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Annual contest for the worst opening sentence to a novel
Raw
bulwer-lytton-contest.yaml
contest: Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
description: >-
Annual contest for the worst opening sentence to a novel, sponsored by the
English Department of San Jose State University (1982-2024)
sources:
- 'https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/winners'
- 'https://web.archive.org/web/2007/http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/lyttony.htm'
- 'https://web.archive.org/web/19970411023353/http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/'
- 'https://web.archive.org/web/19980202/http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/latest.htm'
- 'https://web.archive.org/web/19990208011910/http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/pr1998.htm'
- 'https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/*win.html'
- 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulwer-Lytton_Fiction_Contest'
winners:
'1983':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Gail Cain
location: 'San Francisco, California'
quote: >-
The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted
sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails--not for the first
time since the journey began--pondered snidely if this would dissolve
into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays
spent with Basil.
'1984':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Steven Garman
location: 'Pensacola, Florida'
quote: >-
The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of
the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarous tribe now stacking wood at
her nubile feet, when the strong, clear voice of the poetic and heroic
Handsomas roared, "Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my
steel through your last meal."
'1985':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Martha Simpson
location: 'Glastonbury, Connecticut'
quote: >-
The countdown had stalled at T minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first
female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick,
rubbery lips unmistakably--the first of many such advances during what
would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my
career.
'1986':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Patricia E. Presutti
location: 'Lewiston, New York'
quote: >-
The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first
half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and
pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or
balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting
the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears
might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you
know.
'1987':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Sheila B. Richter
location: 'Minneapolis, Minnesota'
quote: >-
The notes blatted skyward as the sun rose over the Canada geese,
feathered rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically peddling
unseen bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by Nature's
maxim, "Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work," and at last I knew Pittsburgh.
'1988':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Rachel E. Sheeley
location: 'Williamsburg, Indiana'
quote: >-
Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was
sleek, shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit molding her body, which
was as warm as the seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires,
her eyes flashing like bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads
of fresh rain on the hood; she was a woman driven--fueled by a single
accelerant--and she needed a man, a man who wouldn't shift from his
views, a man to steer her along the right road, a man like Alf Romeo.
'1989':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Ray C. Gainey
location: 'Indianapolis, Indiana'
quote: >-
Professor Frobisher couldn't believe he had missed seeing it for so
long--it was, after all, right there under his nose--but in all his
years of research into the intricate and mysterious ways of the
universe, he had never noticed that the freckles on his upper lip, just
below and to the left of the nostril, partially hidden until now by a
hairy mole he had just removed a week before, exactly matched the
pattern of the stars in the Pleides, down to the angry red zit that had
just popped up where he and his colleagues had only today discovered an
exploding nova.
'1990':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Linda Vernon
location: 'Newark, California'
quote: >-
Dolores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever
skipping across smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but
oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and
due to an overdose of fluoride as a child which caused her to lie
forever on the floor of her life as useless as an appendix and as lonely
as a five-hundred-pound barbell in a steroid-free fitness center.
'1991':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Judy Frazier
location: 'Lathrop, Missouri'
quote: >-
Sultry it was and humid, but no whisper of air caused the plump, laden
spears of golden grain to nod their burdened heads as they unheedingly
awaited the cyclic rape of their gleaming treasure, while overhead the
burning orb of luminescence ascended its ever-upward path toward a
sweltering celestial apex, for although it is not in Kansas that our
story takes place, it looks godawful like it.
'1992':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Laurel Fortuner
location: 'Montendre, France'
quote: >-
As the newest Lady Turnpot descended into the kitchen wrapped only in
her celery-green dressing gown, her creamy bosom rising and falling like
a temperamental souffle, her tart mouth pursed in distaste, the
sous-chef whispered to the scullery boy, "I don't know what to make of
her."
