Time Traveler Challenge Winners

We've all thought about it. Going back in time. What would we do? How would our actions alter the present and future? Of course, we can't take credit for this prompt, it's a classic, and for good reason.

We've thought about it a lot and we think what gives this question of altering time such power is its ability to conjure up a plan and then in the next instant have that plan scuttled for fear of some unforeseen consequences. It's being given ultimate power (Kill Hitler? Win the lottery? Bring modern technology back to an ancient civilization and see what happens?!), but your decision might just come back to bite you and the entire world in the throat and so you are brought quickly back to reality, before you can even enjoy the possibilities.

So what do we opt for? The safe route, something positive and personal, small, that clearly can't have any negative consequences, or do we say screw it, let's see what happens to the fabric of the world? We received stories on both ends of this spectrum and everything in between.

Here are the winners of the Time Traveler Challenge. You can check out the full list of winners HERE.

$1,000 Grand Prize Winner

Jordan Flynn for The Music of Time

In the wash room, Aegon looked upon himself in the mirror. He was quite beautiful, dark features, his dark brown hair strong to the root. He could tell that whoever this relative was, was fairly well off for the time. He all but emptied his clutch on the washroom table.

The Music of Time was a terribly fun story to read. It combined so much of what is great about the perils of time travel: trying to gain one's bearings in the past, different time travelers making their way back and forth on the timeline, meeting in the middle, a dual, a great twist that could only be had in the strange space of time travel.

What was most fun about this story was how quickly the rules were given over. Simple, straight forward, yet with purpose. It's tough to create time warp stories, those real, nuts and bolts sci fi stories with all of their rules and laws, especially because so many have been written but also because it's tough for a writer to keep track of it all! How to be fresh, to be new? It takes guts to pull characters (Jack and Rose) from a piece of fiction (Titanic) about a real event (Titanic) and put them at the center of your story. More than guts, it takes creativity and a sense of understanding of how to create a story that is rife with science fiction 'reality' but also grounded in possibility, or at least distant possibility.

And, of course we enjoyed that little extra bit of science fiction known as a Youtube video embedded within the story. Congratulations, Jordan Flynn!

$250 Second Place Winner

Sara Frederick for Brigida

Large and looming, the arch and thrust of the joists make for a perfect hanging place.

Brigida is a story of great loss and even greater understanding, the base of what could, in our humble opinion, be a much longer story, an epic, perhaps. Traveling in time is no easy feat. It's disorienting and never delivers what one expects, at least for any of the characters we've read about. Our protagonist has been under a terrible assumption for hundreds of years, frozen in time and hate, having to manage her feelings all on her own. But then, with the right proportions of desire, truth, anger, love, she is granted access to the place we all want to go, the place that gives us the answers we never knew we wanted, needed. In this instance, it seems that time delivered the unexpected, but in a good way for once.

What makes this story work so well, aside from the sharp writing and full embrace of a foreign dialect (no easy feat, one that often falls flat), is how real the character is. Part witch, all witch, it doesn't matter. The fact is, even a witch must get through the day, even a witch loves and wants to be loved. Even a witch wants pizza. Congratulations, Sara Frederick!

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