‘The White Pony’ Contest Winner

Lizzie Falvey is a Boston-based artist and educator who works in photography, monoprints, ceramics, and video. Her photographs here--digitized prints of 35 mm black and white film--are a quiet exploration of mood and atmosphere found in moments of human intervention in natural landscapes. She holds an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and her works have been shown regionally and nationally.

The White Pony

Winner of the Spring Short Fiction Contest 2025

It takes hours of practice to perfect the art of turning an ordinary white pony into a unicorn for children’s birthday parties. Meanwhile, my family packed their lives into duffel bags and walked through jungles, floated on leaky rafts, hitchhiked, and clung to the backs of rusted pickup trucks.

I have a cousin who lives there legally. He teaches paleontology at a community college—an essential worker, apparently. He told me that if I could do something spectacular, I might qualify for a visa based on talent. Talent alone, he said, could grease the wheels of immigration. He said this while microwaving a burrito and grading papers.

So, I bought a small white pony from the next town over. The owner warned me it was mean as hell. He wasn’t wrong. I fed it carrots and apples, brushed its coarse little coat, called it sweet names. But no. This pony was furious. It bit me constantly, like it had a personal vendetta. Which is probably why I didn’t feel too guilty when I started dyeing its fur pastel colors and strapping a plastic horn to its head.

My mother sold the house when she left. She kissed me on the cheek and wished me well. It broke her heart that I didn’t go with them. But I had my reasons. I didn’t want to seek refuge—I wanted a talent visa. I wanted to follow the rules, every last one, no matter how arbitrary or impossible.

I was ready for the hoops:

• National Anthem
Sung both straight and to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy

• Pledge of Allegiance
Recited forwards and backwards, without blinking

• The Amendments
All of them, in order, annotated, and dramatized if requested

• The Bill of Rights
Cross-stitched into a decorative throw pillow

I was determined to be impressive on paper. Talented. Deserving. Legal.

I lived in the pony’s stall to save money. The floor was hay and regret. I kept my paperwork in a waterproof bag and taught myself mindfulness from library books wrapped in plastic. I used the public bathroom at the feed store, where the clerk would say things like, “Still chasing that dream? Heh heh,” and I’d nod, as if it wasn’t crumbling in my hands.

Gym prep was non-negotiable. So was a full-body wax and a thick coat of glistening oil. I spent my last few dollars on rocky road protein powder. My town didn’t have a gym, so I had to improvise. I lifted water troughs. Curled sheep. Squatted hay bales until my legs gave out. The pony watched me with deep suspicion, like I was the lunatic in this situation.

At night, I showed him pictures of faraway places—big cities with glass towers, houses with more bathrooms than people, cars that looked like spaceships. Shopping malls the size of stadiums. I even showed him barns with air conditioning and tile floors. Livestock luxury. He tried to bite my head.

The other animals kept their distance, mostly. The goats were busy with their schemes. The rooster crowed in Latin some mornings, which I suspected was meant to mock me.

I read Dante, Locke, Foucault. Derrida, Heidegger, Plato. I practiced speaking with confidence, learned to enunciate while jumping rope, drank tea with honey to smooth my throat. I rehearsed answers to questions no one would ask.

“What is your greatest weakness?”
“Overthinking my own capacity for moral compromise.”

“What is the meaning of freedom?”
“It’s a stage. And everyone is auditioning.”

Finally, the talent round. This is where the pony came in.

I ordered about a hundred dollars’ worth of Swarovski crystals from a woman named Aisha. She included a free glitter pen and a note that said, Go get 'em, unicorn queen. I glued the crystals, one by one, onto a fake unicorn horn I’d painted myself. It shimmered like nonsense.

I trained that asshole pony to stop whipping its head around when it wore the horn. Mostly. Sometimes it would just stand perfectly still, eyes narrowed, and then—suddenly—slam its head into the barn wall.

Dyeing the fur was easier. It was basically just giving the pony a bath, which he pretended not to like, but I caught him leaning into the cold hose and the hairbrush. I don’t know if ponies are colorblind, but luckily there’s no mirror in the barn—because if he saw himself, it might’ve pissed him off even more.

Maybe the other barnyard animals had opinions. Maybe they whispered judgments about the pastel rainbow hair. Maybe the rooster was a traditionalist. Maybe the goats admired the boldness.

The day of the showcase arrived.

They set up a temporary stage in the civic center parking lot, between the expired food truck and a bounce house full of mildly sobbing toddlers. Contestants milled about in sequins and Spanx and modest heels. A woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty was applying last-minute bronzer. Someone else had brought a falcon. A man claimed he could yodel the Constitution.

