Read the winning piece of our 2025 Nonfiction Contest “Through the Mirror” by Jessie Cato selected by Lucy Ives.

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Jason Nemec

Jason Nemec‘s poems and stories have appeared in Rattle, Meridian, Nimrod, Verse Daily, storySouth, Tinge, Vestal Review, and various other magazines. He is a PhD student at the University of Cincinnati, where he is at work on a novel.

Winter 2012

A Brief Sexual History and Its Catalyst

By Jason Nemec

I had sex for the first time when I was fourteen. I can sum it up nice and neat for you like they do at the end of that game Clue: Jimmy Mendelson. In the shed behind his house. With a rubber I stole from one of my dad’s tackle boxes.