2007 Spring/Summer
Contest Winner:
Sharon Whitlock of
Rockford, IL
2007 Fall/Winter
Contest Winner:
Neil Gudovitz of
Brooklyn, NY
2006 Spring/Summer
Contest Winner:
Jennifer Karin of
Newburyport, MA
2005 Fall/Winter Contest Winner:
Jeff Day of
Tulsa, Oklahoma
2005 Summer Contest Winner:
Greta Bishop of
Youngtown, Arizona
Read their lines at:
After a wonderful three years, we've ended
the ThatFirstLine Writing Contest.
Here are the top-10 finalists in our
2008 Spring/Summer contest which ended on September 1st:
Trying to sink into as much oblivion as a single mother of three children can possibly do during a long awaited bubble bath, I was just reaching for my loofah sponge when my five year old burst through the bathroom door followed by a strange man as she announced, "mom-this guy says he's from the FBI and wants to talk to you!"
Jimmy Cavalier was the eldest of the Cavalier children, and was soon to be the late, thought Maddie Hiegel as she watched him standing at the top of a 25 foot ramp, balanced on his son's skateboard wearing nothing but Saran wrap and a bicycle helmet.
I knew it wasn't her mother that my wife planned to visit when she did some shopping for the trip and returned with five lace thongs, a black satin teddy and a red push-up bra -- all with Victoria's Secret labels -- discreetly tucked into a Wal-Mart bag.
Dan stared incredulously as his terrier Reddie--whose world before The Experiment revolved around piddling, pooping, licking, and sniffing other doggie derrieres--retrieved some paper and a pencil with his mouth and wrote, "So this doctor takes his dog for a walk and the dog says, 'Physician, heel thyself.'"
Nonplussed when her fiance', Jeff, presented her with a ìSuper Turbo-Charged Cookerî at their engagement party, instead of the 3-carat canary diamond ring theyíd selected together the previous week, Amanda took consolation in the discovery that Jeffís entire head did indeed fit inside the cooker, with plenty of room for veggies.
Past the brown pelican roosting on the bald cypress in the bayou, and past the house of Alacoqueís voodoo priestess who dances naked under full moons, and past the Red & White at the end of Lake Pontchartrain Avenue, sat Maura Kelly, alone in Father Fournierís office with the grandfather clock and cluttered bookcases that smelled faintly of lemon furniture polish.
It was summer of 2005 when I first saw Jesus sitting in the sunshine of my backyard with frizzy white hair in a one inch ponytail and eating a tuna sandwich.
To most passersby they were considered mutants ñ the Rod Steiger look-alike perched in the window; the 600-pound mother chain-smoking Marlboro reds, and the two genderless children who were afraid to play outside - but to us, they were considered neighbors.
George's life started going downhill after he decided to eat a Skittle off the floor of a public bathroom just to see what would happen.
Alan had a very unnatural fear of women who wore gaucho pants and after he refused service and ran from a customer wearing them in his bookstore he decided it was probably past time that he finally see a therapist.
Congratulations to all our finalists.
You can read the winning entry on: ZirdNEWS.com
Please visit our writer's web site: