Night Reading announces first winner of 'First Chapter of the Month' competition

Online, March 4, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Night Reading is pleased to announce that the first members' poll in its monthly 'First Chapter of the Month' competition has taken place and that the winner is a 'A Bulgarian Bride' by Jim Liacouras which starts out with a group of men meeting up in a harbor bar in Greece discussing how one of their number plans to cross the border into Bulgaria to fetch himself a bride.

The runner up was Gerald D. Johnston with the first chapter of his gruesome but compelling novel 'Dropcloth Angels' about a cannibal, which collected a host of compliments from other authors throughout the month, although one or two also felt sick.

Both books have been offered publishing contracts with Night Publishing, the publishing arm of the Night Reading social network site which invites both unpublished and published authors to load a first chapter into a blog post and try their luck.

Night Reading was established in February 2010 by two authors, Bruce Essar and Tim Roux, to publish the best books they could find without regard to commercial opportunity. It has a target of publishing five books a month, four through the personal choice of the selection team and one according to a members' poll held monthly between the 25th of one month and the 1st of the next.

The first three books to be published are 'Monday Afternoon' by Stephen Sangirardi which is a viscerally told tale of an adulterous love affair between two highly literary English teachers written in the tradition of The Great American novel, 'Buenos Aires: a train ride over the rainbow' which is a collection of poems in English and Spanish - and one short story (in English) - written by the American poet Paul Perry who lives in Buenos Aires, and '....at last!' which is a collection of true stories written by contributors to the online international writers' magazine Speak Without Interruption.

Titles coming out in April include 'Get Some' by Danny Birch which is a war and gangster book from the pen of the exciting and popular author of 'Clipped', George Polley's classic allegory of racism 'The Old Man & The Monkey' (to be followed closely by his 'Grandfather and the Raven' tales against violence), and 'No Death By Unknown Hands' by Minnette Coleman which recounts two real-life murder trials covered by Minnette's father who was the City Editor of The Atlanta Daily World at the time.