Ardmore Resident Wins National Short Fiction Competition

A story written for a fiction class and English thesis has yielded a happy ending for Eve Gleichman.

With her story "The New Neighbor," the Haverford College graduate learned in June she won the annual Stony Brook Southampton short fiction contest. She takes home a $1,000 prize and free admission to next year's Southampton Writers’ Conference, as well as serious consideration given to the publication of her story in The Southampton Review.

The contest was open to college students across the nation. Stony Brook University is located on Long Island’s North Shore.

Gleichman, a Maryland native who now lives in Ardmore, said she drew her inspiration for the story from real-life experience.

"I think we live in a world where fear is very much real and very much alive," she said. "I think everyone is afraid of everything. In the story I sort of look at why I think that is."

Her story focuses on a character who becomes infatuated with his new neighbor, a young woman who moves in across the street in his gated community.

"He is consumed by his sense of duty to protect her from what he feels is a highly dangerous world, which exists only within his own fears and insecurities," Gleichman said.

Her advisor, Haverford visiting assistant professor Thomas Devaney, described her as "a serious, bright, and capacious student."

"Eve uses a minimal prose style to a quirky maximal effect," Devaney wrote in an email to Patch. "There is a feeling of saturation via consumerism, brand names, and so-called 'new realities,' which are all matter-of-factly handled in her stories and especially so in 'The New Neighbor.' Eve’s characters yearn for escape, yet they continue to perpetuate their own loneliness."

Leo sat in the armchair, paralyzed by the new neighbor's unknown whereabouts. He felt a relentless responsibility to pull his vigilance like a warm coat around her.

—from “The New Neighbor”

Gleichman said she learned of the contest results while she was babysitting—but the only person around to hear her good news was a three-year-old girl munching on cereal.

Her prize money will come in the fall, by which time she hopes to be living in Philadelphia. But Gleichman, who also plays the violin and enjoys riding her new bicycle, is more excited about attending next year's writer's conference.

"I’m really excited to be there and be around writers who I really admire and people who I don’t know," she said.

Editor's note: Christine Sampson lives in East Setauket, N.Y. and is Local Editor of Three Village Patch, in western Suffolk County, N.Y. on Long Island's North Shore.

Read the "The New Neighbor," by Eve Gleichman, here, on the Stony Brook Southampton website.