John Serritella

"I Won"

I won. Vocal recently held a short story contest with a $20,000 grand prize and I won. I’m as shocked as anyone. I remember seeing the ad a little over a month ago and being intrigued by it, not only because of the hefty prize attached (which I began to fantasize about immediately), but by the prompt as well: the story had to involve someone who came into a large sum of money, and a mysterious black book, but the rest was essentially left up for interpretation. I liked the black book– my mind was already going many different directions with it.