'1993':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Wm. W. "Buddy" Ocheltree
location: 'Port Townsend, Washington'
quote: >-
She wasn't really my type, a hard-looking but untalented reporter from
the local cat box liner, but the first second that the third-rate
representative of the fourth estate cracked open a new fifth of old
Scotch, my sixth sense said seventh heaven was as close as an eighth
note from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, so, nervous as a tenth grader
drowning in eleventh-hour cramming for a physics exam, I swept her into
my longing arms, and, humming "The Twelfth of Never," I got lucky on
Friday the thirteenth.
'1994':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Larry Brill
location: 'Austin, Texas'
quote: >-
As the fading light of a dying day filtered through the window blinds,
Roger stood over his victim with a smoking .45, surprised at the
serenity that filled him after pumping six slugs into the bloodless
tyrant that mocked him day after day, and then he shuffled out of the
office with one last look back at the shattered computer terminal lying
there like a silicon armadillo left to rot on the information
superhighway.
'1995':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: John L. Ashman
location: 'Houston, Texas'
quote: >-
Paul Revere had just discovered that someone in Boston was a spy for the
British, and when he saw the young woman believed to be the spy's
girlfriend in an Italian restaurant he said to the waiter, "Hold the
spumoni--I'm going to follow the chick an' catch a Tory."
'1996':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Janice Estey
location: 'Aspen, Colorado'
quote: >-
"Ace, watch your head!" hissed Wanda urgently, yet somehow
provocatively, through red, full, sensuous lips, but he couldn't you
know, since nobody can actually watch more than part of his nose or a
little cheek or lips if he really tries, but he appreciated her warning.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Albert Klar Ogden
location: 'Stansbury Park, Utah'
quote: >-
Ulysses Simpson Grant, having just finished a meal of Virginia ham,
stretched out in his underwear of Mississippi-grown cotton, puffed on a
Georgia cigar, swilled straight Kentucky bourbon whiskey, and thought
how good it was to be in the Union Army.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Vince Atkins
location: Seattle
quote: >-
Buffy Goldsmith, emptying the last three rounds from the smoking
Parabellum nine-millimeter at the pursuing KGB operatives, reached into
her Kevlar standard-issue Model PK-38D brassiere for the disk of winning
lottery numbers with the intention of flinging it into the murky waters
of the Seine, only to remember she had left it under Uncle Arthur's
yarmulke at the kibbutz.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: D. J. Pass
location: 'Prospect, Nova Scotia'
quote: >-
The flash of lightning startled her, making her breasts heave, and in
that instant of white light she thought of how M____, her young lover
from the estate's cheese works, had so marveled at the creamy globes so
delicately laced with blue veins that he had called the one Bleu and the
other Stilton, and she reflected that she would never hear those sweet
words again--at least not in that context, for come tomorrow she would
be Lady Vile-Conundrum.
- category: Urban Realism
type: Winner
author: Michael Davies
location: 'Mississauga, Ontario'
quote: >-
The city at night has a million stories, like the woman who, even now,
was weeping over the bloody corpse of her lover lying where she had
slashed him from neck to kneecap, or the twelve-year-old kid prostrate
on the sidewalk after a drug deal gone wrong, or the babe, desperate to
find the stuff that stopped your dress from sticking to your legs after
you ironed it and couldn't find a convenience store at this black hour
in a city without a name.
