The story collection “The Trail Back Out,” pictured upper left, featuring a title story set in Cranberry Lake has won the San Francisco Book Festival award for general fiction. The author, Jadi Campbell, pictured upper right, has long standing ties to the region. In the bottom photo, the author with her father Bob Campbell on a fishing trip at Cranberry Lake in 1986. Photos submitted.
BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week
CRANBERRY LAKE — An author with ties to Cranberry Lake has won a prestigious book award for a story collection set in St. Lawrence County’s rural wooded Adirondack region.
Jadi Campbell has lived in Germany since 1992 but her family owned a home on Cranberry Lake for years where she spent a portion of her childhood.
The American writer’s book “The Trail Back Out” recently won the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival award for general fiction. The title story of the book, which is a collection of short story pieces, is set on the back trails of Cranberry Lake.
The story was long listed for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award and the book itself was a 2020 Best Book Award finalist for fiction anthologies, runner-up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, a 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection finalist and was awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon.
The San Francisco Book Festival award was something of a surprise for Campbell.
“The festival doesn’t have a category for short story collections and I figured it didn’t have a chance. I had to submit my book as General Fiction, which meant it was up against novels, romances, mysteries, chick lit, thrillers, and pretty much everyone else,” Campbell told North Country This Week.
Campbell said she felt some disbelief that her collection had taken the prize.
“I stared at my name written after the word WINNER (in capital letters!). I felt great satisfaction and pride that a collection inspired by one of the most beautiful and remote places in the world had…
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