SWS: The Summer That Wasn’t Challenge Winners

For The Summer That Wasn’t, we asked for stories about the seasons that fell apart before they began. About the summers where nothing went right, or worse, nothing ever really started. You delivered elegies and unravelings, ghost stories and quiet griefs. Stories soaked in nostalgia, shaped by absence, and sharpened by the weight of memory.

These are the ones that stayed with us. The stories didn’t go where we thought they would, but they felt true all the same.

🏆 Winners

Summer on the Farm by Leslie Writes

Leslie's story earns its win by exposing the quiet decay beneath a family tradition. The blunt, unsparing sentences never letting you look away from the truth of a summer lost to betrayal.

The Worst Summer Ever Was 1975 by Cheryl E Preston

Cheryl Preston's memoir stands out for its clear-eyed honesty. The missed buses, the quiet phone lines, the weight of responsibility too early. Every detail carries the ache of a summer that slipped away.

Quarters by Gina Daddi

Gina Daddi's meditation stays with you because of how real it feels. A handful of coins, a missed ‘I love you’, every small moment holds the weight of what could have been. It’s quiet, raw, and told with a kind of honesty that doesn’t let go.

all dreams break in the end by John Cox

John Cox's elegy gives voice to Mary Shelley in a way that feels both epic and painfully personal. It’s the kind of piece that reshapes what you thought you knew.

After the rains by JBaz

JBaz's piece lingers for the way it holds space for grief without rushing to explain it. From the taste of rain to a quiet moment in a diner, each detail carries the weight of what’s gone and the ache of what almost was.

🎖️ Runners-up

• The Summer That Never Ended by Imola Tóth
• The Summer I Walked Away by Jessica Smith
• Lights Over London by Matthew Fromm
• For This Summer To End by Connie
• Leftovers from a summer by Diara
• Cicada Year by Theo James Taylor
• Whatever You Want by Ian Lund
• The Golden Apple by River and Celia in Underland
• Not Him. Not Now. by Autumn S.
• When the Music Stopped by Paul Stewart
• My Happy Boy by Sam Spinelli
• When the Water Didn't Come by Luna Jordan
• The Summer of Salt by Gina C.
• I Don't Know What I Did Last Summer by Mary K Brackett
• The Cabin of Silence by Alain SUPPINI

🏅 Honorable Mentions

• Heatwave shadows by Gabriela Trofin-Tatár
• ttyl by Fatal Serendipity
• The Sound of the Whippoorwill by mesa
• The Gravity of Smoke by Stacey Mataxis Whitlow (SMW)
• Catch & Release by Raistlin Allen
• Let The Roots Grow by Casi
• Tulip Tattoos by Danielle Eckhart
• Seasons Are Transient by Jose Soto
• Divorce and Potato Salad by Aubrey Waz-Grant
• Kindness is Work by Shaun Walters

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