- category: Rural Realism
type: Winner
author: Marsha Engelbrecht
location: 'Castaic, California'
quote: >-
From the dilapidated porch, Hoover "Hoo-Boy" Hogwattle squinted at the
ducks scattered across the oily surface of the pond like the blackheads
across Cousin Joe-Bob's nose, and, spitting tobacco juice and scratching
incessantly, wished that Maw had remembered to use that new downy-fresh
fabric softener on the pink lace bra and panties he was wearing under
his grimy overalls.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Michael Cunningham
location: 'Woodridge, Illinois'
quote: >-
It was a hot as a jalapeno outside, the smog hung in the air like bits
of pepper on three-day-old cottage cheese, and the Condiment Police,
after extricating themselves from one pickle after another, were running
late in their effort to ketchup with a bag egg named Sal Sodium who was
armed to the teeth and who was stalking a gorgeous tomato for the
twenty-four carrots on her finger, so they slipped into their flack
jackets with relish before moving in on a salt with a deadly weapon.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Linda Gauer
location: 'Norton, Ohio'
quote: >-
Nigel lifted his Mont Blanc pen and held it in brief repose as he gazed
past the conflagrative crackling in the hearth, through the triple-plate
bay window, watching the incandescence of the twinkling stars like the
detonation of a million flashbulbs, and the preponderance of frothy
snowflakes blanketing the earth as creamily as marshmallow fluff, then,
refreshed and inspired, he began to compose his annual Christmas form
letter.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Runner Up
author: Barbara S. Combs
location: 'Seattle, Washington'
quote: >-
Tess was a fallen angel with a heart as big and as golden as all
outdoors; a heart as big as all outdoors and all indoors; a heart as big
as a solarium, which is a room that is like outdoors but indoors; unlike
one of those bump-out kitchen greenhouse windows, which is neither.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: John L. Ashman
location: 'Houston, Texas'
quote: >-
Because the Indians of the high Andes were believed to have little sense
of humor, Professor Juan Lyner was amazed to hear this knee-slapper that
apparently had been around for centuries at all the Inca hot spots:
"Llama ask you this. Guanaco on a picnic? Alpaca lunch."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Anthony Buckland
location: 'Vancouver, British Columbia'
quote: >-
Baron Frankenstein looked up from his sewing, smiled benignly across the
laboratory at his similarly-engaged creation and protege, and called,
"Yes, yes! Put on a happy face; tonight will be your first date with the
rest of your wife!"
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Becky Mushko
location: 'Roanoke, Virginia'
quote: >-
Following the unfortunate bucking of his horse when it was startled by
the posse's shots, Tex--who now lay in a disheveled heap in the
sagebrush--pushed back his sweat-stained Stetson from one deep-set blue
eye, spat a stream of tobacco juice at the nearest cactus, and reflected
momentarily that the men approaching him with ropes probably weren't
just out for a skip, and--if they were--his freshly broken ankle would
have to cause him to decline any entreaties to join them.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tom W. Glaser
location: 'Hollywood, Florida'
quote: >-
The disillusionment of the members of the inner-city Boys' Club with
their trip to the country began when they discovered that a hoe-down
wasn't what they thought it would be.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David N. Fittinghof
location: 'Tracy, California'
quote: >-
When the sound of Big Ben chiming the hour of the rosy-fingered dawn
struck my straining ears like a fire alarm, I threw the glockenspiel at
the haberdasher and ran for the door, never looking back to see if the
foul devil's spawn was giving chase through the impenetrably thick--and
terribly clammy--fog that clung to me like a sodden woolen suit, slowing
my flight to a crawl as interminable as this sentence.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Karen Mulholland
location: ''
quote: >-
As she turned her grimy, tear-streaked face toward the window, quiet
sobs still shook the child's frail body, and her voice had the tone of
one whose life has been a continuing chronicle of deprivation and
disappointed hopes as she said plaintively, "How come we can't stop at
the Seven-Eleven and get a slushy? I want a cherry slushy . . ."
'1997':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Artie Kalemeris
location: 'Fairfax, Virginia'
quote: >-
The moment he laid eyes on the lifeless body of the nude socialite
sprawled across the bathroom floor, Detective Leary knew she had
committed suicide by grasping the cap on the tamper-proof bottle,
pushing down and twisting while she kept her thumb firmly pressed
against the spot the arrow pointed to, until she hit the exact spot
where the tab clicks into place, allowing her to remove the cap and
swallow the entire contents of the bottle, thus ending her life.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Runner Up
author: Dan Rubin
location: 'Prince Rupert, British Columbia'
quote: >-
It all started when that rich SOB John Paul Getty commissioned me to
create the world's largest ice sculpture, not that I didn't realize the
challenges involved, but it wasn't until months later when the iceberg,
carved into the shape of a mammoth voluptuous nude, hove into view off
Newfoundland that the uproar started, and even later, after the
interviews in People Magazine and my appearance on Oprah, that I was
forced to concede defeat and hire the Knitter's League, who were still
crocheting away as my rapidly melting masterpiece was towed into New
York harbor, the six hundred and sixty-six knitters still desperately
looping lengths of videotape, linkin' Getty's berg a dress.
