The Magnolia Bedroom

Inspiration

The Magnolia Bedroom was originally written for Round Nine of the 2009 Whittaker Prize. The prompt used was a video of Annie Lennox performing A Whiter Shade of Pale. It was given a score of 85/100 by the judge, Geoff Nelder, putting it in second place out of 17, although he suggested that I should flesh out the MC a bit more.

Placings

The Magnolia Bedroom was shortlisted in the September 2009 Global Short Story Competition.

Publications

The Magnolia Bedroom was published in the anthology resulting from the Whittaker Prize competition, The Rhinocerous and his Thoughts.

Notes

I'm not sure about whether it would have been a good idea to give more colour to the protagonist, as Bianca herself is so overpowering that it would have risked overloading the mixture. This was one of those "last round" stories that got written at considerable speed with all caution thrown to the wind, and I kind of think it should probably stay that way. Any attempt to bring it back to reality could have easily wrecked it.