CAZENOVIA — Within the past six months, Cazenovia native and author Jadi Campbell’s work has been honored with three book awards.
On Nov. 14, her latest book, “The Trail Back Out” (2020), was named a finalist for the 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award (Short Story Collection) by the Independent Author Network, a community of authors who are self-published or published by a small indie press.
The Trail Back Out is a fiction anthology featuring 10 stories, many of which were written during the COVID-19 lockdown.
According to Campbell, the characters in each story are trying to make sense of different events.
“They are all looking for the trail back out,” she said in Nov. 2020. “Whether during the upheaval of the last century or the present COVID-19 crisis, each story guides the reader through a labyrinth of questions about how to live and love.”
The IAN Book of the Year Finalist honor is the third accolade for The Trail Back Out.
The title story, which is set on the back trails at Cranberry Lake in the Adirondacks, was previously named a quarterfinalist in the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Competition.
ScreenCraft is a screenwriting consultancy and competition platform dedicated to helping screenwriters and filmmakers succeed.
The quarterfinalists of the cinematic short story competition were selected from nearly 1,500 submissions.
The true and fictional stories were judged based on their potential to be adapted for the screen in the form of film, television series or made-for-TV movies for example.
The complete anthology was also named a finalist for the 2020 “Best Book” award in the category of fiction anthologies.
Sponsored by American Book Fest, the 2020 contest received over 2,000 entries, which were narrowed down to over 400 winners and finalists in over 90 categories.
Awards were presented for titles published in 2018-2020 based on design, content, and overall appeal.
Past winners include Amy Tan, George Saunders, Clive Barker, and Ann Lamott.
According to Campbell, The Trail Back Out was the only self-published book in its category.
Last June, Campbell’s first book, “Broken In: A Novel in Stories” (2012), was named a semi-finalist for the 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts.
Each year, Hidden River Arts offers an award of $1,000 and publication by Hidden River Press, an imprint of Hidden River Publishing, for an original collection of short stories.
According to Campbell, her book began as a single short story.
“I was trying to figure out if I wanted to attempt creative writing again, and short stories seemed like a good place to start,” she said. “When I finished writing a story titled ‘Surprises,’ I realized I could write the stories for each of ‘Surprises’ characters. I linked them together and Broken In: A Novel in Stories became my first book.”
Campbell said the book tells the story of an accident near JJ’s Bistro involving a drunk driver and some parked cars.
“The chapters are casual but carefully arranged spokes, radiating out from a rainy evening,” she said. “. . . With each chapter, the picture grows more complex. All the characters face the challenge of being broken in one way or another. . . What seemed so clear cut — a rainy night, bistro patrons, an accident — is an event with layers, and consequences, and after-effects.”
On Nov. 20, Campbell was informed that Broken In: A Novel in Stories is a finalist for the 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories Published) — Greece’s prestigious award for English language literature. The winners of the international contest for published and unpublished books will be named on Dec. 30.
Campbell said she feels stunned by the recognition her work has received.
“Less than a week [after the IAN Book of the Year Award Finalists and Winners were announced], I received the news about Greece’s award,” said Campbell. “In my wildest dreams I never pictured getting two awards in one week. . . It is surreal to realize that both of my short story collections were named as Book of the Year Award Finalists for both 2020 and 2021. I’m enormously proud that my work is being recognized. . . I’ve been walking around in a daze for the last few weeks. Sometimes there are periods when all our hard work feels worth it. This is definitely one of them.”
Campbell is also the author of “Tsunami Cowboys” (2014) and “Grounded” (2016). Her books, which are available in paperback and as eBooks, can be purchased online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores in countries around the world.
In 2019, Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Competition.
Campbell, who graduated from Cazenovia High School in 1975, holds a bachelor of arts in English literature from the Honors College of the University of Oregon. She has lived in Germany for the past 28 years.
The author is currently working on a new novel.
“For the first time, I’ve set the entire story here in southern Germany,” she said. “My characters include a Syrian refugee who works as a baker, a therapist doing massage for trauma survivors, and Brian, an American who is involved in an unusual romantic triangle. He’s a minor character from my book Tsunami Cowboys — I like to revisit characters from earlier books and expand their stories. I tend to disappear down rabbit holes for long periods. It’s been fun researching the traditions and history of baking around the world.”
For more information on Campbell and her work, visit jadicampbell.com.
