A duet of stories that flies in the face of anything you'd think a love story could be.

David James Poissant, judge of the Jeanne M. Leiby Memorial Competition

Two lonely American women. Two handsome Turkish tour guides. What could possibly go wrong?

A duet of stories that flies in the face of anything you’d think a love story could be. These are independent stories, yet, as a pair, they harmonize. In music, we might call this “call and response,” how one instrument follows another, and, in following, comments on the first. I’ll leave it to the reader to pick the order in which these two pieces might best be read. But, surely, read them both! Much of the beauty of “The Rug Bazaar” is to be found in the way one story complements another.

James David Poissant, judge of the Jeanne M. Leiby Memorial Chapbook Competition and author of The Heaven of Animals