In a mere three sentences, a San Diego high-schooler nailed the nostalgia of childhood, earning her the grand prize in this year’s Matchbook Story Contest.
The quirky writing contest hosted by the Library Shop SD, based at the San Diego downtown library, asks participants to develop a story short enough to fit inside a matchbook. Stories about dogs and inflation were common this year, organizers said.
Isabella Gutierrez, a student at The Cambridge School in Rancho Peñasquitos, won with the following entry:
“I wrote my last note to her on the back of a Starburst wrapper. I even drew a heart next to my name.
Years later she told me she had it pinned to her wall all through high school, until the bright red had faded and the words lost their meaning.”
She bested 536 other writers — many of them adults — in the seventh annual iteration of the contest, which concluded Thursday night with an equally brief awards gala. The Shorties featured a dramatic reading of the top 10 finalists’ stories by local theater group Write Out Loud, as well as a dramatic mimed reinterpretation of last year’s winning story, penned by Cindy Chen.
That story: “While we sat there, they came. They watched her with blank warm eyes and lifted her away. We still talk about her — the girl who was taken by a murder — and wonder if the crows will ever strike again.”
Gutierrez received a $50 Library Shop gift card and will have her story printed on 2,000 matchbooks that will be sold there. Her matchbook will also be displayed among past winners as part of the Tiny Book Display in the Hervey Family Rare Book Room at the Central Library. She is the first high-schooler to win the contest.
The contest also raised more than $7,000 for the Library Foundation SD, which supports the city public library system. Funds were triple-matched by foundation Trustee Judith Wenker.
