It's here! Cryptologists and steganographers, enthusiasts of codes and ciphers, adepts of the hidden and caretakers for the covered-up—rejoice! This month marks the first Wallreaders Contest at Pinkum Press, and you shrewd participants will get the chance to crib nearly the entirety of our current catalogue for free! Of course, there's a little work to be done first...

We'll start with something easy and work our way deeper:

In truth, this contest did not spring fully-formed out of a headache—for months now, before my novel The Furnace won the Tenth Book Prize, before Pinkum Press returned to business, before even I got to know author and scholar Rex Patch who helped to develop the concept for the contest, it's been one of my chiefest goals to honor the vanished author Harry Hardiner and the final mystery he left us: the enigmatic "MESHARE" left on his kitchen wall on the night of his disappearance.

Hardiner's work is already coded, with stylistic veils tossed over some very deep and troubling veins of meaning: add to his Rosewire series the mysteries of his disappearance and the clues he seemed to leave us throughout his life and work, and you have a problem crafted for the online community of 2016. Yet... Which of you has ever put his or her mind to searching him out in earnest? Yes, I know, it's unlikely the man is alive. It's less likely the man ever intended to be found, living or not. Still, not to try to track him down—when we have detailed analyses of the position of the Night King's head in a shot of Game of Thrones, or entire websites devoted to Illuminati imagery in Beyonce videos... it has always felt insulting that Harry Hardiner has been allowed to fade into relative obscurity.

Harry Hardiner may be alive, he may be dead, and for all we know, he could have been abducted by aliens—but he is certainly not in the conversation these days. So, Wallreaders, this contest is dedicated to the writer's memory.

Have fun with level one!

The Wallreaders Contest