Nashville Reads Contests Use Book As Jumping Off Point

Most entries in the photo contest use the book’s cover as part of the image; instead Elissa Pugh posed a baby near a display promoting Nashville Reads in the library’s lobby. Via Instagram

Only one prompt was given in the first ever Nashville Reads short story contest: tackle the idea of a “non traditional family.” Winner Rosie Forrest responded with a snapshot of a teenage girl left alone.

I pretend I’m not home, curtains drawn, I rest the brass lamp on the floor, enough to light my way without setting the window glass aglow…

Nashville Reads is wrapping up its third attempt at getting the city to read and react to a book together. organizers asked people to put their own spin on the themes of the novel “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.” The short story contest is over, but calls remain for Instagram photos and stories told in just six words.

For that last one, Gina Davis submitted this: “My dad. Closed casket. My fault.”

Short story winner Rosie Forrest admits she waited to read the designated book until after she was done with her own piece. Still, she says the idea of multiple people approaching the same theme was inviting.

I just find it incredibly cool that there is this way to write and respond to something at the same time as an entire city becomes a small community.

Her winning story was published on the website Chapter16.org, and she’ll read it at Parnassus books this weekend. An appearance at the downtown library by author Karen Joy Fowler will cap off this Nashville Reads Tuesday night.