I waited for my number. The pony tried to bite a small child who got too close. A volunteer offered me a pamphlet titled Pathways to Legal Citizenship: A Family Guide.

When my number was called, I walked onstage in my prom tuxedo, dragging the pony behind me. The horn was straight. The fur was gleaming, sherbet-toned. Aisha’s crystals caught the light like disco ball dreams. I did a little bow. The pony bit my ass.

“My name is—” I said. Then stopped. Because the judges—three government agents in matching polos and Oakley sunglasses—weren’t looking at me. One was eating a corn dog. One was texting. One was asleep.

Still, I did the routine. I made the pony do its pirouette. It did not pirouette. It sort of trotted in a circle, then defecated. The horn slipped sideways. The children in the audience screamed in delight.

I segued into my monologue: a dramatic reinterpretation of the First Amendment set to a medley of Sondheim showtunes. The pony tried to bolt.

When it was over, I stood there, panting, sparkling, waiting.

The judges didn’t clap. No one clapped.

They conferred, mumbling into clipboards. One finally looked up and said, “Thank you. We’ll let you know.”

Which is what they always say. Whether they will or not. Whether they already have.

Back at the barn, I fed the pony a bruised apple. He didn’t bite me that time. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was resigned. Maybe, like me, he had started to understand.

I cross-stitched “Due to high volume, your application is still under review” onto a pillow that night. Just for practice.

Outside, the goats slept curled like question marks. The rooster muttered something judgmental in his sleep. The pony stood in the moonlight, glitter fading, horn askew, like he was waiting for something—anything—to change.

Kelsey Stewart’s work often engages with fractured systems and the emotional cost of survival within them. Like much of her fiction, "The White Pony" is interested in the contradictions of being—how ambition and delusion, hope and disillusionment, legality and legitimacy bleed together when the rules are designed to be out of reach. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Creative Writing at Harvard. Originally trained as an opera singer, she performs with the Houston Grand Opera and hold a BA in music from Loyola Marymount University. Her fiction blends dark humor, social critique, and elements of absurdism, drawing inspiration from writers like George Saunders and Nikolai Gogol.

Author Kelsey Stewart

Interview with Kelsey:

Why are you a 'Breakout Creative'?

After earning my degree in music, I spent many years pursuing a career in opera, while secretly nurturing my love for writing on the side. Two years ago, I decided to take that passion seriously and enrolled in Harvard's Master's program in Creative Writing. Since then, I have grown tremendously as a writer and have begun submitting a few stories I’m proud of to literary journals, encouraged by my professors. Until now, my work has lived in academic settings, so I’m excited to share it more publicly and begin this next chapter.

What made you want to be a writer? Did you have any muses or guides along your way?

Writing is the one thing I can do from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. without ever getting tired. I think I’ve always known it was part of me. In second grade, during a make-your-own-picture book assignment, my teacher—Mrs. Clay—handed out little pre-stapled booklets for us to write in. After I approached her desk, asking for my fifth “extra booklet,” she smiled and said I was going to be an author someday.

I think she cut me off at ten booklets, so sadly, we will never know what became of the goldfish with the world's longest pearl necklace.

That early love for storytelling stayed with me, even as I pursued a career in opera. Today, I’m studying creative writing at Harvard, where I’ve been fortunate to work with incredible mentors like Ian Shank and Thomas Wisniewski, who have both played a significant role in the growth and refinement of my craft.

How would you describe your unique style and what do you think influences it?

My writing style blends dark humor, emotional depth, and surreal absurdity, often drawing on satirical frameworks to explore the breakdown of social systems, identity, and power. Influenced by writers like George Saunders and Kurt Vonnegut, I gravitate toward fractured realities where the bizarre coexists with the painfully human. Whether through speculative dystopias, emotionally fraught romantic comedies, or corporate absurdist tales, my work aims to unsettle, amuse, and provoke reflection. 

If you had any advice for writers just getting started, what would you say?

Keep writing! Your first story might suck. So might your first draft. Big deal. That’s part of it. If you enjoy the process and keep showing up, you’ll get better. Every sentence, every rewrite, every false start is progress. The only real mistake is stopping. 

Where can we find more of your work?

So far, most of my work lives in the inboxes of my professors, but I recently published my first story withThe Raven’s Perch. I’m excited to keep submitting and expanding my presence in the literary world.  

Is there anything else you wish to tell us?

 I’m committed to the craft and always seeking ways to improve. Thank you for the opportunity to share my work.