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Isms of the World: A Guide for Children (Spotlight Runner-Up!)
 
Let's look at a real-life example. McDonald's sells a lot more Big Macs than Burger King sells Whoppers. Which one do you like better? Why? Because it tastes better? Because it doesn't cost as much money? Because it's more fun to go there? I bet it's really a little of all three!
 
Larry Smith

 

To Eat with Her Hands
 
What they don't teach you in health class is that the reward of peers' esteem is so sweet, and that when you become smaller, you gain access to their private interior, a sumptuous world of fitting, sharing.
 
Joni Renee

 

Fine Dining
 
"You know what novel," he replied, and so I sat down and wrote my novel. It sold, almost immediately, to a New York publisher. Along with the advance, the publisher signed me to produce a second novel to be delivered within 18 months and for which I would receive a monthly check of 500 dollars.
 
V. K. Reiter

 

On Envy
 
"This is a story about two writers. A story, in other words, of envy." The writer that Chetkovich envies is her boyfriend, Jonathan Franzen, who over the course of the essay transforms from a relatively obscure author of two novels into a famous one thanks to his bestselling novel The Corrections, which Chetkovich reads in manuscript and loves.
 
Michael Milburn

 

Onya's Korean Adventure
 
The Internet said to freeze a few hand towels as makeshift bones and she seemed okay with this for a few minutes. Later on I was able to find real bones, which lasted just as long as the towels, but I could "trick" Onya into taking the bone outside, after which I could lock the door and be at peace.
 
Aaron Dorman

 

Send Back Any Bastard
 
What is it about Australia that drives some immigrants to seek oblivion, to utter such words as "I want to die. This country doesn't want me?" How is it that a national culture is predicated on events which include people arriving not as "illegal aliens" but as invited migrant workers promised full economic and legal participation as citizens, only to suffer such fear and humiliation that becoming troglodytes was a better option than dealing with prejudice? Bonegilla, with its achtung orders, barbed-wire borders, its rifled guards, its lump mutton swill and segregated quarters, only allowed survival, but not life.
 
Jamie Derkenne

 

The Hidden District
 
I went there once. Lobstered across the dirt. I found no rodents but did daydream a door flush with the earth that I opened and descended into my mind.
 
Mark Stein