And the Winners Are (Updated)

Five months ago we challenged you to share your stories with us by writing into four powerful prompts: Death, Reentry, Work, and Space. Those prompts represented themes that were top-of-mind for a world in transition. Your 9,000-plus stories were incredibly transparent; the vulnerability on display made for hours of satisfying reading.

Judge Susan Orlean said, “The range of subjects and the variety of tone was exciting. It was a really strong group of contenders.”

The winner of the grand prize and death prompt is, “Keeper of the Place,” by first-time Medium writer Randi Ragan. Randi writes about her 74-year-old grandmother, who had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and died by suicide after the death of her daughter, Randi’s mother.

Her opening paragraph is chilling. [sensitive content below]

“My Grandmother Mamie killed herself when she was 74 years old. She drove my mother’s car onto some railroad tracks in the middle of nowhere out toward Abilene and then set a fire in the trunk before shooting herself in the side of the head.”

“The imagery is so vivid and unique as are the characters throughout,” says Medium staff judge Amy Shearn. “The different layers of the piece give it serious narrative heft. And the way it’s structured is a master class.”

With over 3,500 entries, Death was the dominant prompt. There were similar types of losses running through the topic. In addition to the passing of grandparents, essays about the death of spouses and pets were also recurring themes. There were several symbolic takes on death, specifically around changes in habits.

The winning essay in the Reentry prompt, “The Hope that Holds You Back,” puts the reader in the skin of a writer suffering from postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). Writer Sarah Hawthorne’s body was failing her, yet she found it difficult to accept the disabled tag. Her entry is a great read about a writer’s fight for independence and hopefully inspires those who are disabled to find the joy in life as you are versus the utopian cured state that may not come.

Longtime Medium writer Hal H. Harris, who wrote to all four prompts, won the Work category with his essay “Black Personhood Does Not Have Equitable Access to the Work of Homeownership.” The piece is as much a history lesson as it is an exploration of the pain of DIY projects.

“Hal’s essay is compositionally one of the most interesting, thoughtful, and unique of the entire competition,” says staff judge John Kennedy. “He uses his family history to tell a broader story of dual Black American experiences, and brings it all together with a warm, accessible anecdote about home maintenance.”

Meera Vijayann’s essay “The Space Between My Fingers” was victorious in the Space prompt. Meera’s work digs into immigration, as it was ruled she was unable to legally relocate from India to Canada with her family. She found a connection to her mother through food, pooris and potatoes, in particular. Faced with a long separation, the meals her mother taught her how to cook provided comfort that she needed.

Judge Kurt Andersen shared, “Over the years I’ve served on various juries judging various kinds of writing. I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in a judging process where all the judges read all the work, or where the best work was so unequivocally the best.”

Special thanks to all who participated in the Medium Writers Challenge, and congratulations to the prompt and grand prize winners. Honorable mention winners will be announced on Friday, October 15.

Honorable Mention Winners

Death

“Barn,” by Aditi Khorana “Death — Italian Style,” by Fiona Cameron Lister “Sky Burial,” by Jess Kapp “Lessons from Roosters,” by Sophie Lucido Johnson “Howl into the Wind,” by Cara Beth Lee “These Were Our Years,” by Sara Benincasa “One Stitch at a Time,” by D. A. Langley “Dead Man’s Bowling Balls,” by Steve Covello “How To Keep a Dead Cat In Your Freezer,” by Jessica Wildfire “Bittersweet Symphony,” by Heather S. Wargo “It Was Our Summer of Dying,” by Paul Thomas Zenki “Dear Bryan,” by Avwemoya Izoduwa Ogheneochuko “A Bone’s Story,” by Dorothy Potter Snyder “A Slow Voyage of Acceptance,” by Nic “Daffodils for Dharma,” by Sarah Olson Michel “Beach Day,” by Stephanie Dianne Kordan “Home Birth, Home Death,” by Gerald Grow “The Secret Language,” by Jessica Martin “Man As Deer,” by brian g gilmore (bumpyjonas) “The Mind Does Strange Things When It Accepts That You Going to Die,” by Steve Fitz “A Fate Worse Than Death,” by Ella Alderson “Slayed by Joy,” by Daniel Williams “The Fact that You’re Smiling,” by Kelsi Lindus “A Perfect Boon,” by Natasha K. Sharma “I Might Have Named Her Lucy,” by Lindsay Rae Brown “My Year of Non-Magical Thinking,” by N. Stanley

