Gaithersburg Resident Wins Third Place in Regional Short Story Contest

"From the moment on, my entire existence has been a lie. I spend my days and nights entirely consumed with trying to prevent the truth from rolling off my tongue in an instant. Meanwhile, I must untangle the lies to discover what exactly that truth encompasses."

This is a short excerpt from Alice J. Chang's short story "Pathway to Redemption," which won third prize in the 2nd Annual Gaithersburg Book Festival Short Story Contest.

A student at Wooton High School and a resident of Gaithersburg, Chang writes a heart-wrenching reflection on what it might be like if her brother were dead.

"We did everything together. We hunted and fundraised and attended those petty social gatherings always in each other’s company. When one of us laughed, the other smiled. When one of us cried, the other consoled," she writes.

Chang's short story examines the depths of anguish through a mature and complex description of life's unresolvable quandaries and irrepairable mistakes. Reflective at the core, "Pathway to Redemption," plunges into the darkest depths of the human heart and imagination while striking discordant notes of hope and redemption, as the title suggests.

Among twelve other selected finalists, Alice Chang got to read her story outloud on the afternoon of the Book Festival on May 21.

First Place in the contest went to Lundy Bowern of Germantown and a student at Northwest High School. Meredith Chen of Rockville and a student at Richard Montgomery High School won Second Place.

“Bowern’s story, ‘Piece of Darkness,’ really stood out,” contest judge Sarah Pekkanen said. “Both Tom [Shroder] and I really loved many of the descriptive lines in her piece.”

Pekkanen also stipulated the rules for the contest, which required stories to be no longer than 1,000 words and permitted three possible openings:

• In my entire life, I've fibbed dozens of times usually to be polite or to get out of attending some mind-numbing social event but I've only told one really big lie.

• "Don't open the box," my father always told me.

• When I left my parents' house for good, I took five things with me.

Chen's entry "Humming through the Hoop" centers on a somewhat self-referential short story contest, vividly describing the discomfort of a participant asked to read her story on stage.

The other finalists include: John H. Baker from Seneca Valley High School, Sutton Chiorini from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, Shelby Duncan from the Washington Waldorf School, Sarah Latch form Frederick High School, Jessica Migler, Maria Lynn-Okanlawon and Agustina Rius from Richard Montgomery High School, and Peter Ramsey from Rockbridge Academy.

In addition to the finalists who were selected from a pool of 114 submissions, the contest judges awarded ten honorable mention prizes to: Megan Haaga, Samantha Levinson, Ruthie Prillaman, Dennis Ting and Kathleen Xu from Richard Montgomery High School, Jackie Rose Lenta from Urbana High School, Aden Lessiak from Linganore High School, Candice Murray and Tara M. Wuchenich from Osbourn Park High School, and Andrew Qian from Clarksburg High School.

Submitted entries into the contest came from ten jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia, with 63 percent of the entries from Montgomery County.

While Book Festival volunteers served as the Round One judges who narrowed down the selection of entries to twelve finalists and ten honorable mentions, two local published authors who were also part of the Book Festival served as the Round Two judges. Tom Shroder and Sarah Pekkanen chose the first, second and third place winners. Shroder is a former Washington Post editor and co-author of Fire on the Horizon: The Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster, a recently published, nonfiction, insider's tale of the infamous BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Pekkanen authored Skipping a Beat and The Opposite of Me, both fiction pieces focusing on women going through changes in their lives.

The Short Story Contest was just one of the events featured at the 2nd Annual Gaithersburg Book Festival, which welcomed authors and visitors from the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area. Over 80 national best-selling and award-winning authors participated in the Festival this May on the grounds of Gaithersburg City Hall. Admission to the Book Festival was free, and activities included appearances, discussions and book signings by national bestselling authors, as well as local up-and-comers; writing workshops; a Children's Village; a Coffee House with poets and singers/songwriters; onsite sales of both new and used books; exhibitors, and food and drink.

To read full stories by finalists and honorable mentions in the Short Story Contest, click here.

To learn more about the Gaithersburg Book Festival, click here.