SandScript 2023 [Digital Exclusive]

1st Place
Award Winners
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Bird Whistle
River Lethe
“Bird Whistle” showcases a mastery of contrasts: the mute
desert heat against the voice-driven dialogue, the brutality of
belt marks on the neck against a boy’s hands cupping a dead
bird like something sacred. This story has the resonance of the
desert quiet: wide-open, lonesome, solemn, stark. The language
is precise and needle-sharp, and when a wren is shot from the
sky, it shoots the reader straight through too. This story leaves
stones in you. You leave heavier than you came.
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Hermes
Ev Essif
This artwork exemplifies the exquisite automatic drawing,
layering, and color blending techniques with a classical feel in
contemporary composition. In the classical narrative, Hermes
delivers messages to the various Gods in Greek mythology. In
some stories, Hermes returns souls to the underworld of Hades
and protects those traveling.
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A Tubal Litigation is a
Non-Reversible Procedure
Kristin LeBlanc
There is an amazing tension in this piece pushing the reader
into the room as they journey alongside the poet (or subject
of the poem) as they go through the steps towards a tubal
ligation procedure. By crafting an entire narrative through
what is being said to the subject versus an internal perspective
of a person advocating for themselves, I found myself with
them, wanting to respond and push back. This poem is both
provocative and compelling.
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