2025 Irene Adler Prize

Naisha Roy is the winner of the 2025 Irene Adler Prize for women writers for her essay, “Picked Clean.” It appears below.

Roy, who receives $1,000 toward her education, is seeking her M.Sc. in journalism at Northwestern University (Medill Investigative Lab D.C.). She has also served as an editor with New York University’s Washington Square News.

Honorable mentions go to:

Rosalind Moran (“Those That Are Lost and the Ones That Remain”), who is pursuing her Ph.D in comparative literature and modern languages at Oxford.

Gwendolyn Bellinger (“Salmon Singing in the Street”), who is completing her Ph.D in literature at Monash University Malaysia.

Picked Clean

By Naisha Roy

The garden defies the city. The vines creep up the buildings on the corner of Prince and Elizabeth, its one-acre plot unable to contain the foliage, but the tenants don’t seem to mind. I lead the small army of girls to an open spot under one of the marble sculptures, and we sit down. The grass sticks to our iced coffees. The statue above us is of another girl, tilted slightly forward, holding a book. We hope she will inspire us to do our homework. We know she will not.

Near the back of the garden is a large chain-link fence, where people hang locks with the initials of their loved ones. My friend accidentally bumps into one, knocking it loose (I hope they don’t break up, she says, while trying to cover up her transgression). All around us, flowers and life blossom simultaneously. New Yorkers walk their cats and dogs, their eyes meeting as leashes cross and the roses bloom just a little brighter. Children run through the makeshift maze created by the Grecian-inspired statues, playing hide-and-seek — a luxury typically unavailable to them. Music plays out from the central gazebo, joining the sunlight to envelop the oasis into a tightly-knit present. None of us know each other. We all know each other.

It’s two weeks later. The garden is packed with hundreds of people. They’re solemn now, matched with a light drizzle. I think the sun is embarrassed. Under the statue where my friends and I like to sit, a camera crew raises their tripod. They point it at the gazebo; no guitarist this time, just a man in a denim jacket with his curly hair wrapped in a bun. I thought Dad owned the garden, he says. I grew up here. He pauses, points to a child in a yellow raincoat. I saw her grow up here. He turns to the crowd, asking them to advocate. To tell stories. It isn’t about anger for him. It’s about defiance.

One by one, people with green beanies walk up to the microphone and recall how the garden changed their lives. They look directly into the camera and hope the mayor is on the other end. One man, at the age of 61, gains the courage to recite his writing for the very first time. It’s a protest in poetry. I think of my Saturday mornings, the faint green stain on all of my sundresses, and lying down on my best friend’s lap as she puts her oversized sunglasses on my face.

I try to imagine concrete here. I find I cannot. When the gardener’s son takes the stand again, I open my notebook and jot down his words. Soon, they will form a lede, a paragraph, my senior thesis. Soon, these people will resolve to chain themselves to trees and fences. But on that evening, I think of one question as the rain comes down and the shrubbery shrinks.

How can bulldozers fit through streets this narrow?