second grade, she wasn’t a baby anymore. As far as handholding went, Meg was quietly relieved.
Veronica was a biter. In the years Meg had babysat her, she’d been bitten hundreds of times. She had a crescent-shaped scar on her wrist, a fat triangle on the soft inside of her elbow. What’d you do? Veronica’s mom scoffed whenever Meg brought it up.
Like every other Wednesday, Meg deposited Veronica in the children’s area for LEGO Club, and headed upstairs to the adult section.
As always, Stephen sat behind the reference desk. When Meg saw him, her heart fluttered in her throat. Stephen was older than her, she guessed, probably twenty, and sophisticated. He wore colorful button-down shirts and his wavy black hair brushed his shoulders.
Meg positioned herself at the south end of the desk, by the window. When Stephen looked at her, she would be bathed in sunlight—glowing, angelic. Hopefully.
“I liked Catch-22,” Meg said. Stephen frowned. “You recommended it to me last week.”
“Right.” Stephen smiled. “Great book. I recommend it to everyone.”
“Do you have any books about … ” Meg hadn’t prepared a query. Her mind sputtered. Stephen watched her and Meg noticed the color of his eyes—sparkling hazel, like ginger ale. “People who bite?”
“Let’s see.” He started typing. The phone rang.
“Hello?” Stephen listened, then frowned.
“Are you Meg?”
She nodded. Stephen held the phone out.
“I’m sorry,” said a female voice, “Veronica needs to leave LEGO Club early today. This is her third strike. She can try again next week.”
“I’ll be right there,” Meg sighed.
Last week, the children’s librarian had pulled Meg aside and showed her an angry welt on her hand. A couple of weeks before that, Meg arrived to find Veronica latched to another kid’s collarbone like a suckerfish.
Meg found the kids playing nicely with LEGOs, one little boy bleeding slightly from the elbow. She looked around for Veronica—her white-blonde hair, her hot pink shoes—but she was absent.
“Where is she?” Meg asked the librarian.
The librarian looked around.
“She said she was going to find you. You didn’t see her?”
Panic flooded Meg like a wave.
“No,” Meg said. “I didn’t. There’s only one set of stairs, right?”
“Well,” the librarian mused, “there are stairs in the staff area.”
Meg could see the entire children’s area, with its low bookshelves and wide walkways. Veronica wasn’t there.
“Did you see a little girl just now?” Meg asked a woman wrangling two toddlers. “Blonde? Hello Kitty shirt?”
“Yeah, she bit Tommy,” the woman said. One of the toddlers had a red circle on his cheek. “She went that way.” She nodded towards a door labeled ‘Staff Only,’ and Meg jolted toward it.
Behind the door, Meg found an office. She looked under the desks and behind carts of books. She ran up a set of stairs, and at the top, nearly crashed into Stephen.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Meg’s face burned. She stuttered, “Um, the girl I babysit. She’s missing.”
Stephen swore under his breath.
They searched the supply room and the study room, then moved into the stacks, weaving around shelves. Unlike the children’s shelves, the adult bookshelves towered nearly to the ceiling. They split up, then reunited by the biographies.
“We need to call the police,” Meg cried. “Her mom is so going to fire me.”
Suddenly, Meg heard something overhead. Her gaze shot upward. At the top of the shelf, she saw a sliver of hot pink.
“Veronica?”
A cascade of white-blond hair spilled over the top of the shelf.
“You found me!” Veronica giggled.
“Get down here right now!” Meg commanded.
Veronica sighed, then shimmied over and swung her legs down.
Stephen gave Meg a panicked look and reached up, his arms barely grazing Veronica’s sneakers.
Veronica descended the shelf like a ladder, and once she was in reach Stephen plucked her from the shelf and set her on the floor.
“Thank you so much,” Meg sighed. “Hey. Let’s exchange phone numbers. So I can repay you.”
“Oh,” Stephen said. “Um. That won’t be necessary.”
Veronica looked from Stephen to Meg, and back to Stephen. She lunged forward, sinking her teeth into his tanned forearm. Stephen shrieked. He jerked his arm, but Veronica hung there, limp.
“Get her off!” He looked at Meg, desperate.
Meg smiled.
