In selecting Lindsay Tigue’s piece “Michigan Central Station Has Been Closed Since 1988,” as the winner of the 2012 Half-K Prize, final judge Michael Martone had this to say:

I love trains, and I also adore ruins. I admire this piece for its content of irresistible decay and how its form replicates the unstoppable rot. This is a story that consumes itself, composts as it confounds. It is rich with stuff, with detail, with nominative junk. It names names, chock-a-block, only to have it all melt and fade away. There is no better drama in such a condensed and pressured space. To have a lump of coal transformed into diamond and then, beyond that rock, into the elemental idea of crystalline and holy loss.

The parameters of our annual Half-K Prize can be confusing and challenging because of its limited word count (500 words) and unlimited genre constraints (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, short-shorts, prose-poetry, flash-whatever). We asked Tigue to tell us more about her prizewinning piece, focusing particularly on her process of determining its length and form.

We hope this helps, all of you current and prospective Half-K authors!

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