Winners in Our "Thirteen Writing Prompts" Contest. - - - - Recently, we had a contest where we asked people to submit their best story based on one of Mr. Dan Wiencek's Thirteen Writing Prompts. We're proud to now be publishing the runners-up and prizewinners in this space, one at a time over the coming days and weeks, culminating in the grand-prize-winning story. - - - - Runner-up No. 1. - - - - Prompt No. 2 Write a short scene set at a lake, with trees and shit. Throw some birds in there, too. - - - - Birds. By Gene Morgan - - - - Birds. Lots of birds landing. 300 birds land. Birds keep landing on trees. 3,000 birds land on trees. Lots of birds. 30,000 birds in all. Birds all over the place. More birds. 300,000 birds. The trees are swelling up with birds. More birds come. 3,000,000 birds total, are in the trees. The birds are in the trees, and these birds, obviously, are shitting all over the trees. All 30,000,000 of them. All 300,000,000 birds. The birds are in the trees and shitting on the trees, and some of that shit eventually ends up in the lake that is near the trees. 3,000,000,000 birds shit on the trees and shit some more, and the shit rolls into the lake. The trees are covered in the shit of 30,000,000,000 birds. The lake is swelling with shit. The birds keep shitting. The shit of 300,000,000,000 birds is all over the trees. The birds keep landing and shitting. They shit metric tons of bird shit out of their tiny bird asses, and the shit from 3,000,000,000,000 birds swells. The lake fills up with shit until it is no longer a lake, it is a giant mound of shit. A shit lake from 30,000,000,000,000 tiny bird asses. The trees are all now shit trees. 300,000,000,000,000 birds cover themselves in shit, and keep shitting. The lake, the trees, and all of the birds are all engulfed in shit. And this shit, the shit of 3,000,000,000,000,000 birds that are all still shitting while submerged in shit, is visible from space. In space, a cosmonaut shits and looks down at the lake on the earth. He looks out over his Russian magazine about space, and down at the giant mound of shit that was once a lake. He shits. The cosmonaut sighs, and flushes.   OTHER WINNERS

- - - - MAIN PAGE   |   ARCHIVES   Memories of Amanda Davis   Red dot denotes content that is new today. Black dot denotes newish content. McSWEENEY'S STORE SUBSCRIBE TO: McSWEENEY'S THE BELIEVER WHOLPHIN FUTURE McSWEENEY'S BOOKS THE AMANDA DAVIS HIGHWIRE FICTION AWARD INVITE A McSWEENEY'S AUTHOR TO SPEAK IN YOUR TOWN OR COLLEGE McSWEENEY'S MONTHLY MAILING LIST McSWEENEY'S-RELATED EVENTS AND VARIOUS TOUR DATES ORDER INQUIRIES AND ADDRESS CHANGES SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: FOR BOOKS FOR THE QUARTERLY FOR THE WEBSITE FOR WHOLPHIN McSWEENEY'S INTERNSHIPS CONTACT US - - - - LETTERS TO McSWEENEY'S LISTS McSWEENEY'S PREDICTS McSWEENEY'S RECOMMENDS NEW WHOLPHIN FILM DAN LIEBERT, VERBAL CARTOONIST JOKES BY BRIAN BEATTY REVIEWS OF NEW FOOD DISPATCHES FROM MOSCOW SO YOU WANT TO BE PRESIDENT? DISPATCHES FROM THE ANACOSTIA THE WINNER'S CIRCLE WITH ERIC FEEZELL BEN GREENMAN'S FAKE CELEBRITY MUSICALS DISPATCHES FROM A HUMANITARIAN JOURNALIST DISPATCHES FROM IRAQ SHORT IMAGINED MONOLOGUES PHILIP GRAHAM SPENDS A YEAR IN LISBON STAINED TEETH: A COLUMN ABOUT WINE DISPATCHES FROM THE NAPOLEONIC WARS AT THE MET KEVIN DOLGIN TELLS YOU ABOUT PLACES YOU SHOULD GO IN EUROPE SONGS OF ENEMIES AND DESERTS: LIVING WITH THE SUDAN LIBERATION ARMY LAWRENCE WESCHLER'S EVERYTHING THAT RISES: A BOOK OF CONVERGENCES THE CONVERGENCES CONTEST ABOUT WHAT IS THE WHAT ABOUT BOWL OF CHERRIES ABOUT COMEDY BY THE NUMBERS ABOUT JOHN BRANDON'S ARKANSAS ABOUT MICHAEL CHABON'S MAPS AND LEGENDS LETTERS FROM AN EARTH BALL TO, OR CONCERNING, SEAN HANNITY DISPATCHES FROM ADJUNCT FACULTY AT A LARGE STATE UNIVERSITY ADVICE FROM A PERSON WITH A BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN PSYCHOLOGY DISPATCHES FROM THE NBA ENTERTAINMENT LEAGUE JOHN MOE'S POP-SONG CORRESPONDENCES B.R. COHEN'S ANNALS OF SCIENCE INTERVIEWS WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE INTERESTING OR UNUSUAL JOBS OPEN LETTERS TO PEOPLE OR ENTITIES WHO ARE UNLIKELY TO RESPOND DISPATCHES FROM A PUBLIC LIBRARIAN MICHAEL IAN BLACK IS A VERY FAMOUS CELEBRITY DISPATCHES FROM ROY KESEY, AN AMERICAN GUY MARRIED TO A PERUVIAN DIPLOMAT LIVING IN CHINA STEPHEN ELLIOTT'S POKER REPORT - - - - ADDITIONAL MATERIAL