When you read “Boxcar to Manhood”, you’ll meet the opinionated and unique father of Toianna Gump, our third-place winner for non-fiction. A self-described “Christian atheist”, Toianna’s dad continually strove for the emotional detachment Kipling implies is vital to “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.”

Our first-place prize winner for non-fiction, Brock Meyers, relates the moving, memorable, one and only time he met his grandfather, who clearly demonstrated Kipling’s ideal “If you can make one heap of all your winnings, and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, and lose, and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss.”

When you get to know Theresa, you’ll understand why her sister-in-law Pat Florio chose to write about her. Our second-place winner for non-fiction shows us how her brother’s wife filled every unforgiving minute with distance run in a way that filled the hearts around her with joy and hope.

Editorial – You might think it odd for All Things If to devote an entire issue to a progressive rock musician, but if there was ever anyone who has faced both Triumph and Disaster with integrity and an enviable attitude, it is Stanley Whitaker.

Director Tim Burton accomplishes on film what Rudyard Kipling accomplishes poetically—they both speak to children about living a life of honesty, integrity and courage. Apparently, the planet has been losing its grip on these attributes since the beginning of time. Rudyard Kipling used pen and ink and spoke to sons everywhere. In “Alice in Wonderland,” Tim Burton speaks to our daughters through film, and the similarities are remarkable.

Editorial. The truth is that most of us spend our lives making someone else’s dreams happen and we march to the beat of someone else’s drum. When we follow established patterns, we are safe, but, by following them, we also get a predictable result. Here is an old puzzle that can illustrate how we tend to box ourselves in.