- category: Fantasy
type: Winner
author: J. N. Pechota
location: 'Dulzura, CA'
quote: >-
Prince Oryza's determined, handsome countenance was reflected in the
gleaming, polished steel of his sword, Gowayoff, as he hewed valiantly
at the armored sides of the dragon, which could only be pierced by
gleaming, polished steel and not the regular kind of steel, which
doesn't gleam as much, and isn't polished quite as well, but does a
pretty good job against your smaller dragons.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Mary Clare
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: HERE to vote for this page as a
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Chuck Myer
location: 'Colfax, CA'
quote: >-
Once upon a time, before men were boys, before guns were toys, and
before music was noise, there was a dude ranch peopled by only the most
virile of males, except for Mama, who had, of course, clasped each of
them to her ample bosoms, and therein lies our story.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Jan Bundesen
location: 'Duncraig, Western Australia'
quote: >-
He stood looking at her, seductively naked except for bra and a pair of
pants, the smile on her face come-hitherish and inviting, but all he
could think was, "Why are they called a pair of pants, much better
English if it were a pair of bras and a pant?"
- category: Romance
type: Runner Up
author: Juliette Hughes
location: 'Northcote, Victoria, Australia'
quote: >-
Veronica had had little experience of treachery when she first arrived
in Paris, so when Jean-Luc left her in the Rive Gauche with only a Bic
and a bock and a broken clock she was somewhat surprised.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nick Bruechle
location: 'Fremantle, Western Australia'
quote: >-
The breeze was as cool and biting as a Roger Whitaker hit song,
whistling through the remaining shreds of her dress as easily as a prune
passes through a colon, when Tony stepped up and solicitously put his
jacket around her shoulders, saying "Here, let me break the wind for
you."
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Watson
location: 'Cary, NC'
quote: >-
The love of her life, Cordelle Horstmussen, wasn't much to look at (he
had sunken, bloodshot eyes that were unevenly spaced, differed in color,
and--thank God--drew attention from his elfin ears and doubly cleft
chin, and his complexion was sallow and dotted with pimply blackheads,
so that it resembled month-old cottage cheese in the throes of a fungal
blitzkrieg, and he walked with an uneven, duckfooted, and halting gait,
like Charlie Chaplin with a case of bleeding piles), but he made her
laugh, and now that she realized why, she planned to dump him like a
truckload of chicken entrails.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Robert D. Stottle
location: 'Jr., Huntsville, AL'
quote: >-
The cells divided at an alarming rate as Dr. Bob gasped in amazement and
told his lovely blond but intelligent assistant, "Eureka! this is really
neat, a baby monster is now growing in our hi-tech, whiz-bang
laboratory--I wonder if our hi-tech, whiz-bang containment field will
contain this new, monstrous really ugly, man-eating being so it can't
get out and destroy the world when it gets real big."
- category: Science Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: Maggie Moris
location: 'Woodbury, MN'
quote: >-
Captain Richard Probe stood toe-to-claw with the female alien on the
bridge of his star ship as she aimed her laser gun at his navel, knowing
full well as his eye-level gaze surveyed her three breasts, that in
order to save his crew he needed to overcome the stirrings of his
manhood, which was soon made easier by the realization that indeed his
pants were only getting tighter because her laser was shrink wrapping
his uniform.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Richard Raymond III
location: 'Roanoke, VA'
quote: >-
"Ah swearta God!" moaned Melody-Sue from the depths of her misery,
staring glumly past that quivering, pulsating bulb of a belly, while her
overstretched womb delivered an apparently endless stream of
salamanderkins (sixty-seven? eighty-five? she had lost count) onto the
growing heap of squirming sluglets between her outstretched knees, "if
evah agayn let a Venusian Toad-Boy sweet-talk me inta lettin' him
fraisshen mah drink with sqrzzl-root juice, New Year's party or no, ah
oughta have mah haid examined!"
