Thanks to our guest judge:

Literary Agent Sharon Pelletier

WOW was honored to have guest judge literary agent Sharon Pelletier choose this season’s top winners. Thank you, Sharon, for sharing your time and efforts to make these contestants’ dreams come true!

Sharon’s bio:

Sharon Pelletier joined Dystel, Goderich & Bourret in 2013 after working in editorial at small presses and as a B&N bookseller, was named senior agent in 2021, and named vice president in 2024. Born and raised in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, Sharon has lived in New York since 2009, but often returns to visit the Midwest and dreams of living by the ocean one day. Sharon’s list includes upmarket fiction of all sorts, from smart, complex women’s fiction; to unexpected suspense fiction and romance; to hearty, unforgettable book club fiction. She also occasionally takes on compelling, fierce narrative nonfiction by journalists, experts, or emerging voices with a promising platform.

Sharon’s page at DG&B Literary Agency: www.dystel.com/sharon-pelletier

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Myna’s Bio:

 

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Tascadora, Texas, 1935

By Myna Chang

 

The rainmaker drove into town late last night, stirring up whorls of caliche in his wake. Daddy’s afraid the man is a charlatan, doesn’t believe anyone but God can tease water from an unwilling sky. Momma doesn’t say what she thinks. Five years of breathing powdered dirt have left her just enough breath to wheeze, her words like wind across barbed-wire.

They say a precise detonation, high in the sky, will shock the water out of the air. The ladies at church frowned and shook their heads when they heard that kind of talk, but Judith and MaryBeth said their papas took money from the collection plate to pay him. Cash upfront. Their mommas just prayed harder, prayed for their husbands and their foolish, wasteful ways, prayed for the souls of their buried children, prayed for free God-given rain.

Some say the combustion of unstable chemicals will bring life back to the clouds. I don’t know if that’s true, or if this rainmaker can answer my prayers, but he has four cases of dynamite strapped to the bed of his Ford, and the blackest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. He says there are trees downstate—green trees—and whole towns where they’ve never heard of dust pneumonia, never had to shoot their withering cattle or their dogs because there, there in those faraway havens, he says, you can taste paradise on your tongue and rainwater showers down on you from a lightning-bright sky even when you forget to beg for it.

Daddy says rigged-up explosions probably won’t end the drought. I say yeah, but still, we’ve gotta keep going, right? I say, rain or drought, I’m gonna make the best of it.

Everyone in town turns out to watch the miracle unfold, the triumph of man-made science over nature. The rainmaker sets up balloons and glass jars and detonators. Daddy stands with the men, arms crossed. The church ladies congregate on the other side of the road, struggling to smother the blasphemy of their unholy hope. Momma ignores the show, focusing instead on her locket, the one that still holds a wisp of my baby brother’s hair. She only nods when she sees me tucking my tapestry travel bag into the cab of the charlatan’s truck. And though she and I have learned to put our faith in neither gods nor men, we still turn, when the first booms echo across the prairie, we both of us lift our faces to the flash, longing for a sky full of impossibility.

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What Myna Won:

• $400.00 Cash Prize
• $25 Amazon Gift Card
• Publication of winning story on WOW-WomenOnWriting.com website
• Interview on WOW!’s blog The Muffin

Jordan’s Bio:

Jordan Bass is a short story fiction writer specializing in comedy, magical realism, and surrealism. Her previous flash fiction piece, “Sea Monkeys,” was awarded Runner Up in the WOW! Women on Writing Winter 2024 contest. More of her work can be found on Medium.

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The Roomba Ate My Wedding Ring

By Jordan Bass

 

Two months ago, Angela ripped her wedding ring off her finger, forcefully pushed the ring box to the back of her dresser, and left it there. Out of sight but in her mind, burning a hole through the layered velvet. 

Daniel had left that day to “find himself,” that is, find himself in another woman, another home, another life. Instagram revealed too much. Her own profile had been wiped clean, but his face still infested every corner of social media, taunting her through the phone with his tiny profile picture. 

The apartment didn’t smell like him anymore, like grubby socks and cologne named after a tree. Half the furniture was gone, the cheap floor scraped to shreds from Daniel’s hasty exit. He had taken the three computer monitors that he never turned off, and his constant noise-producing video game console. Angela withheld the Roomba, lovingly named “Craig” on the day of purchase, and kept that on instead. Craig didn’t have much to clean these days. Daniel had been the messy one. But the low grumble of the machine soothed her in the silence, keeping them both grounded to the apartment.

Angela hadn’t checked her phone this morning, a feat she would’ve been proud of, if she hadn’t known what she was avoiding. Last night, Daniel texted her the first words she’s heard from him in months: “need ring back.” That was it. Six years of marriage. Ten years together. “Need ring back.” 

What a joke. 

But she couldn’t ignore him forever. Not when he could stop by at any time, subjecting Angela to a lifelike version of his stupid profile-picture face. Looking at the ring hurt, so she closed her eyes, reached for the back of the dresser, miscalculated the distance, and knocked the ring to the floor. Angela didn’t look then either. She sat, back against the dresser, head in her hands. Craig’s trademark whirrrrrr pinged against the metal, and Angela jumped as the diamond disappeared into its jaws. 

“No!”

She leapt upon the Roomba to turn it off, grasping at the bin release button. But the machine wouldn’t relent. Craig was almost squirming underneath her arms, twisting and turning, keeping the button away from her prying fingers. It inhaled part of her shirt, ripping some of the fabric, until Angela let go. 

She jumped on the couch, and Craig followed, hitting it with a thump. It backed up, then slammed into the legs again. Scraps of Angela’s shirt dripped from its maw. Slowly, Angela knelt, reaching for the “CLEAN” button on the trembling machine. 

Craig shrieked. It raced away from Angela’s hand and to the opposite corner. She watched as it began to circle the apartment like a shark. 

“I need my ring back, Craig,” she said. “He—Daniel needs the ring back.” 

At Daniel’s name, Craig stopped. It turned slowly. 

“That’s it,” Angela whispered. “It’s not yours.” 

Craig rammed the couch at full speed, enough to shake the cushions. 

“Why?” Angela sobbed, but Craig didn’t answer. It drew back and attacked the couch legs again, cleaning the wood flakes chipping off the bottom. Angela dropped a pillow on it and darted away. 

So commenced the Roomba war. Angela on one side, brandishing her worn, college-softball bat, and Craig on the other, dutifully sucking up Daniel’s remaining skin cells from one of the rugs. 

“I don’t want to do this,” she said. “Please. Let me turn you off.” 

Craig charged. 

Bellowing a war cry, she swung the bat onto Craig’s stupid circle body, denting the top. Craig rallied with a desperate, unholy screech. She hit it again, and finally, her apartment was silent for the first time in months.

There it was, lying in the wreckage, covered in dust. The diamond was dull, the golden band bent. It didn’t remind Angela of the good times, of Daniel’s vows and the dancing at their wedding night.

Craig’s remains splattered on the floor. Angela decided not to name the next one. 

She wiped the ring on what was left of her shirt and held it to the window, looking for the sparkles the ring had boasted two months prior. Nothing. Dented or not, the ring would fare well at any pawn shop around, certainly worth enough to buy her a new Roomba. She took out her phone, staring at the message for a moment longer, and then typed one word to Daniel. 

“No.”

 

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What Jordan Won:

• $300.00 Cash Prize
• $25 Amazon Gift Card
• Publication of winning story on WOW-WomenOnWriting.com website
• Interview on WOW!’s blog The Muffin

Amanda’s Bio:

RUNNERS UP: