A New Contest!

How Small a Story Can Be

Consider how small a story can be…

You’re going through a box of photographs and you find the above snap shot. Written on the back is Arlan before his tractor accident. See how compelling? My new obsession is to collect such photos and add Edward Gorey-type notes to the back of each. Just a few words such as Kitty before the big house fire. Or:

Digby’s last birthday before the hunting accident.

Our Nanny still with all her good skin.

Agatha, please write as I am not long for this world.

Don’t search for me, Mummy. I’ve left with the headmaster.

My fifth victim. The hitchhiker.

The one who screamed so much.

Eventually I’ll take these photos on the road and covertly slip them into books in book shops. Each will be a quiet little prank loaded with ominous dread. In time, each will be a dreadful little troubling surprise for someone. A mini Banksy-type art stunt.

For now, help me out and you can win an inscribed copy of Not Forever, But For Now. In the Comments below, suggest a few short words for me to write on the back of the above photo. Enter as many times as you like, and I’ll choose my favorite and send the winner a book—anywhere in the world!

Every few days I’ll post another photo, and you have a fresh shot at winning a book.

I’ll keep posting new photos until October, and once I’m back from tour I’ll choose all of the winners and send out the inscribed books.

Not Forever, But For Now is a very dark comedy about two very sweet-seeming little boys who live an idylic life in their nursery with their Winnie-the-Pooh and all the lovely perks of English country life. Everything is, of course, a sham. Thus all the photos I post during the contest will suggest angelic lives of contentment, and your job is to write the few words that suggest hideous goings-on just trembling on the horizon.

Look for a new photo every few days. For now, give me a lovely few words to suggest the dark story of the bright-eyed chap above.