Waders, a Billhook and a Lawn Mower. Where the Six Finalists Were When the Phone Rang

Noor Haddad, RedSquibble's books editor, made the six calls on a single day in September. She had a printed list, a pot of coffee and a column of time zones written in the margin, because one of the finalists lives five hours ahead of the rest. She had also been warned that one of them works nights and would be asleep until the afternoon.

"I expected to spend the day explaining who we were," Haddad said. "Instead I spent it waiting while people put things down. Tools, groceries, a spreadsheet. Everybody had to put something down first."

Here is where each finalist was when the phone rang.

Morning

Hannah Birch was knee-deep in a hedge on a farm outside Ludlow, in Shropshire, at a hedge-laying day run by a local conservation group. It was a little after one in the afternoon her time. She had a billhook in her right hand and a hazel stem half cut in front of her, and her phone was in a coat hanging on a fence post. She let it ring out, finished the cut, and called back from the field.

"I told her I couldn't talk properly because I had a blade in one hand," Birch said. "Then I realized I was still holding it and put it down in the grass. I don't remember anything she said after that. I remember the stem was laid beautifully."

Priya Venkataraman was standing in the Elizabeth River in chest waders, checking a tide gauge on a piling in Norfolk, Virginia. Her phone was in a dry bag clipped to her vest. A colleague on the bank held the bag open while she answered with a wet glove.

"It was the first call I have ever taken in waders that wasn't about a storm," she said. "My colleague could only hear my half. She thought someone had died, because I kept saying, are you sure, are you sure. Then she thought I'd won the lottery. I had to explain it three times on the drive back."

Midday

Samuel Okafor was in a conference room at his accounting firm in west Houston, halfway through a client's quarterly reconciliation, when his phone lit up face down on the table. He almost ignored it. His rule is that personal calls wait until lunch. He broke the rule, stepped into the hallway, and listened.

"I said thank you about eleven times," Okafor said. "Then I went back into the room and finished the reconciliation, because the client was waiting and the numbers were not going to do themselves. It balanced to the penny. I decided to take that as a good sign."

He told no one at work that afternoon. He told his mother that night. She asked whether this meant the hobby was finally over.

Jonah Adebayo-Reyes was in a city archive reading room in Manhattan, a box of 1920s building permits open in front of him, when his phone buzzed against the table hard enough to earn a look from the archivist. He took the call in a stairwell.

"I sat down on the stairs, which you are absolutely not supposed to do," he said. "When I went back in, the archivist asked if everything was all right. That's the second time an archivist has asked me that. The first time was the day I found the photograph. Apparently I have one face for both kinds of news."

Afternoon

Colin Mercer did not hear the phone at all. He was mowing the back lawn at his house in western Pennsylvania, and the phone was on the kitchen counter. His wife answered it, walked out into the yard, and stood in front of the mower waving the phone over her head until he shut the engine off.

"I thought something was wrong with the grandkids," Mercer said. "She was grinning, so I figured probably not. She handed me the phone and said, it's about your book, and then she stood there with her arms folded so she could watch my face."

He finished the lawn afterward. It took him twice as long as usual, he said, because he kept stopping.

Mara Ellison was the last call of the day, a little after 5:30 in the afternoon. Haddad had waited on purpose. Ellison was in her kitchen in Tenney Harbor, Maine, packing a sandwich and an apple for a twelve-hour night shift. She had slept through the morning with her phone in a drawer, the way she always does.

"I said, can I call you back, I'm about to leave for work," Ellison said. "Then I heard what I had said and I apologized. She laughed. I did go to work, though. There were patients. The news could keep until four in the morning."

At four, in the break room, she told exactly one person, a nursing assistant she has worked beside for years. The nursing assistant hugged her and then told her to go check on room six.

"There were patients. The news could keep until four in the morning."

The Last Call

Haddad hung up with Ellison at 5:47 p.m. She crossed the last name off her list and noticed that every one of the six finalists had asked her the same question at some point in the conversation. It was not about the prize, or the other finalists, or October 30.

They had each asked, in one form or another, whether she was sure.

"I was sure," Haddad said. "I would have been happy to say it more times. I think a couple of them wanted me to."

The winner of the 2026 RedSquibble Debut Prize will be announced October 30.