Showing results by author "Shawn Vestal" in All Categories

This year's shortlist of six exceptional stories each take the listener on an intense and gripping journey into the human heart. With poise, precision, and a light-footed grace, they conjure dramatically different, starkly real worlds. Hailing from Ireland, the United States and The Bahamas, the finalists of 2020 share stories on subjects as far apart as their settings, exploring among them romantic and marital discord, dark secrets, homelessness and even a high school football team; yet each one opens doors into its characters' lives in surprising and moving ways.

In this stunning debut, Shawn Vestal transports us to the afterlife, the rugged Northwest, and the early days of Mormonism. From “The First Several Hundred Years Following My Death”, an absurd, profound vision of a hellish heaven, to “Winter Elders”, in which missionaries calmly and relentlessly pursue a man who has left the fold, these nine stories illuminate the articles of faith that make us human.