The contest rules were loose, provisional, misunderstood, and ignored.

The first way to win was to write a poem or piece of flash fiction using the words sou’wester, banana, shipwright, remembrance, and mast. We also invited folks to compose a blurb – one that would draw potential readers to the journal.

Read more about the winning writers here.  Below are the entries themselves:

Sou’wester is the king of of banana-shaped boats built by shipwrights climbing the mast and etching their words in remembrance. Word!

Christine Pacyk / blurb

We raised a flag into the wicked sou’wester, watched it wrestle the wind in agony, banging its undulating body against the mast in feckless grief. Someone told a story about the time he slipped on a banana peel, like a fucking cartoon. (The crowd giggled, then grew silent with the curse.) The whole thing was a fucking cartoon. Who were we trying to kid?  The best remembrance we had of him was red-faced ranting, the fear of footfalls, and the perfect square of his belt on our bare flesh.

Donna Vorreyer / flash

You peeled the sleeves
of your sou’wester
like it was a banana,
exposing one solid shoulder
then the next,
slipping your rain-soaked husk
for a second skin,
stepping out of that profound
puddle of yellow
hudddled on the vinyl floor
had got me thinking
as only a shipwright
might:
how steady your mast,
and how water tight.
How many times later
I’d sift through those dry days–
my only remembrance of when I was ready.
Were you?

Deborah Doolittle / poem, “The Way”

It was awkward at first.

Chris Tarry / blurb

They’ve got a wind-up bunny that does backflips. What the fuck else do you want?

Ryan Bradley / blurb

The best journal with an apostrophe in place of the “th.”

Greg Weiss / blurb

The pages of Sou’wester writhe with forbidden passion and little rodents who go “squeak-squeak”  when you shake your finger at them. If the barely contained brilliancies within its pages were fully unleashed, Sou’wester would illuminate a history of the future, then read it to you. The uncatalogued spectrums of literary energy that emanate from the pages of each issue have been harnessed in CSI labs for the revelation of crucial forensic evidence. Sou’wester even makes its own gravy.

Jonathan Budil / blurb

Even when my underground shelter rattles from wall to wall under the latest apocalyptic carpet bombing run and I finish my last box of processed sugar cake snack foods, life is good as I read my copy of Sou’wester. It’s amazing how easy it is to survive without life’s necessities when you have one of life’s greater luxuries.

Jeremy Broyles / blurb