Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Contest Winner?

It's that time of year again.  Since 1982 the English Department of San Jose State University have sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.  Open to anyone with a pen, paper, bad idea and a stamp, or at least access to the internet, the annual  Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, challenges writers to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.

Knebworth House, The Bulwer-Lytton ancestral home 

The contest named for Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, author of classic lines such as "It was a dark and stormy night", "The pen is mightier than the sword", "the great unwashed:, and "The almighty dollar" selects "winners" in multiple fiction categories. This year's winners have been announced. The complete winner's list is here

Chris Wieloch was the overall winner with this entry:
She strutted into my office wearing a dress that clung to her like Saran Wrap to a sloppily butchered pork knuckle, bone and sinew jutting and lurching asymmetrically beneath its folds, the tightness exaggerating the granularity of the suet and causing what little palatable meat there was to sweat, its transparency the thief of imagination.


Adventure category runner up Ron D. Smith offered :
As the sun dropped below the horizon, the safari guide confirmed the approaching cape buffaloes were herbivores, which calmed everyone in the group, except for Herb, of course.


perhaps you may prefer:

The Pilgrims and Native Americans gathered around the feast, a veritable cornucopia of harvest and game, a gastronomic monument to the bountiful biodiversity of the land, and while Mrs. Standish’s cranberry sauce was a far cry from the homogeneous gelatinous can-imprinted sacrosanct blob which has become the holiday’s sine qua non, the rest of the food was good. — Jordan Kaderli, Dallas, TX

He had a way with women that was at first endearing, then gradually engendered caution and finally outright rejection, like potato salad at a summer picnic. — Paul Sutcliffe, Pittsburgh, PA


Who says the Humanities are dead?
Toad

1 comment:

Bebe said...

Thank you for these. I will think of Mr Wieloch's words each time I am forced to witness the granularity of someone's suet. Alas, it happens all too often these days.
The rest are hilarious as well.