A Screaming Wins the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2009

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And then there is the lesser-known Diagram Prize for the oddest title of the 
year. A key difference between the Bulwer-Lytton Contest and the Diagram 
Prize is that Diagram titles must be titles of books that have been, or will 
be, published.

My fave: How People Who Don't Know They're Dead Attach Themselves to 
Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It.

http://www.writersservices.com/mag/07/m_diagram_prize_2006_sht.htm

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin Landseadel" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 1:23 PM
Subject: A Screaming Wins the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2009


> The winner of 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is David
> McKenzie, a 55-year-old Quality Systems consultant and writer
> fromFederal Way, Washington. A contest recidivist, he has
> formerly won the Western and Children's Literature categories.
>
> David McKenzie is the 27th grand prize winner of the contest
> that began at San Jose State University in 1982.
>
> An international literary parody contest, the competition honors
> the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward
> George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest
> is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad
> opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known
> for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made
> into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is
> mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great
> unwashed" and "the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his
> novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the
> "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark
> and stormy night."
>
> Most entries are submitted electronically through the Contest's
> Web site: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/.
>
> David McKenzie's winning entry:
>
> "Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full
> moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the
> nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you
> can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a
> sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just
> such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be
> damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of
> several screaming contests."
>
> My fave:
>
> The dame sauntered silently into Rocco's office, but she didn't
> need to speak; the blood-soaked gown hugging her ample
> curves said it all: "I am a shipping heiress whose second
> husband was just murdered by Albanian assassins trying to
> blackmail me for my rare opal collection," or maybe, "Do you
> know a good dry cleaner?"
>
> http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2009.htm
>


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