Honors in Creative Writing
Co-winner – Edwin L. Shuman Award for Best Honors Thesis in Creative Writing
An excerpt from Blood From a Stone
“‘You have to do something for me,’ Grandmother nodded solemnly. ‘You have to find
the ring, and throw it in the river.’
She reached out to touch my cheek and patted it a little. She was smiling wide, and this
unsettled me. I learned early on in my visits to her that slowly impending but nonetheless
impending death made one’s heart bitter to even the simplest reminder of longevity. The flower
blooming on the windowsill, the blush on my cheeks from jogging up the stairs to her floor, the
faint voices of the radiomen coming from the box underneath the bed of her roommate Ivan
Stepanovich, who had just had heart surgery but was still full of spirit for a speedy recovery.
Each time such things occurred she would stare stonily past me, or refuse to look at me at all, the
way an overwhelmed child would. But that day she looked me in the eye and touched my cheek and
nodded faintly, beaming as if she knew that there was something good in store.”