Although UB philosophy professor Carolyn Korsmeyer regularly attempts to bring to life the works of long-dead authors, her efforts have never been quite so rewarding.
Korsmeyer beat out more than 700 entrants - and won a $5,000 prize - in the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library's contest to complete "A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage," a short story written 125 years ago by former Buffalo resident Mark Twain.
Twain initially proposed the contest 125 years ago when he moved to Buffalo, where he was an editor of The Buffalo Express newspaper. He submitted the original challenge to the Atlantic Monthly, hoping its publication would inspire the brightest minds in literature to finish the characteristically quirky tale.
To Twain's dismay, the contest never ran in the Atlantic Monthly. The BEC library acquired the rights to the story years later, but did nothing with them until it decided to celebrate Twain's spirit this year by realizing his vision.
After hearing about the contest on WBFO, Korsmeyer set to work finishing the quirky story that she said Twain had left wide open.
"I guess the challenge was completing the story he had barely begun," said Korsmeyer. "I played with it for a little while, and I was going to drop what I had ... but the most satisfying part was following it through to the very end."
Twain's beginning left a man standing in a snowy, untracked field and many unanswered questions. Although he had written an ending, the library, which also owns the original manuscript to "The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin," kept entrants in the dark.
The stories, the bulk of which were initially screened by UB graduate students, offered a variety of solutions to Twain's conundrum; when Korsmeyer was finished, however, the judges, which included radio show host Garrison Keillor and author Joyce Carol Oates, were astounded by the similarities between Korsmeyer's conclusion and Twain's, both of which have the main character falling from a hot air balloon.
"I thought almost everybody would have thought of that answer," said Korsmeyer. "Given the times, there's only a limited number of options that could have concluded [the story]."
Korsmeyer, who had never written fiction before, won first place in the international category, competing against writers from as far away as Japan, Brazil and Israel. The second place winner was awarded $3,000, third place $1,000; and the top winner for young writers ages 14-18 was awarded $1,000.
Joseph Pradduck, a freshman English major at Buffalo State College, entered the youth contest, but felt mismatched against his younger peers. "I think I was attempting to over-explain everything in his story, which he probably would have scoffed at," said Pradduck, who said Twain's ending "really blew me away."
"I think with someone like [Twain], he had a very simple prose style, but one that made you feel like a genius had written it," said Pradduck.
"Not to say he wasn't a genius, of course."
For Korsmeyer, the prize does not portend a future in fiction, but she believes writing well should be any professor's goal. "No matter what you're writing, I feel it's your job to make it interesting, to make it clear to the reader and make sure it's not boring," said Korsmeyer.
In the end, Korsmeyer said she felt very humbled by the prize, and wrote her ending merely out of curiosity.
"[Writing Twain's ending] was like a maze, and once you're in it, you just have to get to the end to see what's there."