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ernie Santilli
location: 'Drexel Hill, PA'
quote: >-
The crimson crushed-velvet dress--with the contrasting gold-piping,
dainty hint of lace caressing sleeves' end, and scandalous neckline
which plunged dramatically to just above the sterling belt buckle
exposing yards of flesh--was tailored to cling seductively to every
contour of the wearer's body, and Captain Kirk looked ridiculous in it.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Jan Wolitzky
location: 'Madison, NJ'
quote: >-
It was, presumably, Dr. Livingstone who emerged into the clearing from
the dense rain forest beyond, although it was difficult to tell for
certain just WHO it was beneath the layers of leeches clinging to his
limbs, the spiders covering the surface of his sun helmet, the bounty of
bugs on his body, and the multitude of mites crawling on everything from
his Mont Blanc pen to his machete though, as he had recently employed
the latter in hacking his way through the jungle while he had long
abandoned his diary, the pen was somewhat mitier than the sword.
- category: Adventure
type: Runner Up
author: Bob Trapnell
location: 'Huntsville, AL'
quote: >-
Howard lay benumbed in the shallow crevice where he had collapsed,
encrusted with ice from the freezing rain, exhausted from trudging
through snow drifts, and frozen by the relentless winds of the freak
later-winter storm; and glancing down he noticed the diving watch his
wife had given him on their trip to Jamaica, which now seemed a remote
memory from another lifetime, but, as he finally succumbed to
hypothermia, he was extremely distressed to notice that the watch's
crenate bezel had abraded the cuff of his shirt to the point where it
would, indubitably, have to be discarded.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Marcia E. Brown
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
With the last rays of sunshine silhouetting her slim form, and the still
smoking pistol clutched in her trembling right hand, Cora knelt beside
the body at her feet, only to be brought up short by the sudden
awareness of that unmistakable creeping-insect-like feeling of a run
ripping up the back of her left stocking.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Robert A. Perry
location: 'Milton, MA'
quote: >-
As Lt. James "Jocko" Flannery methodically surveyed the freshly sketched
chalk outline on the oily pavement with his steel-blue eyes, his mind
wandered to that night's poker game--jeez, he had forgotten to pick up
the Macanudos--because that's what happens when you fight your way up
from street cop to Chief of Homicide in the City with Big Shoulders: you
stop being angry; you've seen too many cheap hits, too many gutless
punks, and too many brazen calling cards like the one over there--a wad
of peppermint chewing gum clinging to the gutter that told him
everything he needed to know--that little blond brat from around the
corner had maliciously scribbled this pink hopscotch thing on his newly
sealed driveway.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mike Davies
location: 'Toronto, Ontario'
quote: >-
He was the best prepared cop in the precinct, never leaving without a
hundred-dollar bill in his shoe, an extra magazine for his .45 in his
back pocket, a condom in his wallet--he was ready for anything; he was
Lieutenant Justin Case.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Colin Eyssen
location: 'Toronto, Ontario'
quote: >-
Bjorn Petersen, the big Swede, swaggered into the private detective's
office, shouting and swinging his fists, obviously bruising for a fight,
so Sam Shovel stood up, neatly fooled him with a quick right feint while
flooring him with a left hook, then thought to himself, "There's a Bjorn
suckered every minute!"
