So it was a nice confidence boost since I hadn’t shown a lot of people my stories at that point. I’d had a couple of things published when I won Editor’s Choice, but it was the very first time I’d ever received money for anything I’d written and it was the first contest where I’d been mentioned at all. LC: Mostly, the contest really inspired me to keep on keeping on. (To learn more about Cross-Smith’s experiences with being contacted by a literary agency, read “ Editor’s Inbox - 2011 Editor’s Choice Winner Leesa Cross-Smith Talks Lit Agents and Carve”).Ĭ: Has the contest affected your writing or the direction of your writing career in any way? If so, how? (I do now!) So I was super-excited and surprised to get the news that my story had won Editor’s Choice. LC: I was shy to enter the contest because I felt like it was for “real” writers and I didn’t consider myself one back then. A lot of other things went into it, inspiration-wise, but those things are the easiest for me to explain.Ĭ: What was your reaction like when you found out “Whiskey & Ribbons” won Editor’s Choice for the 2011 Carver contest? ![]() ![]() I carefully measured out my metaphors in this story and ended up using two train metaphors because I wanted one to be used in the beginning and one in the end. And I saw a scene from a beautiful movie where the guy puts his ear down to the track to listen for a train. Like, the last line about putting her ear down to the railroad tracks…I grew up near a railroad track and was told over and over again not to play on it but as a kid, you learn how to put pennies down and run away and come back to find them warm and flat. So I just kinda combined those two stories and added some other images that had been rolling around in my brain, just waiting for a proper story to call home. I had another part of a story/play about a couple who was snowed in and forced to work out their issues because of the weather. I couldn’t stop thinking about the officer’s wife and family. My daughter was only a couple months old and I remember rocking her to sleep, watching the live feed of the funeral and just crying and crying. That, thankfully, doesn’t happen all too often around here. Leesa Cross-Smith: Some years ago a local police officer was killed in the line of duty. ![]() Her story, Whiskey & Ribbons, won Editor’s Choice in 2011.Ĭarve: Can you tell us what inspired “Whiskey & Ribbons?” From now until May 15, we’ll be catching up with previous Raymond Carver contest prizewinners to find out what they’ve been up to since winning. First up is Leesa Cross-Smith, a self-professed Kentucky girl, homemaker, writer, and reader.
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