Laurie Greene Winner

Grandpa Reads

to Alice By Laurie Greene

“Grandpa, read to me!” demanded Alice as she stood by her grandfather’s chair hugging the battered book against her 4yearold frame.

“Which book?” asked grandpa.

“The frog one,” she answered, putting it in his lap and wiggling into position beside him.

Grandpa felt the book’s cracked spine and frayed cover. Gently he opened it. His deep voice rumbled the words he had read so often to his children and their children. Alice sat entranced until he said, “The end,” then she took the book and skipped away.

Chuckling to himeself, Grandpa leaned back and closed his sightless eyes.

Home at last

Laurie Greene said she enjoys the feeling of bonding she gets when she reads a child a book. That is the inspiration she used to write her winning Fiction in a Nutshell entry, “Grandpa Reads to Alice.”

She loves how children cuddle up against her as they listen intently to their favorite stories. And when the former English teacher reads to a child, it’s not only about toys and make-believe.

“When my children were small I read classics to them. I read them ‘Ulysses’ and Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey.’ The stories are wonderful and deep,” she said.

Greene has a bachelor’s degree in world literature and master’s degrees in English and counseling and guidance. She’s taught English at the college level, but most of her career, from which she is retired, was spent teaching executives in the corporate world.

With her two children grown, she now reads to a grandniece and grandnephew, she said.

Greene hadn’t entered a writing competition since high school, but lately she’s been brushing up on her prose by recording her personal memoirs.

Her husband died two years ago, and since then she has been taking yearly trips, traveling with her sister.

The two were on a road trip to Yosemite when she won the fiction contest. She did not find out she was the firstplace winner until she came home and checked her phone messages.

Winning the Fiction in a Nutshell contest has meant a lot to Greene and may inspire her to write more stories, she said.

—Nancy Needham

Runner up

Untitled

By Nick Skewes-Cox

“You agreed not to back out.” “I’m just nervous man. . . . I feel like this is a pretty big dealI don’t know if I want to,” he said as he reached to pick it up, then pulled back.

“Dude, it’s not a big deal. Tons of people have done it, and we’lbe together the whole time. You’lbe fine, I promise.”

So with a deep breath, he picked up the pen and signed the document. The recruiter nodded approvingly and said simply“Welcome to the Marines.”