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Niki Wessels
location: 'Centurion, South Africa'
quote: >-
"This is the end," Alfalfa sobbed, clutching at her heaving bosom and
pausing only occasionally to scratch her itching left armpit while her
sapphire eyes, brimming with salty tears, turned helplessly towards the
gibbous moon that hung in the brooding sky like a tobacco-stained nail
paring.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Runner Up
author: Sarah Marks
location: 'Grand Prairie, TX'
quote: >-
It was the last of times, it was the first of times, it was the age of
intelligence, it was the age of the intellectually challenged, it was
the epoch of reality, it was the epoch of insanity, it was the season of
Salt, it was the season of Pepper, it was the spring of health, it was
the winter of the flu, it was a period when a bunch of really opposite
things were being compared.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mary Christensson
location: 'San Mateo, CA'
quote: >-
Day broke like an enormous egg cracking over the rim of the great,
jagged-edged bowl of the Grand Canyon, its bright yellow yolk of
sunshine pouring runnily into every crag and crevice, suffusing the
early morning air with the same ocherous brilliance as it had for
millennia while the mighty Colorado River cuts its way to the stratum of
the present valley floor.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joe Andrews
location: 'Chicago, IL'
quote: >-
The waning moon looked like a giant yogurt-covered raisin that someone
had sucked on for two or maybe three minutes.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Calvin Cahan
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
As the monstrous thug's forearm was about to crash down on his noggin
for yet another time, Brinzinger realized that his worst fear had come
true: this was indeed an encounter with a member of that mercilessly
mayhem-minded Swiss motorcycle gang, based in the capital of Switzerland
and also in a city in southwestern France, whose dread signature tattoo,
which Brinzinger was able to make out just before he lost consciousness,
read "Bern-Toulouse."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Ernie Santilli
location: 'Drexel Hill, PA'
quote: >-
"Holy mackerel, we cod advertise Eddie Fisher to reel in suckers, then
if we're accused of bait-and-switch tactics and face a herring our squid
pro quo lawyer could clam the embarracudasing incident was a fluke,
nothing to carp about--though we'd be eel-advised to take a wade-and-sea
attitude or angle for a mistrout," bubbled Salmon Rushdie, sardine
'cause he shad have knocked off the crappy puns a minnow earlier, giving
scallop's honor he didn't do it on porpoise and to enshark us it won't
harpoon again.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John L. Ashman
location: 'Houston, TX'
quote: >-
Not long ago I came into possession of a certain Malaysian lizard and by
sheer good luck it accidentally walked through some wet paint and then
across a sheet of paper and made such a mess that an art expert said it
was "Neo-reptilian," so now I plan to move to Spain where it will be a
cinch to con the artsy types with this fly-eating Van Gogh who is being
called (I'm not making this up) "El Gecko."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gregory H. Ward
location: 'San Jose, CA'
quote: >-
As she slipped into her bicycle shorts and regarded her bum in the
mirror, Princess Diana reflected on her years with Prince Charles, their
period of separation and, ultimately, the Final Divorce Decree, and,
with a sigh of resignation, said to herself, "Well, I may have lost the
'Royal Highness' but at least I saved the 'Wales'."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Barbara A. Duncan
location: 'Houston, TX'
quote: >-
Thinking that she was plain vanilla and this would be a piece of cake, I
turned on the heat while I buttered her up with sugary words and floury
phrases, but I soon realized that it was a half-baked idea when her
nuts-to-you attitude told me that even though she turned out to be a
quite a dish, we didn't have all the ingredients necessary to make this
relationship anything more than pie in the sky.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ross Borden
location: 'Victoria, British Columbia'
quote: >-
Try as he might, the coroner was unable to find the cause of death, so
he called in the word famous Los Angeles psychic Madam DuBois, who
determined that Julie Andrews had been killed by a precisely
administered dose of lethally bad breath, so the next morning's
newspaper headlines trumpeted, "Super California Mystic: Expert
Halitosis."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jim Crozier
location: 'Lakewood, CO'
quote: >-
It was with no small degree of trepidation that Mapping Sciences teacher
Geo. G. Raphy peered pensively at the seventh-graders (who were working
feverishly on their in-class assignment of drawing their favorite
English isle) and rued his rashly made but fateful decision to allow the
two impish Chinese twins to complete the assignment together--for he
knew, deep within his soul, the brilliant brothers would seize this
