Tara Weinstein, a white woman with shoulder-length brown curly hair wearing drop earrings, and a burgundy blouse, smiling, with a purple backdrop.

Tara Weinstein, Bakwin Award Winner 2024

Blair is proud to announce the winner of the Bakwin Award for Full-Length Prose is The Only Way Out Is Through by Tara Weinstein. Weinstein’s manuscript was selected by contest judge Tiya Miles (All That She Carried) from three hundred submissions.

Of the winning manuscript, contest judge Tiya Miles says, “How do you tell your own story when everyone thinks they already know it? This is the difficult but necessary question that a former childhood abductee confronts in Tara Weinstein’s suspenseful novel, The Only Way Out Is Through. This confessional account of one young woman’s journey of escape, self-discovery, and healing reveals a tangled web of family, history, celebrity, tragedy, and, ultimately, acceptance.”

Tara Weinstein was born and raised in Canada and now works as a high school physics teacher in New York City. When she is not teaching or writing, you can find her dancing, weaving, knitting, painting, or sewing. Her goal in life is to learn to do everything! The Only Way Out Is Through is her debut novel.

Blair will publish the winning novel in 2026.