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Ingrid Jendrzejewski’s “The Box of Skinny Women” has been named a semifinalist for the Vestal Review Award (aka the “VERA”). The next step is a reader’s poll. You can find Ingrid’s story and the other semifinalists on the Vestal Review website. Be sure to vote for your favorite story by December 30th.
Ingrid Jendrzejewski is this year’s VERA nominee
We’ve nominated Ingrid Jendrzejewski’s “The Box of Skinny Women” for the Vestal Review Award (aka the “VERA”).
The VERA is an annual award for a flash fiction under 500 words. Magazine editors may select a single piece for nomination, and we’ve chosen Ingrid’s piece to represent The Conium Review. If her piece wins, she’ll receive a $100 prize and the piece will be republished at Vestal Review.
You can find links to more of Ingrid Jendrzejewski’s work at www.ingridj.com and she occasionally tweets from @LunchOnTuesday. Recently, she was awarded the A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Orlando Prize for Flash Fiction and the Bath Flash Fiction Award.
Ingrid Jendrzejewski has a new micro-fiction up at 50-Word Stories. Read her 50-word piece, “Monopoly,” here. Congrats on this latest publication, Ingrid!
Ingrid Jendrzejewski has contributed to The Conium Review on multiple occasions. Her flash “The Box of Skinny Women” appears on our website. Another piece, “Shampoo,” appears in The Conium Review: Vol. 4. Later this year, Ingrid’s “Rain Cloud” will appear in The Conium Review: Vol. 5.
Find links to more of Ingrid’s work on her website.
I have a box of skinny women that I keep under my bed. It is a small box as the women are, indeed, very skinny. I get them out once in a while when I’m not able to sleep. Somehow, leafing through their paper hearts and dusty smiles helps me make sense of living.
Once upon a time, I was a skinny woman too. I slid through days, hardly parting the wind. Nobody could see me when approaching my flat sides. Then, one day, I grew large and unwieldy; gravity began to tug at my heartstrings, making them fray. Once my footsteps started causing sink-holes, time started to snap at my heels. Now, when I sing, people’s teeth shake.
I used to think about evicting the skinny women. I imagined myself dumping the box in a skip without even opening it to say goodbye. I imagined the skinny women in filthy darkness, drowning in chicken bones and coffee grounds. I imagined them clinging together, wondering where they are, their pancake bodies shifting over each other and fluttering.
But then, every time I got close to acting, I would hear their faint voices seeping through the mattress and I would wonder whether the skinny women had a future. In recent years, I have had a stomach for many things, but never for atrocity. Now that I am larger than life, anything might be possible.
About the Author:
Ingrid Jendrzejewski grew up in southern Indiana and studied creative writing and English literature at the University of Evansville before going on to study physics at the University of Cambridge. She has soft spots for go, cryptic crosswords, and the python programming language. Once in a while, she adds a little something to www.ingridj.com.
Special Notes:
This story was a finalist in The Conium Review‘s 2014 Flash Fiction Contest, judged by Ashley Farmer.
This story was selected as The Conium Review‘s nominee for the 2015 Vestal Review Award (VERA). It received Second Place in the VERA.
Image Credit: © carlacdesign / Dollar Photo Club