Second Prize: Empty Nest by Mary Kuna
Mary Kuna is a librarian who lives in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, with her librarian husband and an alarming number of books. She does love knitting and cats, but only wears her hair in a bun when she’s at ballet class. Her work is forthcoming in Queer Sci Fi’s flash fiction anthology Innovation.
Judges’ Comments:
“We liked the creativity in the story as well as the reference to our present COVID-19 quarantine. The description of the library and the stacks were vivid enough to envision the setting. The story was imaginative and well told. Somehow, the NK7000s—metalwork, gold, silver, jewelry—felt apropos to a dragon story. Finally, “Clutching a book about Fabergé eggs … ” was a nice way to cinch the ending.”
Empty Nest
By Mary Kuna
“Do you think it’s a dinosaur egg?” Mark asked Tessa.
He was Rachael’s 1:00 p.m. appointment, and he held a large, egg-shaped gray-brown rock. She didn’t think it was a dinosaur egg, but all she knew about dinosaurs came from reading dinosaur books as a kid and never outgrowing the habit.
“It’s not my area of expertise,” Tessa said, smiling. “I’m a librarian, not a paleontologist. But Dr. Becker should be here any minute.”
The library was the only section of the museum’s research centre regularly open to the public—exhibits were in another building—so it was near the lobby, and Tessa and other library staff could see anyone who came for an appointment with a curator. While they waited, people eagerly showed off artifacts and specimens they’d brought, sometimes a gilt-framed landscape painting, sometimes a live female black widow spider.
Dr. Rachael Becker, Head of Geology and Paleontology, entered the lobby. After introductions, Rachael took the rock from Mark and inspected it, slowly turning it over, peering closely at its surface.
“Unfortunately, it’s not a dinosaur egg,” she said. “Most dinosaur eggs aren’t ‘egg-shaped.’ Eggs of meat-eating dinosaurs tend to be elongated, sometimes torpedo-shaped, and eggs of plant-eaters are round, spherical. Also, the texture is smoother than a fossil egg, and it’s not cracked like a more brittle eggshell would be.”
Mark shrugged. “I didn’t think it was likely, but I found it on the beach and figured I’d bring it anyway.”
“Thanks,” said Rachael. “It looks like a sedimentary concretion. They often form around organic matter, sometimes even around fossils. If you leave it with me, I can cut it open and see if there’s a plant or animal fossil at the center.”
He agreed, and Rachael warned, “With everything going on, I expect it’ll be longer than usual before I can examine it.”
Tessa shivered. Schools had just closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone expected more closures soon. Tessa squirted hand sanitizer from the bottle on the desk, rubbing her hands together for the twentieth time today.
Mark left, Rachael returned to the geology department, Tessa resumed looking up old shipbuilding records. She didn’t think any more about the “egg” that day, but she thought plenty about COVID-19. The announcement about the museum’s temporary closure came an hour later. Staff wouldn’t be going into work the next day. Tessa knew they wouldn’t be back for a while.
#
With its tall columns and grand front steps, the museum’s research facility was a stately building—and an old one, making temperature and humidity control difficult. Archives, labs, and collections storage areas were always at optimum conditions to protect documents, specimens, and artifacts. The offices and library, however, were freezing in winter and sweltering in summer—unless there were drastic problems with the boiler or air conditioning. Then they were freezing in summer, sweltering in winter.
One April day, the offices were hot and humid. The egg-shaped rock on Rachael’s desk vibrated. A tiny crack appeared in the side. It shook around on the desk as more cracks appeared in the shell. Once the creature’s sharp, powerful egg tooth pierced a hole in the shell, it rested, lungs acclimatizing to outside air. Then it chipped furiously away until it could push the egg cap loose.
A scaly black head poked out of the egg, looked around the office with intense green eyes. Its nostrils flared.
The creature freed itself from the shell, unfurled its wings, stretched. It lay down on the desk, spiky tail curled around its body, and fell asleep.
Dragon eggs require a certain temperature to hatch. This egg had been in the cold Atlantic Ocean a long time, and Mark found it on the beach in a Canadian winter. It hadn’t reached hatching temperature until now.
