SWS: The Shape of the Thing Challenge Winners

Welcome to the penultimate winners announcement in the Summer Writing Series!

Sometimes it’s not what’s there, but what isn’t, that changes everything. For The Shape of the Thing Challenge, we asked writers to explore the weight of absence. Those shadows, echoes and almosts that still leave a mark. What came back were stories that showed just how real the unreal can feel.

Across the shortlist, we saw memory stitched to myth, grief carried in silence, and love lingering in fragments of what once was. Some pieces leaned lyrical, others chilling, but all proved that suggestion can be just as powerful as what’s spoken out loud.

🏆 Winners

Key To The Past by Lightning Bolt ⚡

Lightning Bolt ⚡ hit us hard with this one. His haunting exploration of trauma feels deeply personal and raw, with fragmented memories shaping a reality that’s both bizarre and eerily familiar. It’s a piece that lingers, heavy with emotional truth.

Hymen by River and Celia in Underland

River and Celia deliver a story where myth and grief intertwine. The missing crown becomes its own kind of presence, and the villagers’ faith in that void makes this piece hard to shake.

The Almost of Her by Cadma

Cadma's piece walks that razor edge between the unreal and the painfully real, turning Zelma’s visions into something you can almost feel yourself. The way it shows what it’s like to watch someone you love unravel while still finding moments of connection is visceral and unforgettable.

Quittin' Time by Elle Marie

Elle Marie's entry pulls you straight into Tessie’s long night, where grief and cravings twist into something monstrous. The creature that wears her wife’s face is terrifying, but it’s the ache underneath, the loneliness and the need, that makes this one stick.

The Sound of Her Still by Salem Youngblood

Salem Youngblood's piece captures how love lingers even after loss, turning silence and memory into something tangible. It’s tender and unsettling all at once, a reminder of how the people we lose never really leave us.

🎖️ Runners-up

• It Was There by C. Rommial Butler
• A good laugh by Novel Allen
• A rock and a hard place by Hannah Moore
• The Crime of Her Hand in Mine by Leigh Victoria Phan, MS, MFA
• Night Terrors by A. J. Schoenfeld
• the ancient one by John Cox
• Where She Would've Stood by Luna Jordan
• Reflections by JBaz
• Even in Dreams by Paul Stewart
• Dirty Dick by J. Otis Haas
• Oracle in Aeon Verge by Antoni De'Leon
• Waiting for Next Time by Gina
• Anyone, In The Right Light by Raistlin Allen
• Liberal Art by Emily Ryan
• heel/toe heel/toe by Judey Kalchik

🏅 Honorable Mentions

• How to Compete with a Dead Guy by Andie Westling
• The Madness of the Fox by Sam Spinelli
• Night Thing by Jessica McGlaughlin
• The Invisible Dialogist by Nina Domricheva
• The magic garden by Melissa Ingoldsby
• Proof of Pain by Sean A.
• Happy Birthday, Captain Ashford by Aaron Morrison
• Conscious Sleep by Mary Moody
• Affinity Man by Tony Martello
• Give by Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred

Check out the latest on Vocal Challenges.