Helen G. Scott Prize for Creative Writing in Fiction
An excerpt from Elizabeth’s fiction story, Small Everyday Objects:
Gwen used to bring jewelry or buttons to demonstrate how the bowls could be used, but now she leaves them empty, figuring people prefer to imagine their own objects inside. She remembers how, when she was little, her parents put their home on the market and the real estate agent suggested they put away family photos so that prospective buyers could imagine their own pictures on the walls. It seems like the same kind of thing. Keeping them unfilled also invites people to handle the bowls, to touch their smooth sides. Usually it is men who do this. She’ll never not want to tell them to set the bowl back down, that it is fragile and impressionable, that their hand oils will leave traces on the unglazed surface. But instead she places a folded card on the tablecloth that says “Feel Free To Touch!”