It's been a long and difficult journey, but PenTales has finally selected the winners of our story contest on Borders. We received over a hundred innovative and inspiring takes on our theme. Submissions hailed from all over the world, making this a contest of truly international proportions.
PenTales would like to thank everyone who participated in the contest and extend a special thanks to comedian Seth Herzog who reviewed our first-place story "Border Crystal" by John Washington and to writer Dee Sulaitis who picked and ranked from a veritable treasure trove of stories the top five works.
Oh, and heads up! It's not too late to submit your photo or text to PenTales's latest story competition on travel, The IT.A.CÀ Contest.
Here's to Spring 2011,
Saskia, Stephanie and the entire PenTales Crew hailing from 20 cities around the world.
"Border Crystal" by John Washington of Tucson, Arizona
The piece that won PenTales’s inaugural story contest on “Borders” is part of a novel-in-progress by the author.
He said that he came to work, not to cross the wall this time, but just to work in some of the factories along the border, and I believed him.
He told me that he was religious, and I believed him about that, too. And he found a job, like he was looking for, in a factory within sight of the border-wall. His plan was to work for a few years, save up enough money to buy a house, and then get married. He was only in his twenties. He told me that some of the other men at the factory were better workers than he was, and that they were making more money because they were installing the circuits faster than he was. For awhile, he said, he thought that they were just better workers than he was, that he was used to farming and that they were used to machines, but then one day they told him their secret.
They showed him the crystal, which was a meth rock, and they showed him how to smoke it, and they admitted it was a drug but a drug, they said, that you could live with, a drug that you could work with, and they told him that they weren’t even addicted to it, that they were only smoking for a few years, to make money, to do their jobs better, and that they would stop and go back to their land, that they would return to their tierra, just the same as him. Continue reading...
A Review of "Border Crystal" by Seth Herzog
I’ve never done meth (as far as I know), but after reading John Washington’s “Border Crystal”, I think it’s time. I find myself tending toward the lazy end of the spectrum at times and yes, I’m not afraid of a little procrastination, but now I see all I need is a little dose of some good ol’ fashion meth. I could be getting a lot more done, and without all that messy “sleeping” or “eating” to distract me.
Our story is told secondhand from someone who heard from the source (allegedly…) about a young man (I’m assuming who lives in Michigan and is working in a factory in Canada) who longs to make some money so he can provide for his future wife, future kids, and make payments on his future farm. He seems so sure of this “future family,” like he saw them as an apparition, as one might in a Christmas-themed movie wherein our hero then has to change his ways to make sure he achieves the suburban dream Hollywood urges us to aspire to. (But I digress.) In our hero’s zest for making money he wants to work harder and his colleagues introduce him to crystal meth. Continue reading...
Other Winning Stories
"The Border Crossing" by Dee Turbon of Scotland "Borders" by Pia Swainer of London "Alice" by Sarah Volkmann of Langley, British Columbia "The Ballerina" by Shydel James of New Jersey
Created in New York City by two childhood friends who loved to swap tales, PenTales empowers people to share stories (in photography, illustration, and writing) on the topics that unite us all.
