#251: Lost and Found Books with BookTrib

This week’s contest is hosted by our friends over at BookTrib. Now in its 20th year, BookTrib.com is a news source for people who love books, want to stay on top of what’s happening in the book world, and like learning about new and emerging authors. They also provide promotional services for authors and publishers, and know a thing or two about what makes writing work. The winner of this week’s contest will receive the usual $250 prize, plus some feedback from the good folks over at BookTrib! Here’s the team:

BookTrib is honored to partner with Reedsy to present this week’s writing contest! Our tagline is “Where Readers Discover,” so this week’s contest is all about that. In pulling together these prompts, we wanted to capture the excitement of discovering a book or author, without being too thematically restrictive. We asked ourselves: In what ways do we discover books? What do these discoveries do for us? What other kinds of "reader discoveries" might there be? 

We hope you have fun exploring these prompts in your writing. The stories can be in any genre, so feel free to adapt them somewhat to fit the time and place of your story. — The BookTrib team



Special update: The results 🏆

After reviewing the judges' top picks and choosing their winner, here was the BookTrib team's feedback on the shortlist and winner they chose, which he has kindly given us permission to share with you all!



Wow, there are so many great stories and so much excellent writing in this week's contest! We're as thrilled as kids on Christmas morning, our wishlist of toys forgotten as we rip open one package after another of gifts that are even better than the ones we dreamed of. But the greatest gift of all is knowing that the prompts we provided lead to such diverse and wonderful creations! We snuck into secret libraries, opened clothbound gateways to our most cherished memories and worlds beyond our imaginings, peeked at pages that alter the lives of those who read them, and even delighted in some satisfying twist endings.

Here are our finalists:

• Lunarmorphic Transformation, Weddings, and Other Such Conditions by Nadir Gauche
• The Library in the Wall by Rozmarin Ideas
• The Bookkeepers by Niamh O'Dea
• The Last Chapter by Jim Kokoris

And our winner:

• Surrender by Adam Perschbacher

Adam's story of a widower's grief transported us to Colonial America and deeply moved us. Without his wife and newborn, Adam's protagonist must forge his way ahead to survive but finds no solace in the words of the village pastor. Instead, he wanders onto his own spiritual path, literally outside the bounds of his society and in a mysterious waterlogged Bible full of blank pages and scrawled notes. 'Surrender' is a masterful story with an evocative setting, well-crafted prose, subtle shades of meaning, and a character who refuses to leave your soul when the story ends. —The BookTrib team