Rituals of Affection Challenge Winners

Rituals of Affection asked writers to linger in repetition. To return, again and again, to a gesture of love and let us see what it holds beneath the surface.

The winning pieces understood that repetition sharpens feeling. A bed that recites old lovers. A solstice spell cast year after year. A marriage sustained through rehearsed disaster. In each, devotion and disturbance move side by side.

These stories let the ritual persist and show what it gives, and what it takes.

🏆 Winners

The Midsummer Ritual by Tim Carmichael

Tim Carmichael returns each Midsummer to the simple act of scattering hemp seed at the boundary, where a first love steps out of the trees to rake what should have stayed buried.

Gifting by Edward Swafford

Edward Swafford centers a secretive Tuesday-night ritual at a bathhouse, where Ryan seeks belonging through “gifting” and finds that the intimacy he craves carries a consequence that cannot be undone.

June, Mary. by Cali Loria

Cali Loria imagines a lover’s mattress that speaks, reciting a catalog of past bodies during each embrace and turning desire into a ritual that edges toward replacement.

Asklipiou Recipes by Scott Christenson🌴

Scott builds a marriage around biweekly mock murders, where fake blood and staged panic become a ritual that keeps love sharp and flirts with real fear.

The Missing Ingredient by Imola Tóth

Imola anchors the piece in Marie’s yearly return to the mushroom circle, where love fuels the offering and the forest listens, leaving the outcome suspended between hope and hunger.

🎖️ Runners-up

• What Remains by Paul Stewart
• When Love Feels Right, Why Worry Why? by Lightning Bolt ⚡
• The Proposal by Sam Spinelli
• Our Song by Dana Crandell
• Part of Me by Raistlin Allen
• Split Lip by Maegan Heil
• Just a Spoonful by Alyssa Musso
• He Loves Me by Aubrey Rebecca
• The Fall by Heather
• Take Care of Her For Me by Meredith Harmon
• The Valentine’s Feast by Bride of Sound
• Dream Journal by Ian Lund
• charlotte by Esmoore Shurpit
• Naps at E48 by GL
• Performative Ritual by Leigh Victoria Phan, MS, MFA

🏅 Honorable Mentions

• Mera by D. J. Reddall
• Romantic Picnic For Two by A. J. Schoenfeld
• Any Minute Now by Shannon Hilson
• Tuesday at Six by Caitlin Charlton
• Toe Painting for a Donkey by Andrea Corwin
• New Day no. 5642 by Hannah Moore
• The Orchard Doctrine by Nikki Torino Wagner
• Eyes by Cadma
• Perfectly Preserved Envy. by Novel Allen
• The Piercer by Kera Hollow

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