The finalists have been announced for the 5th annual Naked Girls Reading LITERARY HONORS.  The award will be given away on November 15th in Chicago at the Everleigh Social Club.  Congratulations all.  We look forward to the outcome. The five finalists, in no particular order are:

Zeke Jarvis – A Total Handjob
Bradley Spinelli – Killing Williamsburg
Steven Kuhn – Joy
Katrina Kemble – Travels Through Varanasi
Maya Docha – Adelaide Comes to Stay

See excerpts below:

A Total Handjob – Zeke Jarvis

“Am I supposed to masturbate?” I asked.
“You don’t have to.” Nels kept his eyes on the road. “But if you never do in any of your visits, then they might starts to think it’s weird.”  I waited for him to say more.  When he didn’t, I opened his glove box.  I was surprised by how orderly it was.  There was a screw driver, a stack of receipts and a half-empty pack of gum. Some type of mint, but I didn’t recognize the brand.  “Leave the gum, ” he said.

Killing Williamsburg – Bradley Spinelli

I shut my eyes, watching the blood flow through my lids and trying to make the headache go away.  I opened them when I heard someone screaming.
The Cute Girl from Group D had her knife in her hand and was plunging it into her breast.
The Cute Girl managed a swipe at Luz and cut her a good one across the forearm.  Jack grabbed Luz and pulled her away, yelling obscenities, as the Cute Girl from Group D shoved the knife in and out of her chest until her torso was a bloody confetti of shredded sternum and tissue.

Joy – Steven Kuhn

And still the drips
drop
in the lamp-light.
Causes a haze,
a mist,
a beautiful, unbroken bliss-
benevolent, bursting,
as they break on the
bricks…

Travels Through Varanasi – Katrina Kemble

But it is also
heroin filth and slinky sex and bodies that disappear.
The 20 year-old pseudo saddhus with dread locks like serpents wear nothing
but thin loin cloths,
their bronze skin glistening and slithering with lust.
They stand outside the ashram and call out to me as I walk by.
They want me to come smoke their brown crystal and hashish with them.
They want to show me their levitation tricks in the meditation cave.
And a part of me want to go.
A part of me want to go dance in their dark serpentine caves
with their crystal magic flowing through my veins

Adelaide Comes to Stay – Maya Docha

Realizing that he was staring, Abe squared his shoulder and repositioned his feet. “Hello, Adelaide,” Abe said. “I hope you had a good trip and that you will be happy here.  I will do my best to take care of you, to give you everything you need and want, until my last day…or yours.” Had Abe just made a joke? Abe couldn’t recall the last time he made a joke, if ever.  Until my last day or yours, how silly, Abe thought.