Best opening line

Winner

Jamey Nye

45, educational administrator, Sacramento

My hips grew before my breasts, so by freshman year at C.K. McClatchy High School, I was known as the chubby nice girl, the one who wore cover-ups on hot Sacramento swim days while skinny Camille and Tara wore almost nothing, the chubby nice girl with slender daydreams who ate salad with friends and french fries alone and who took selfies from the shoulders up, the chubby nice girl weighed down by the unwelcomed curves of adolescence who longed to be less and more, smaller and greater—the chubby nice girl who, like all chubby nice girls in high school, was not very nice to herself.

Honorable mention

Stephen Reinhard

retired, Sacramento

My brain contains all the knowledge in the entire universe, but unfortunately for this world, I am a turkey on the American River bike trail and nobody queries a turkey for solutions—until now.