IJMC - 18th Annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Ahh yes, the budding novellist in all of us comes out once in a while... 
and these people keep track of the truly misbegotten manuscripts. Anyway, 
read on, the writing is far better than mine! If you want more 
information or past writings try:

              http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/english/bulwer.htm
                     http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

A warning to everyone, I am going to "catch up" with the posts over the 
weekend. This means I will send about twenty-five posts at once. 
Remember, this is not normal...Happy reading!                       -dave





    Here are some of the winning entries in the 18th annual
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, run by the English Department at San Jose
State University:


    Overall top award for horrible writing, to David Chuter, London:

    "Through the gathering gloom of a late-October afternoon, along the
greasy, cracked paving-stones slick from the sputum of the sky, Stanley
Ruddlethorp wearily trudged up the hill from the cemetery where his
wife, sister, brother, and three children were all buried, and forced
open the door of his decaying house, blissfully unaware of the
catastrophe that was soon to devastate his life."
	
    Purple Prose category award to David Hirsch, Seattle:

    "Rain - violent torrents of it, rain like fetid water from a
God-sized pot of pasta strained through a sky-wide colander, rain as
Noah knew it, flaying the shuddering trees, whipping the whitecapped
waters, violating the sodden firmament, purging purity and filth alike
>from the land, rain without mercy, without surcease, incontinent rain,
turning to intermittent showers
overnight with partial clearing Tuesday."
	
    Children's literature award to Wendy Lawton of Hilmar, California:

    "The greedy school bus crept through the streets devouring clumps of
children until its belly groaned with surfeit, then lumbered back to the
schoolhouse where it obligingly regurgitated its meal onto the grounds."