click to enlarge - Courtesy Of Rolf Parker-Houghton
- The winning writer
Last October, an older man with a straight nose, tan cap and bushy gray hair walked into Brattleboro's Brooks Memorial Library and penned a ghost story by hand. His tale was stirring enough to be judged the winner of the eccentric "T.P. James' Write Like the Dickens" contest, which challenged locals to write a supernatural story in the style of Charles Dickens.
Six months later, the contest's organizers still don't know who this writer is.
"He just wrote the piece and left," Rolf Parker-Houghton said. "He's just contestant No. 4, mystery guy, like right out of a Dickens story."
Parker-Houghton and his wife, Cynthia, run the University of Brattleboro, a made-up institution that, for years, has put on free, whimsical activities based on local history. They've buried and dug up fake UFOs, planted treasure in the woods, and hosted workshops to build musical instruments. The writing contest, first held a decade ago, pays homage to publisher, author and apparent con man T.P. James, who lived in Brattleboro in the 1870s.
James famously claimed that Dickens spoke to him during a séance and chose him to write the ending to the British author's unfinished work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. James then seemingly did write an ending to the book — and published it to wide distribution.
In that vein, the University of Brattleboro's contest gives local writers an hour to write their own Dickensian mystery by hand. Four people competed.
Parker-Houghton, whose pretend academic title is Dr. Balderdash, did manage to capture the mysterious author on a video he shot for French documentarians who were creating a piece on T.P. James. He recently posted still images of the writer on Facebook, hoping someone might recognize the man.
"It was a perfect mystery to have," Dr. Balderdash noted.
Too perfect, perhaps?
Parker-Houghton insists the situation is an authentic whodunit. He wants to find the writer so he can bestow the $100 grand prize and publish the winning piece.
Anyone with leads can email him at [email protected]. Put "T.P. James Man" in the subject line.