When the dragon awoke, he soon adjusted to his museum home, never having been anywhere else. He mostly prowled the offices and library, as his prey roamed there—other areas of the building were sealed too well for mice to get in. He slept eighteen hours a day in the library stacks, usually the NK 7000s, decorative arts books about metalwork, gold, silver, jewelry.
#
It was June. Back in the library for the first time in eleven weeks, Tessa smiled widely, although no one could see it under her mask. She didn’t even mind the boring task of shelving. Clutching a book about Fabergé eggs, she browsed the call numbers in the NK 7000s …
… and screamed.
Third Prize: Lost in the Library by Laura McGinnis
Laura McGinnis is a retired project manager living in Pittsburgh, who is starting life over as a poet and writer. She writes because someone has to say these things—be they amusing, encouraging, questioning, or downright angry. Some of her work can be found online at mrswoonsocket.wordpress.com.
Judges’ Comments:
“We both felt that this is truly a ‘lost in the library’ story—caught up in imaginary characters, books, fiction stacks; running from characters we all know and love. The reader can feel a bit of the narrator’s fear in the character chase, as well as the anxiety in the possibility of finding even worse characters in non-fiction.”
Lost in the Library
By Laura McGinnis
I plodded up the wide steps to the great bronze doors. They opened onto a little glass cage, two sets of double doors, separating the lobby from the bitter winds of mid-winter.
My quest was to find something light to take on vacation. I was looking forward to sitting on the deck of the cruise ship, elaborate tropical drink by my side, looking for a murderer or some stolen jewels or some other great mystery. My plan was to wander the stacks, looking for titles that sounded intriguing, authors I knew I liked. Judging books by their covers.
I dived into the maze of shelves that housed the fiction collection. Fiction was set up to make the most of the round room in which it was housed. Shelves were arranged as concentric circles with space between each pair of shelves to walk through to the next inner circle. Books were arranged alphabetically by the author’s last name starting with the outermost ring and ending with X, Y, and Z in the center.
Starting at A, I considered some Asimov, but wasn’t really in the mood for science fiction. When I headed to the next shelves, B, C—maybe some Agatha Christie?—then D, I heard a beeping behind me. I turned to see what it was, but there was nothing there.
In E, I briefly considered Umberto Eco, but The Name of the Rose was too long and too dark for my tastes. Moving away from the E and F shelves, I heard Gregorian chant. I looked around but again, there was nothing. Maybe someone somewhere doesn’t have their phone on silent. That would explain the beeping and the chant. Gregorian chant, I thought, was an interesting choice for a ringtone. Nothing in G—like The Name of the Rose, Robert Graves’ I, Claudius was more than I wanted to bite off for this trip.
I moved into the next ring of shelves. H-I-J-K brought me to Stephen King. His writing is amazing, but again too dark for what I was looking for. As I passed along to the next shelves, I heard a snarl and some heavy breathing. I turned back.
That wasn’t a ringtone or cell phone. I walked back to the King books and Cujo was growing fur and had what looked like dog slobber dripping down the spine. I looked back at the outer ring, towards Umberto Eco, and an ethereal monk stood there, hands folded and hood covering his head and face. Just beyond him, near the G shelves was a frightened little man in a toga. With trepidation I went back to the As to find an android standing at attention, waiting for instructions.
Something weird was happening. I backed away from Asimov but the android saw me and started following. Caught between the android and the monk, I jumped inside the next circle as the monk and the dog joined the android. When I passed the Ms, Captain Ahab showed up. At S, Simon LeGree joined the chase. Tolkien brought a hobbit and an orc to the party.
By now I was running around in the circles, with a parade of literary characters on my tail. I raced through the stacks, trying to shake them off, but they stuck with me no matter which way I turned.
I was so intent on escape that I missed the doorway to exit the fiction stacks. Around and around I ran, getting well and truly lost in the maze of shelves. I passed through the circles, in and out of the alphabet, looking for a way out.
Then, as I ran back past the Ds, I saw a door to the non-fiction stacks. Oh no, what if those characters—Genghis Khan, Son of Sam, Hitler!—came to life? They were real! They would be even harder to run from.
But along the wall, about halfway through the non-fiction stacks, I saw another door. If I could just make it past those five more shelves, I could get back into the lobby and get someone to help me escape these figments of my imagination. Taking a deep breath, I plunged into a sprint to the door.
