Enter the “Crossing the Meadow” Readers’ Competition to win $3,000

Opens October 1, 2012 and closes February 15, 2013

Participation is completely free - The prize is $3,000.

If you like reading, this is the competition for you.

There are many reasons why what could have been just a good story turns into a great one, but it almost always requires a piece of the author's soul to stick to the story and flavor it with an unmistakable true-life ingredient. When an author writes stories with a dramatic edge without going through some gut twisting, the result is plastic, regardless of how professional his prose may be; but if he reads what he has written and it evokes long-forgotten sensations, whether pleasant or disagreeable, the potential for a great story is there.

The Days When You Were Anything Else, the opening story in Marcus Sakey's "Scar Tissue" collection, is a great story. I liked all seven short stories in the collection, but after reflecting on The Days When You Were Anything Else it seems almost inappropriate to get into details about the others. It is a crime story and the setup is sort of commonplace – an old ex-convict, now in reduced conditions, works as a bartender in a sordid joint. His daughter, who ran away while he was in jail and presumably developed psychological disorders as a result, hates him and only calls him once in a while to hurt him. He doesn't want to go back to his old life and become a criminal again, but circumstances are compelling. Nothing new here. You've read a hundred stories and seen a bunch of movies like that, right?

Wrong!

The storyline is really not important here; it is only a vehicle for the author to drag you into the protagonist's shoes and make you shudder and twitch in them, feeling exactly what he must be feeling. The author paints a vivid picture of a father's torment at seeing his child hurt, and he does so by throwing scattered images at you, which together push the right buttons. And the ending, whether you've seen it coming or not, leaves you fully satisfied.

P. G. Wodehouse once said: “I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going deep down into life and not caring a damn...” 

My new novel, "An Italian Obsession", released today, is of the second variety.