Reentry

“Leaving Neonatal: A New Birth,” by Jonathan Bright “Like Icarus,” by Anna Pulley “How to Make the Turn,” by Rebecca Moore “Going Back was the Beginning,” by Victoria Meléndez “Echoes of Love,” by Erin Benson “Behind Every Lining Is a Silver Cloud,” by Susan M. Brackney “What Do You See When You Close Your Eyes?” by Elizabeth Dawber “How The Midnight Express Came To Our Rescue During Our Family Reunion,” by Atash Yaghmaian “The Bruises on My Arms,” by Stark Raving “Birds Still Sing When It Rains,” by Jacqueline Dooley “On Sunlight and Old School Horses: Return to Los Angeles,” by Adeline Dimond “At 40, I Was Scared to Enter the Dating Pool Again,” by Kelly Eden “Hyphenated,” by Juhee Lee “Shame Isn’t an Incentive Program,” by Ginger Ayla “In Case of Emergency,” by Cecily Knobler “Numbers Are People Too,” by JoLynne Martinez “Back in the Saddle: Learning to Love My Dad, Myself, and the Bicycle Again,” by Kasai Richardson “It’s a Hard Thing, Getting Back to the Life You Never Really Had,” by Niels Sorrells “The Reality of Reentry,” by Chandra Thomas Whitfield “A Reflection on the Cosmic Power of My Own Two Hands,” by Shannon Calloway “In Sickness and in Health,” by Jenny S “Regeneration,” by Jennifer Irani “The World Is Not Waiting Where You Left It,” by Corey Baughman “How I Grew Up Alien,” by indi.ca “Riding My First Loop Roller Coaster as an Adult,” by Alison Schaffir

Space

“The Eight-Legged Tenant,” by Lara da Rocha “How To Become A More Selfish Parent,” by Juliane Bergmann “I Live in the Space Between Words,” by Tracy Neiman “A Single Woman’s Space,” by Yael Wolfe “Growing Into My Skin: Tales from the Depths of Ugliness,” by Allyssa Capri “A Walk in the Park,” by Casira Copes “Ms. Suzy and Mom: Correspondents from the Trenches,” by Petra Perkins “The Time I Hatched an Egg,” by Amelia “The Growing Space Between Us,” by Jill (Conquering Cognitions) “Office Space,” by Anna Murray “Safe as Houses,” by Monika Dziamka “Dead Girls Don’t Eat,” by Nat “Enough Space To Be Ok,” by Lisa Chudnofsky “How To Create Space For Uncertainty In An Autistic Mind,” by Ella Pearson “Rewilding,” by Lauren Osborn “Moments Of Perihelion,” by Jeanne-Erin “The Space Of What Could Have Been,” by Anastasia Basil “Star Search,” by Jeff Miller “A Father, A Son, And 29 Cars,” by Mark Radcliffe “The Midnight Panini King,” by Laura Todd Carns “The Haunting Of The Mikel Manse,” by Betsy Mikel “The Car Ride After The Boy,” by Meera Simhan “Objects In Space Must Always Exist On Some Level,” by Nick Kolakowski “In Defense Of My Mother,” by Heather Monroe “When Two Of My Worlds Collide In One Contained Space,” by Ali Hall

Work

“We Need More Stories Where Nothing Works Out, and Here’s Why,” by A. K. Fisher “A Mother’s Work is Everything,” by Nicci Kadilak “How Sex Work Saved Me From Academia,” by Ellis Brooks “Honest Work,” by Rolli “Who Are You Calling Lazy?” by Tim Wise “Hard Sell,” by Maggie Devlin “When a Boy Doesn’t Need to Die,” by Paula Tavrow “This Body of Work,” by Nayantara Premakumar “This is what we do.” by Mandi Gundersen “When Your Life’s Work No Longer Works,” by Lori Welch Brown “What It’s Like Working in an Office When You Have Tourette’s Syndrome,” by Caitlin Jill Anders “Somebody v. Nobody,” by Gunce Arkan “To All the Jobs I’ve Had Before,” by Jade Porter “I’m a Human Error, And That’s Okay,” by Benja Gabriel Thurgood “Secondary Traumatic Stress (or: On the Dispersal of Brain Matter in a Kentucky Trailer),” by Dan Canon “The Diminishing Value of a Stay-Home Mother After Divorce,” by Laura Friedman Williams “When I Was a Receptionist,” by Isha “The Low-Down, Dirty-Rotten, No-Good Worship of Work,” by Brandy L Schillace “Green Is the Color of My Eyes,” by Melissa Toldy “Why I Like a Good Funeral,” by Arianne Rice, M. Div. CDWF “We Meet on the Page: The Writer-Editor Relationship,” by Brenda Peterson “The Rat Race Is for the Rats,” by Ryan Frawley “I’m Retired, But I Can’t Stop Working,” by K M Brown “There’s Work, and Then There’s Your Life’s Work,” by Taylor Moran

November 5, 2021: A previous submission listed as an Honorable Mention has been replaced due to our technical error.

If you or a loved one are struggling with thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please do not hesitate to contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1–800–273-TALK (8255). This is a free, 24/7 confidential service that can provide people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress, or those around them, with support, information, and local resources. For more information, call or visit SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.