As I passed through the door, breathless and terrified, I looked back. The monsters had stopped at the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. As I watched, they started to fade away. In less than a minute, they were gone.
Apparently, truth is stronger than fiction.
Shortlist
LOST IN THE LIBRARY
By V Vaidehi
Presently, she had no other desire in life except to open Chapter 26 of the book to read it again, a little slowly this time. And also, to find out what happens next. She had left the world of Jane Eyre on Friday at a critical juncture. She was filled with a strange restlessness and a sense of foreboding all through the weekend.
There could not have been a starker contrast between her own world and the fictional one she had been coursing through in the school library for an hour every day since Monday. Her own life in India in a middle-class family and a municipality school in the year 1974 versus England of the early 19th century with its Halls and housekeepers, the Lords and the Ladies, the countryside with its heath and moors and horseback riders!
With the Sanskrit language teacher falling ill suddenly, the few students who had opted for this language course were at a loose end. While the others played or chatted, she went to the library just to while away her time. Not being an avid reader, she just flipped through several books. It was just by chance that she picked up Jane Eyre. She found the empty Library soothing and she settled down and opened Chapter One. She did not know then that she would be engulfed by the compelling story.
Since then, she would enter the Library every day without wasting a minute of the free period and head straight to the shelf where she knew the book would be, and retreat to a corner. With bated breath, she would open the book at the page she had read last and plunge headlong into the ordeals and travails of Jane. She experienced her despair and loneliness, but also admired her spirit and her fortitude in the face of so much adversity. And when Jane Eyre fell in love, it stirred up strange and unfamiliar emotions in the fourteen-year-old girl.
She devoured the book with passion, and internalized all the happenings, the settings and the interplay of the characters, so that she was lost to her present world in that dimly lit Library.
Last Friday, she had read the chapter in which the wedding was interrupted and then called off. She had been overcome with a sense of bewilderment, disbelief and denial at the revelations in this chapter. She wanted things to become all right somehow and could not bear the thought that Jane’s happiness was so short-lived.
All through the weekend, she could think of nothing else. Forgetting that it is a fictional story, she kept thinking of what would happen now. Absentmindedly, she attended the chores at home. While cutting raw mangoes into small pieces, she thought of the chestnut tree in the gardens of Thornfield Hall and wondered what a chestnut looks like.
There was no way she could get hold of this book from somewhere else. She could not even think of asking her father to buy the book for her as all they could afford, that too with difficulty, were the textbooks for her and her siblings. Having a book collection was unheard of in her circle of families and friends. She simply had to wait to return to the school library.
On Monday, she headed for the book with trepidation, but could not find it at its assigned place. She rummaged through the shelf but her book was gone. Amused by her urgent queries, the Librarian took her time to check some entries in a register. She now looked up and told her that the book had been sent, along with several other books, for repair and rebinding. Yes, it may take two or three weeks, and no, they do not have another copy of the book, she was told.
The girl was aghast. She sat there desolate, and tears welled up in her eyes. Her life had now been inexplicably intertwined with that of Jane Eyre and to be cut off from that world so abruptly was heart wrenching.
The Librarian, who had spent all her life amongst books, could fathom the deep impact a good book can have, especially on a tender mind. She knew that at this time, no other book could comfort her. She withdrew quietly and allowed the girl to sit there, a little lost, in the library.
LOST AMONGST THE GREATS
By Noelle Palmer
It was almost over before it even began.
He fumbles with his fly, his blushed face trying to regain composure over jerking hands.
Her gaze still turned upon the shelves, she subtly fiddles her panties back in place.
“I mean … I … When I suggested we study … ” he mumbles, his face downturned, hiding his triumphant, baffled grin.
Her fingers brush gently along the broken spine of a biography of some great man she will never know.
“Well, I guess, I sort of hoped we might … well, not … ”
She feels wet. She looks around for a washroom sign. She rarely comes to this floor, usually confining herself to fictions and comic books.
“You know,” his voice so hesitant it sounds as if it might be breaking for the second time. “I never … ”
His eyes catch hers as they try to skim by, holding them in a moment as intense and awkward as they have known together.
