Longtime RTL Today collaborator and the creator of the Luxembourg Wurst has won first place in the 2022 Luxembourg Literary Competition.

John-Paul Gomez won for his collection “The Idiot of St. Benedict” which includes six stories ranging from just three to 35 pages. Second place went to Guy Helminger for “Das Geräusch der Stillleben,” while Elise Schmit took third place for “Perfect Spheres – Stories and Complaints.”

According to a communique published by the Ministry of Culture on Monday, Gomez’s collection was selected because “The jury was seduced by the audacity of a project that dares to shape a dystopian, more or less science-fictional world. Following an impressively inventive first story, which brilliantly oscillates between historical novel and science fiction, the stories that follow demonstrate both stylistic concision, originality of subject, and mastery of prodigious English language without being flashy.”

Originally from the state of Colorado in the United States, Gomez has lived in Luxembourg since 2007. In addition to writing satire and short stories, he is busy working on other types of creative writing projects, he says. He also has a freelance content writing and copywriting service called Luxembourg Writer.

“I have multiple writing personas, one of which is light and goofy, and another which is more pensive and gloomy,” he explains. “I love writing short stories, but I don’t really limit myself to one format or genre. At the moment, I’m working on a screenplay, a few actually, one of which is set in Luxembourg and, like my short stories, takes place in a slightly dystopian future just around the corner. I’m also working on a horror screenplay that takes place in the early 19th century in a community of Spanish speakers in the American southwest.”

Gomez launched the Wurst in 2017 as a side project and was surprised by the interest in it, he says. Since 2018, he has contributed a weekly Thursday Wurst piece for RTL Today, and he continues publishing other Wurst pieces on wurst.lu, although he admits that as of late he has been rather caught up with other projects and has not been very active.

Around 40 submissions were entered in this year’s competition which called for short stories. The panel of judges included Mylène Branco, Marion Rockenbrod, Jeff Schinker, Pascal Seil (president), and Jeff Thoss.

The annual competition has been held every year since 1978. The format for the upcoming year’s competition is generally announced toward the end of the year.

Read more about this year’s winners (in French).