SDPL Short Story Contest Winners: Live Readings and Performance

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Program Description

Event Details

Inaugural San Diego Public Library Short Story Contest Winners announced!

Join Write Out Loud and SDPL for a delightful evening of live readings and performances of the top 4 winning stories. The Short Story Contest shines a spotlight on local writers who write short stories, and is a continuation of SDPL’s robust support for local writing

Winning writers Aaron Garretson, Jean Seager, Bruce Golden and Eleanor Bluestein will be in attendance to receive their awards. 

Refreshments served. Registration encouraged.  Please scroll down.

Visit Write Out Loud, founded in 2007 with a commitment to inspire, challenge and entertain by reading short stories aloud for a live audience.  WOL produces multiple core programs serving over 25,000 people annually.

Aaron Garretson | 1st Place

Short Story: Abbott's Pursuit

Aaron Garretson grew up in San Diego. He attended University City High School, received a bachelor’s in biochemistry from UCSD and an MFA in fiction from Columbia University in New York. His writing has appeared or is upcoming in Carrier Pigeon, SLAB, Opium, Night Train, The Village Voice, and Mexico City's Hermano Cerdo, among others. He has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was shortlisted for the Best American Non-Required Reading. He currently works in an infectious diseases lab at UCSD.

Jean Seager | 2nd Place

Short Story: The Award

Jean Seager, a native Californian, is writing a short story collection about Jewish immigrants to America in the early twentieth century. Her stories have been published in the online magazine Mikrokosmos, the print magazine The Long Story, and the San Diego Writers Ink anthology A Year in Ink. She is an active member of San Diego Writers Ink, taking classes and participating in read and critique workshops for the past five years

Bruce Golden | 3rd Place

Short Story: The Color of Silence

Novelist, journalist, satirist, and native San Diegan Bruce Golden’s short stories have been published more than a hundred times across a score of countries and 30 anthologies. Asimov’s Science Fiction described his second novel, “If Mickey Spillane had collaborated with both Frederik Pohl and Philip K. Dick, he might have produced Bruce Golden’s Better Than Chocolate”. And about his novel Evergreen, "If you can imagine Ursula Le Guin channeling H. Rider Haggard, you'll have the barest conception of this stirring book, which centers around a mysterious artifact and the people in its thrall”. His latest book, Monster Town, is a satirical send-up of old hard-boiled detective stories featuring movie monsters of the black and white era. It's currently in development for a possible TV series.

Eleanor Bluestein | Honorable Mention

Eleanor Bluestein has worked as a public school science teacher, editor of science textbooks, and designer of multimedia educational materials. Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales, her book of short stories, won the Chandra Prize for Short Fiction. Eleanor is thrilled to be honored by the San Diego Public Library. She and her husband are frequent and very appreciative users of the Pacific Beach/ Earl & Birdie Taylor Taylor Branch.

Accessibility

Need disability-related modifications or accommodations? Information and program content can be made available in alternative formats upon request by emailing JFRogers@sandiego.gov.