What does it take for a teenager to rebuild his life after losing everything? That question sits at the heart of The Pebble Champion, the multi-award-winning novel by British author Alan David Pritchard — and it anchored a moving, wide-ranging conversation when Pritchard joined Zach Feldman on The Zach Feldman Show, airing on Z Radio Live. A novelist, playwright, poet, and screenwriter, Pritchard has earned international recognition for this deeply emotional coming-of-age story about grief, identity, and the quiet acts that keep us going.
Listen to the Exclusive Interview
A Story Born from Loss — and Hope
The Pebble Champion follows fifteen-year-old Christopher Elliot, whose world collapses when his mother is killed in a car accident. Uprooted from everything he knows, Chris is sent to live on the Isle of Wight with a father he hasn’t seen in a decade. In the interview, Pritchard discussed how he wanted to capture not just the shock of loss, but the disorienting way grief seeps into a young person’s everyday life — the sense that, as Chris puts it, his whole life is changing and there is nothing he can do to stop it.
The novel’s central image is deceptively simple: alone on Shanklin beach, Chris finds solace in skipping pebbles across the sea, imagining himself competing to become “The Pebble Champion.” Pritchard explained how this small, repeated ritual becomes a metaphor for perseverance — a way for a grieving teenager to exert control over one tiny corner of a life that has spun completely out of his hands.
An Honest Portrait of a Gay Teen Coming of Age
Beyond grief, The Pebble Champion has been widely praised as an important LGBTQ coming-of-age novel. Pritchard shared how he set out to portray the social, emotional, and romantic insecurities of a gay teenager with honesty and freshness — avoiding sensationalism and stereotypes in favor of a character readers genuinely root for. Chris’s growing friendship with Thane, a classmate whose easygoing exterior hides struggles of his own, becomes one of the novel’s most affecting threads, as both boys navigate identity, secrecy, and self-acceptance.
Reviewers have responded strongly to that sensitivity. The book has been called a spectacular coming-of-age tale and an uplifting human story that stays with readers long after the final page — and teen readers in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards summed it up in one word: self-acceptance.
A Novel That Keeps Winning Awards
During the conversation, Zach and Pritchard also discussed the remarkable award journey The Pebble Champion has taken. The novel won Best Book at the Miracle Makers International Film and Writers’ Festival (2021) and the Silver Award for Novel Writing at the LGBTQ Unbordered International Film Festival (2022), earned a B.R.A.G. Medallion, and was a finalist in competitions including the Wishing Shelf Book Awards, the IAN Book of the Year Awards (Outstanding LGBTQ Novel), the Page Turner Best Book Awards, and the Reader’s Favorite Book Awards.
The story’s life doesn’t end on the page. Pritchard’s own screenplay adaptation has won honors on the festival circuit as well — including Best Screenplay at the Chicago Feedback Film Festival, Best UK Screenplay at the Cambridge Script Awards, and a Silver Remi for Best Adapted Screenplay at WorldFest-Houston — raising the exciting possibility of Chris’s story one day reaching the screen.
The Writer Behind the Words
Pritchard is far more than a one-book author. A poet at heart, he is the author of the poetry anthology Advancing Backwards, and his plays have won awards on stage, including Genius, a winner at the Welsh Young Farmers’ Play Festival. In the interview, he reflected on how working across novels, poetry, plays, and screenplays shapes his voice — and why poetic language runs through even the most painful scenes of The Pebble Champion.
FAQ
Q: What is The Pebble Champion by Alan David Pritchard about? A: It’s a coming-of-age novel about Christopher Elliot, a fifteen-year-old who loses his mother in a car accident and moves to the Isle of Wight to live with his estranged father. He copes with grief — and comes to terms with being gay — through an imagined contest to skim pebbles farther than anyone else.
Q: Is The Pebble Champion an LGBTQ novel? A: Yes. It’s widely recognized as an important LGBTQ coming-of-age story, praised for portraying a gay teen’s experience with honesty and sensitivity rather than stereotypes.
Q: What awards has The Pebble Champion won? A: Honors include Best Book at the Miracle Makers International Film and Writers’ Festival (2021), the Silver Award at the LGBTQ Unbordered International Film Festival (2022), a B.R.A.G. Medallion, and finalist recognition from the Wishing Shelf Book Awards, IAN Book of the Year Awards, Page Turner Best Book Awards, and Reader’s Favorite Book Awards. Its screenplay adaptation has also won multiple festival awards.
Q: Who should read The Pebble Champion? A: Readers of YA and literary fiction, anyone touched by the loss of a parent, and readers looking for authentic LGBTQ coming-of-age stories. Teen readers and adults alike have found it thought-provoking, emotional, and ultimately hopeful.
Why This Conversation Matters
Stories about grief and identity matter most when they offer a way through — and The Pebble Champion does exactly that. For young readers wrestling with loss, for LGBTQ teens searching for themselves in the pages of a book, and for anyone who loves beautifully written fiction, Pritchard’s conversation with Zach Feldman is a reminder that resilience often starts with something as small as a pebble skipped across the water.
Get the Book
For Christopher Elliot, life—as he knows it—has ended. His mother is dead, taken from him in a tragic car accident, and he's lost his best friend, gone in a moment of betrayal. Now, he's forced to move to the Isle of Wight to live with the father he hasn't seen in a decade. Everything in his life, including his thoughts and dreams, is suddenly out of his control.
His only solace is the simple act of skipping pebbles across the waters of Shanklin beach where he competes to become "The Pebble Champion," skimming stones farther than anyone else.
This beautifully written, deeply emotional novel skillfully transports readers into the imagination of a gay teen desperately trying to deal with the death of a parent – providing a powerful and poignant look at what it takes to overcome profound loss.
Captivating and uplifting, "The Pebble Champion" is one of those human stories which will stay with you long after you've turned the final page.
You can also learn more about Alan David Pritchard and his work at his official website: https://www.alandavidpritchard.com/pebble-champion