Fiction 59: Making the cuts

Oh, the pain of editing. We at the Chico News & Review know the feeling as well as anyone. Every story has to fit into its space, and while the cuts to make that happen often hurt (mostly our writerly egos), the reader is usually better served by the effort. But even more painful than “killing your darlings” (as Stephen King famously characterized the editing process) is for us to have to kill some of our favorite Fiction 59 submissions due to the fiction not adhering to the 59-word limit. And this year was especially brutal, as a whopping five of the favorites (across all categories) were ultimately disqualified for being over or under.

Thankfully—as you’ll read in the statement below by our judges from the 1078 Gallery Literary Committee—there was an abundance of excellent stories from which to choose, and we are grateful to both our fine local writers and our wonderful judges for making this issue devoted to writing so rewarding.

We were impressed this year by the high caliber of submissions in all categories, especially the adults. We went through our usual process of pairing up for the kids, junior high and high school entries, and then judged the adult category as a group.

Once we reached the final selections, we read each one aloud and discussed each piece, noting craft, content and how each measured up to the others.

In our selections, we hope to represent a variety of styles and voices. When two pieces were close, we drilled down to the level of craft, asking, “What elements of storytelling are represented? Where can we see evidence of this writer’s tools?”

As always, it is a great pleasure and honor to read the creative work of our community. —1078 Gallery Literary Committee