“Hi,” he says softly, sweet as a schoolboy first discovering mischief.
She turns abruptly back to the dusty rows, admiring the melange of old and new, used and untarnished, loved and cast-aside. She shifts her skirt awkwardly. “I have to go … ”
“Are you … ?” he tries to ask, hesitant for the words, unsure how he himself feels. His hand lifts stiffly towards her soft shoulder, before running back scared to his side. “I mean, this was … ”
She twists her legs, trying to stop the flow of his excitement. “I have to go,” she repeats, trying to scurry off with their dignity. “We can study another day,” she thinks to add without stopping to look back.
He leans into the shelf, inhaling the odours of past loves and triumphs. “Promise?”
She slows her retreat to turn and smile bashfully at him, as if she too had lost something that day.
Nightstand
By Molly Quell
The date was bad. It was promising at first. He’d sent her a humorous first message. They both liked Werner Herzog movies and a particular Thai restaurant downtown.
Which is where they met for dinner.
He kept asking her if she was having a nice time, if the food was okay, if their table was acceptable. She attributed it to nerves.
They lingered over the last bit from the bottle of wine he’d ordered. She wasn’t much of a drinker and neither was he. By the last third of the California Chardonnay, the conversation had grown stilted. She suggested they leave the rest, but he said that was a waste.
He insisted on paying, despite her protestations, and told her that she could get the next one. She didn’t think that moment, with the waiter and the credit card machine, was the time to tell him that there wouldn’t be a next one.
He walked her to the bus stop and awkwardly kissed her good-night when she made it clear that they weren’t going in the same direction. On the bus, she pulled out Milkman by Anna Burns from her bag and didn’t look up until the announcement for her stop.
She set her keys in the bowl near her door, hung up her coat and tucked her shoes into the rack in the closet. Then she curled her legs underneath her on the couch and pulled the throw blanket over her lap. Her calves were cold to the touch. She knew she shouldn’t have worn a skirt. It was too early in the spring.
It wasn’t until she shivered a while later that she realised the temperature had dropped in the apartment. The thermostat was programmed to go down at night and it was much past her bedtime.
Brushing her teeth, she thought about what she knew of the Troubles. She vaguely recalled something about bombing at a shopping center. And there was a U2 song. It wasn’t something thoroughly covered in history class.
In bed she realised that she’d left her phone in her bag and she had to throw the covers back and venture into the darkness of her chilly living room to retrieve it.
There was a message from her sister. “How’d the date go?” And then later, “Ohh no response from you, I hope that’s a good sign.” With a winking emoji.
The cable barely stretched to meet the phone, now lying on top of the stack of books on her floor, next to her bed. White Teeth by Zadie Smith was on top, the muted color blocks on the cover interrupted by a laminated white sticker with a call number. Cloud Atlas and The Testaments by Margaret Atwood had identical stickers. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which she still hadn’t started, had the check-out receipt from the library sticking out of the top. The Bees and Emma rounded out the last two she was allowed to have at one time.
Much better than any date.
A Quaint and Curious Volume
By Bruce D. Walker
Elijah Vaughan ducked into the nearby library and sought out the head librarian.
“Sir, I’ve had a difficult day and a friend suggested that you would be able to help me. I just need to get lost from the world in here for a few hours.”
The short, bespectacled man behind the desk broke into a large grin.
“Why, yes, sir, I can help you do just that. Take the elevator to the third floor, go to the northwest corner door, press the buzzer, and I will let you in. Stay as long as you like and enjoy the time.” He began to walk away then turned and said, “Oh, when you are done, just snap your fingers.”
Vaughan gazed at the man’s back as he departed the desk, then looked for the elevator. Entering, he pressed 3, rode to the third floor, and moved to the northwest door. Pressing the button, he heard the door unlock.
As he stepped into the unusually large room, his eyes were drawn to the beautiful volumes on the many shelves before him. The weight of the world wasted away as he stared at the intricately designed covers before him.
“Treasure Island!” he shouted, “my favorite childhood story.” Removing the volume from the bookcase, he flipped to page twenty-seven and began reading.
