63 Comments
User's avatar
Jake Gardner's avatar

I’m so happy you picked both of these! I was torn. Nice work Maegan and Bree!

Chelsea Cain's avatar

So many of these made me laugh out loud.

Oliver's avatar

They were so funny, the growth is visible. You earned this Maegan!

Maegan Heil's avatar

Oliver, I saw a painting of yours Karin has and it's amazing, I love it!

Nic's avatar

Brandan: “You’re a student. This has to stop.”

This one, 10/10

Chuck Palahniuk's avatar

Congratulations to you! Poet Laureate!

Nic's avatar

Thank you 🥹🫶

Evan Noren's avatar

Congrats Bree & Maegan—those are some killer lines! 🖤

Cheap & Crass's avatar

Hail Maegan!!! Congratulations! Sigh. Im such a jelly bear right now!! Lol

Logan the Lobotomizer's avatar

There’s one more photo, give it your best!

Chuck Palahniuk's avatar

There is? What did I miss?? Did I forget the Harry Truman cake?

Logan the Lobotomizer's avatar

Yes, there’s no winner for the Truman cake.

Tricia Callahan's avatar

That sounds like a sentence for a story.

kp Buk's avatar

Another reason to go on… lol

Jessica Moats's avatar

Congrats Maegan and Bree!!

Maegan Heil's avatar

Oh sweet, thank you, Chuck! Sending my info via The Cult now.

Chuck Palahniuk's avatar

Package packed. Book inscribed. Will go out soon. Thanks!

Maegan Heil's avatar

Aw man, thank you so much! Also for these exercises! For a long time I was struggling to come up with any captions for these photo contests. Then in one post you said something about it’s good practice for a first line and that’s when the lesson really clicked. So yeah thanks for these.

Levi Polzin's avatar

Stellar choices. I was for sure rooting for Bree after I read hers.

Atticus Blake's avatar

Congratulations Maegan and Bree!

Logan the Lobotomizer's avatar

All these are so good, I’d give them all prizes.

Nivethine Mahendran's avatar

Congrats Maegan and Bree!

This is so fun - I kinda want to see if there are any abandoned family photo albums in thrift stores nearby to do more of these. Or maybe I’ll start with my puberty ceremony album (I haaaate those pictures).

Chuck Palahniuk's avatar

A what?! That sounds like child abuse. "Baby's first zit!"

Nivethine Mahendran's avatar

Haha I wish - it’s when a girl gets their first period and apparently the whole community needs to know. I cried - I wanted no one to know. But apparently it served a purpose “back in the days” - signalling that a girl was ready for marriage. I wasn’t even ready for the god awful photoshoot I was put through :(

If you look up Tamil puberty ceremonies on YouTube I fear you’ll see how crazy people get. I had a friend that had her parents get a helicopter for her entrance…

Chuck Palahniuk's avatar

You write that, and people will forget there ever was a Judy Blume. That's better than 'Crazy Rich Asians.' THAT would erase 'The Joy Luck Club.'

Nivethine Mahendran's avatar

Okay wait there’s so much I haven’t thought about in YEARS. Time to go down a dark memory alley and think about entering womanhood, an almost-bride…in a helicopter. If I get something down on paper worth sharing I’ll submit it to the house calls threads!

Logan the Lobotomizer's avatar

I really feel Bree’s.

Gullabi's avatar

I was disheartened during the previous photos because some of the messages that made the cut, I really didn't get. then I start doubting myself and say is it really a viable for me as a non-mother tongue English speaker to practice literature in English. this train of thought ends with me remembering Chuck having written pygmy and I relax.

Also I got almost all of the short listed messages so I was happy.

Chuck Palahniuk's avatar

Between you and me? Sometimes I'm charmed by the ones that sound like nonsense. What's important is that the eventual finder -- whoever finds the photo tucked in a used book -- will ascribe a deep importance and meaning to the photo/message.

Logan the Lobotomizer's avatar

Kind of like song lyrics?

Chuck Palahniuk's avatar

What the heck does Bob Dylan even mean?

Logan the Lobotomizer's avatar

It’s William S Burroughs who turned me onto dissecting song lyrics and trying to find hidden meaning. Bob Dylan’s songs are good for that. “Desolation Row” is my favorite Dylan song.

Mia Maeve's avatar

Mr. Tambourine Man's mine, I'm such a cliché.