Friday from the Archives: “The Shower” by Ronald Jackson in NCLR Online 2013
Two reminders, one closing, one opening: Our 2026 Special Feature “Saluting Military Writing” is closing for submissions of literary critique, author interviews, and literary creative nonfiction on August 31. The Doris Betts Fiction Prize contest, which will accept military fiction, opens September 15th. The Barrax/Bayes poetry contest for military writers past and present then opens October 1.
Author Ron Jackson of Durham has written two military fiction stories that have been awarded in the Betts Prize contest. Most recently, “The Way Home” won 2nd Place in 2023. The first, “The Shower” was a finalist in 2012. Both were published in NCLR Online.
Explaining her selection of “The Shower” for publication, NCLR Fiction Editor Liza Wieland described it as “a refreshing take on the contemporary soldier’s story. Here the soldier is a woman returned home and wondering how to connect with her female friends. The writing is acutely descriptive, close to the bone. The term ‘surgical strike’ comes to mind: I get what’s important. At the end of the story, I feel I know Babs and her friends and understand the complications of their lives.”
“The Shower” speaks to that undeniably hard transition between active duty service and figuring out new ways to serve your friends and family when back home. Jackson’s protagonist thinks, “Back here in the world? Different story. My last year at Bragg had all the joy of going home to an empty apartment after the State Fair. Talk about losing focus. Correct that. I had one focal point, and looking back, it wasn’t a wholly rewarding one. More pain than gain, much as I hate to say that about Fiona.”
Read both stories in NCLR Online and then submit your original unpublished fiction to this year’s Betts Fiction Prize when it opens September 15 and/or your nonfiction via our 2026 special feature “Saluting Military Writing” submission window before it closes in just a few more days, August 31.
