LCTFL's Prize-Winning Author—Audrey D. Brashich

Writing is hard and writing is uncertain. 

Writers pour their hearts into projects that sometimes never find a way to their intended audiences. The story might be gripping. The prose might be superb. But  there are so many other factors at play, such as an ever-changing marketplace, fierce competition, and, well, everything else under the sun (or so it can sometimes seem).

But TeamLCTFL member Audrey Brashich is garnering some major awards for her unpublished novel On the Steps of The Met, a coming of age story set in (you guessed it) New York City in the 1980s. 

First, she was awarded the Modern Muse First Five Pages Contest in October 2023, which was a huge honor because we all know how important it is to write a killer opening. And now On the Steps of The Met  has been named a winner of The Letter Review Prize for Unpublished Books. Needless to say, Audrey couldn't be more excited or honored. To celebrate, she's sharing the novel's opening passage here:

On the Steps of The Met

Early Autumn

1987

There was a note left next to my name tag on the corner of my desk that first day of tenth grade. I couldn’t identify the handwriting, but just about any one of the twenty girls in my grade could have written it. They never missed a chance to remind me that I still wasn’t one of them. Even after nine years at Clarence Academy.

Arriviste, it read. Like a harbinger of the subtle and not-so-subtle cruelty my classmates would probably subject me to over the course of the school year.

Interloper, parvenu, imposter—no matter the translation, the insult cut me deeper than I wanted to admit. That the message used a word we’d learned in honors French class and was written in flawless cursive made it even more on point for the world I lived in at that time.

I crumpled the paper into the pocket of my pinstriped skirt—the lightweight uniform we were permitted to wear until autumn’s crisp weather figuratively and literally necessitated our green plaid kilts. I’d dispose of the warning in a public garbage can on my way home so that no one from school might see me toss it, then fish it out and further taunt me with it. With my eyes down, I slid into my seat and braced myself for another year at Clarence.

In the corner, my classmates hovered around something, their chatter punctuated with squeals of delight suggesting it had been ages since they’d seen each other even though the amount of time that had passed since the Labor Day closing ceremonies at their salt-sprayed beach clubs on eastern Long Island could have been counted in mere hours.

“Oh, hi, Cecilia,” said Merritt Lowell, who stood on the fringe of the crowd like a gatekeeper. Her fair brown hair was in a simple ponytail tied back with a pink and green polka dotted fabric scrunchie; her L.L. Bean Blucher moccasins were scuffed and held together with duct tape upholding the longstanding WASP tradition of being able to afford better, but purposefully doing without. Her wrist was covered in a dozen or more of the thin black rubber bracelets so many of us wore back then in tribute to our favorite look of Madonna’s.

Merritt’s eyes swept the classic wooden desk, giving away that she at least knew about the note even if she wasn’t its author.

“How was your summer?” Her tone was congenial yet hollow. I might have been an ancienne—Clarence’s term for girls who, like me, had been enrolled since first grade—yet I existed outside of the core group of girls whose mothers had been debutantes together and whose fathers met at various New England boarding schools, where they barely earned “Gentlemen’s Cs” but achieved success nonetheless thanks to family and connections.

“Great,” I mumbled, knowing Merritt wasn’t actually paying attention to my answer. I tucked my pale, chin-length blonde hair behind my ear and busied myself with rearranging the items in my nearly empty school bag. Day by day, for that year and the next, my plan was to keep to myself and simply get by until graduation.

Hoping to read more? We're hoping you can, too, once the manuscript is picked up by publishers. In the meantime, check back here for updates and thanks for reading!