18th Annual StoryPros Awards Winners Circle

Grand Prize Winner
TURN THE LIGHTS BACK ON by Dave Pantano   (CONTACT)
A premenopausal teacher and her deceptive siblings struggle to reconcile their relationships and the consequences of putting their ailing mother into assisted living on the brink of a pandemic.

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1st Place - Action/Adventure/Thriller
STILLWATER by Christopher Schultz   (CONTACT)
A seasoned assassin, haunted by a mission gone wrong, seeks redemption and a fresh start in a small Montana town. However, his past refuses to let him go as a powerful crime syndicate, a relentless mercenary, and a determined associate all close in. With his survival on the line, he must decide whether to embrace a new life or revert to the deadly skills that made him a legend.

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1st Place - Comedy
YAHOO BOY by Wendy Bednarz   (CONTACT)
In this cross-cultural comedy, a fearless widow falls for an online romance scammer who drains her life savings in a crypto con - but when she travels from drab Oregon to dazzling Nigeria to confront him, she unexpectedly finds friendship, redemption and a second shot at life.

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1st Place - Drama
BROKEN MEN by Julian Paulsen   (CONTACT)
A quick-tempered detective, an unscrupulous defense attorney, and a ruthless drug kingpin-each fighting to keep a devastating secret from coming out-collide in a tragic tale of corruption, betrayal, and sacrificial redemption.

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1st Place - Family/Teen/Animation
SURFING GRANDPA by George Petersen   (CONTACT)
Expatriate surf legend Corky Carroll - desperate to create a surf school on the Mexican Riviera - accepts a teenage rebel as his first surf school student.

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1st Place - Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror
MCAP-2 by Sarah Granger   (CONTACT)
A novice ice specialist arrives at a scientific outpost in the harsh environment of the Mars South Pole; instead of a warm welcome, she's met with a crabby crew and a crisis of survival.

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2nd Place - Action/Adventure/Thriller
EXPOSED by Timothy Driscoll   (CONTACT)
After his cover's blown, an undercover cop teams up with his estranged journalist daughter to unravel a vast criminal conspiracy; involving the police, City Hall, the outlaw motorcycle gang he infiltrated and the drug cartel he was working to bring down, in order to clear his name and save their lives.

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2nd Place - Comedy
ANNIE HELL by Ervin Anderson   (CONTACT)
After waking up in Hell, seemingly incompatible strangers Noah and Annie must work together to escape their fiery predicament before time runs out, but soon discover some of the heat they feel is for each other.

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2nd Place - Drama
PLAYING THE CHANGES by George Edward Collins   (CONTACT)
The country's top neurosurgeon, an unfeeling man, sees his perfectly ordered life unravel and reinvents himself as a jazz saxophonist in an effort to recover his heart, humanity, and possibly his estranged wife - who is determined to resist his persistent and unwelcome attempts to win her back.

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2nd Place - Family/Teen/Animation
DESERT RAT by John Tupper   (CONTACT)
After losing the family, friends and life that he loved, a lonely and frustrated young desert spring rat, from a stark white desert, sets out on a river adventure that not only changes the course of the river, but transforms the world he grew up in, and earns him a place in an enormous new family.

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2nd Place - Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror
HALLOW'S POINT by Brian W. Smith   (CONTACT)
On a weekend book tour in a seaside town, a bestselling author of vampire novels fears the welcoming residents are blending her fiction with a terrifying reality.

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3rd Place - Action/Adventure/Thriller
RECKLESS by Jay Striddick   (CONTACT)
An ex-con bodyguard for a nightclub dancer goes on the warpath when she's kidnapped by a ruthless criminal cartel.

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3rd Place - Comedy
GASLIGHTERS by Paul Jarnagin   (CONTACT)
A newbie's first job in the gun lobbying industry entraps him into Washington D.C.'s political circus and he turns whistleblower when his conscience no longer ignores reality.

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3rd Place - Drama
RAGEQUIT by Sam Norman   (CONTACT)
A bitter Ivy League dropout sinks his inheritance into a meme stock to humiliate his ex's hedge fund fiancé - only to ignite an all-out war with the ruthless giants of Wall Street.

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3rd Place - Family/Teen/Animation
THE PEST INSPECTOR by David McPete   (CONTACT)
Anton, a pest inspecting ant, and his insect crew, are hired to remove human pests from a log cabin.

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3rd Place - Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror
UNCLE LESHY by Joe Lyon   (CONTACT)
Based on the true 1959 Dyatlov Pass Incident, nine university students face extinction from an ancient creature on Dead Mountain.

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