Without warning, the room vanished! He found himself sitting at an old wooden table with a glass of some brew in his hand. He was wearing an old blue coat and a cutlass was resting on the table. As his mind attempted to understand what had happened, a young boy entered the room accompanied by a man wearing an old tattered sea-cloak, hunched over with a green shade over his eyes and nose, and tapping a stick in front of him. Obviously, the man was blind.
“Here’s a friend for you, Bill,” the young boy said. Vaughan began to stand but found he was unable. His mind was confused as to what was going on.
Bill? Why did he call me Bill?
“Now, Bill, sit where you are,” said the blind man. “If I can’t see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his left hand by the wrist and bring it near to my right.”
As the boy did as instructed, Vaughan stared at this scene in which he was an actor. An actor!
“That’s it! I’m in Treasure Island,” he said to himself. “How … how is this possible?”
As he was considering his situation, the blind man deposited a piece of paper in Vaughan’s hand.
“And now that’s done,” the man exclaimed, quickly exiting the room. The boy continued to hold Vaughan’s hand as the two stared at the paper.
Suddenly, Elijah Vaughan realized what had just happened. The blind man had given him, that is, Billy Bones, the black spot! He, that is Billy, was a marked man and had until ten that evening to live!
“Ten o’clock!” he shouted. Glancing at his watch, he realized it was not there. He began to jump to his feet when he remembered what happened to Billy Bones after receiving the death message. Billy Bones fell to the floor and died of a stroke.
“No. This can’t be! I can’t be here. I just wanted to get away for a while. Wanted to get lost in the books. I’m not Billy Bones! I’m Elijah Vaughan!”
The young boy stared at him as though he were losing his mind.
“Are you all right, Captain?” he asked.
“Why, the kid must be young Jim Hawkins!” The thought rattled through his brain, and Vaughan began to feel faint. His body began to sway, and he was convinced Billy Bones was about to die. Did that mean he was going to die as well?
“No, this just cannot be,” he said once more as the blood drained from his face. Somehow he was Captain Billy Bones in the Admiral Benbow and had just received the black spot. As he began to fall to the floor, he remembered the librarian’s words. With the remaining energy his body possessed, he snapped his fingers.
Now, he was back in the room holding the book. He wiped his brow and returned the item to its shelf. Relieved, he was about to exit the room when his eyes fell upon The Time Machine.
Did he dare?
Longlist (Alphabetical)
Joseph Austin, Persons Attempting to Find a Moral Will Be Banished
BEBogdon, In the Library
Greg Beatty, The Only Thing Lost in the Library
Robin Bissett, Lost and Found
Nicki Blake, Found Objects
Yunus Brevik, Priscilla
Rob Carlson, The Literary Fragmentation of one Todd Chambers
Shawn Cassidy, Direction
Stephanie Cotsirilos, Alexandria Revisited
Corina DiOrio, Washing Dishes
Stephen Dorney, where are you?
David Drew, Courage at the Crossroads
Diane E. Gannon, Close Encounters
Joe Giordano, Burning Question
Mercy Godwin, MUSINGS
Liz Haigh, Lost in the Library—The Librarian’s Lament
David Hudson, Can I Stay?
Lisa A. Hudson, A Special Book
Sara Jordan-Heintz, Character Development
Teddy Kimathi, COUNTING ON WORDS
Tyrean Martinson, LOST IN THE DRAGON LIBRARY
Christian McCulloch, LOST IN THE LIBRARY
Perry McDaid, RIPPED
Brandon McWilliams, Tall Tale
Gargi Mehra, The Crumbling of Virtue
Beatrice Ognenovici, Three Darlings
Yongsoo Park, Lost in the Library
Mandira Pattnaik, Type in Everything You Know
Jeremiah S. Perkins, Maya Asks
JC Rammelkamp, Losing It in the Potawatomi Rapids Public Library
Richard Risemberg, The Lost Letter
Shellie Scott.Lost Among People’s Lives
Timothy Smith, Lost in the Library
Jennifer Stuart, Another Story
Edd Vick, Loan Words
Hannah Whiteoak, The Incident in the Children’s Section
Gregg Williard, Carrels
Shannon Connor Winward, Lost in the Library
Sonya Worthy, Real Librarians
Ann Zimmerman, Overdue
Maria Zoccola, Work Crush
BRILLIANT FLASH FICTION 