h THE PULSE 2013 SHORT STORY CONTEST
1,000 Words
Screen
Hunger Rising Hunger was once drastically reduced in America, due in part to a 1968 documentary. But since the 1980s, it has again risen to near epidemic levels. Can a new documentary help drive people to action?
Enter The Pulse’s Annual Short Story Competition. All entries are limited to 1,000 words and must have a southern theme. submit stories in document format, include your name, phone number and a brief biography. only entries emailed following these rules will be considered. stories will be judged by an expert panel. The judges’ top choice will be published on April 18 in The Pulse and win a pair of tickets to the Celebration of Southern Literature (April 18-20). Three runners-up will be published in subsequent issues of The Pulse. Email to: creative@chattanoogapulse.com Subject: 2013 Short Story Contest
Deadline: March 28, 2013 By John DeVore
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n 1968, CBS released a documentary hosted by Charles Kuralt titled “Hunger in America.” Television was much less fractured then, which allowed a large number of viewers to witness the realities of hunger in the lives of 10 million Americans. The documentary was so powerful that it shocked the nation into action, and for a time hunger was powerfully addressed. People called their representatives and demanded action. Legislation was passed. By the end of the 1970s, our hunger problem was drastically reduced. It was a testament to engaged democracy.
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Unfortunately, during the 1980s and the Reagan administration, the work done to combat hunger in the richest nation on Earth was nearly undone for the sake of tax cuts and defense spending. A new narrative was created, one in which the government was not the answer, despite evidence to the contrary. Instead, the problem of hunger was handed off to private charities and faith-based initiatives. The focus shifted and the hungry were shamed.
ABOVE Rosie, a fifthgrader, lives in a closet with her sister and can’t focus at school because she’s hungry.
It is estimated now that 50 million Americans are “food insecure,” meaning that they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. One in two children will rely on public assistance for a meal at some point in their lives. “A Place at the Table” is a new documentary that hopes to be “Hunger in America”
for a new generation. The film travels to three distinctly American locations: a small town in Colorado, a “food desert” in Mississippi and low-income housing in Philadelphia. The problems facing these families are myriad. One mother works as a waitress, bringing home $120 every two weeks. She is forced to move back in with her parents, seven people in a single-family home, keeping them from qualifying for food stamps because the household