opportunity to prove that, at least on some occasions, two Wongs can
make a Wight.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kaye Bellot
location: 'Modesto, CA'
quote: >-
Torn between scheduling the basketball star or the famous chef, the
network executive finally chose to spare the Rodman and spoil Julia
Child.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Richard W. O'Bryan
location: 'Perrysburg, OH'
quote: >-
Brother Paul had spent twenty years in his primitive cell correcting
thousands of religious texts until he suddenly realized that not only
was he anti-semantic but that he had become a religious phonetic.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Walker
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
He wasn't the brightest guy around: he drank only a diet cola-like soda,
ate nothing but red, shiny fruit, and bawled constantly; he was, after
all, the moron Tab and apple crier.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nick Bruechle
location: 'Fremantle, Western Australia'
quote: >-
When I was a green as a baby's pooh, and as inclined to run everywhere,
I learned that, unless you attain solid consistency, you're liable to
get wiped away by the rough hand of society wielding a wad of
tissue-thin rationalizations, and flushed down the s-bend of life.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Laura Sebastian
location: 'Miami, FL'
quote: >-
Leaning close to the UNICEF worker, Mother Theresa drunkenly confided,
"For God's sake, if there's anything I've learned after all these years
in all these stinky little countries, it's DON'T FEED THE POOR, 'cause
once you do they just keep coming back and coming back, driving you
crackers whining at your door all night."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Laura Sebastian
location: 'Miami, FL'
quote: >-
It was a beautiful, beautiful night, stars shining like the bright,
needy eyes of a million malnourished children, the wind blowing softly
like the breath of a favorite grandfather as he kissed you sweetly and
very affectionately yet somewhat inappropriately, goodnight.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Penny Downing
location: 'Scarborough, Ontario'
quote: >-
Cat-on-a-Stick, with its enabling philosophy that anyone can perform
taxidermy on the remains of a beloved family pet if you're not too fussy
about the final results, soon gained a reputation as a place where you
walked out with a smile on your face, even if you had come in with
disaster writ large all over your puss.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Steve Garman
location: 'Pensacola, FL'
quote: >-
She was in her element, tabletop with a St. Pauli Girl balanced on her
forehead, arms flailing and squawking like a gut-hooked catfish to
Abba's "Dancing Queen," but Prestin Purvis, principal, peevishly pursed
his lips, watching the to-be school secretary he hired that very day
from the shallow shadows of the Shady Shack.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: George Walker
location: 'Beaverton, OR'
quote: >-
As Jennifer sucked her co-worker's brains out through a spiral "Happy
Meal" (TM) straw, she reflected on how much her career advancement
opportunities at the restaurant had improved since she became a Zombie.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kristen Kingsbury Henshaw
location: 'Vineyard Haven, MA'
quote: >-
"Holy dessicated cat turds, Batman, these aren't Tootsie Rolls--we're in
Catwoman's litter box!"
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter B. Smith
location: 'Albany, NY'
quote: >-
"They didn't teach about this at Harvard Law School," muttered Clement
as he writhed on the living room floor--after another day of dodging
bullets and tax laws with shadowy clients in between trysts with
secretaries from rival law firms who smuggled in strategy papers for
upcoming trials in intimate clothing articles before revealing that they
had also smuggled in lady's-size handguns to order him to hand over his
own strategy papers before he got a chance to look at theirs--and
wondered if he would ever learn how to set the timer on the VCR.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michelangelo Saucedo
location: 'Sacramento, CA'
quote: >-
The sun beat down, causing the stench of elephant sweat to drift into
Hannibal's nostrils as Tunisian gusts hurled sand into his food, making
the foul-smelling hummus gruel twist his stomach, so in disgust he
clutched his buddy, nearly retching out, "You know, Hanno, I could
really go for Italian."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ankur Gupta
location: 'Mumbai (Bombay), India'
quote: >-
The bizarre heat in the bazaar, aided further by the constantly
sweating, swearing, and swirling middle class population, or should we
say the servile class, prompted the sudden swooning of the 'foreign
returned' Radha, who was immediately scooped up in the arms of the
ever-willing Sudama, jumping at this God-sent opportunity, while the
surrounding loudspeakers blared the contemporary superhit film song, "Aa
jaa, meri bahon mein aa jaa!"
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kate Noonan
location: 'Cambridge, MA'
quote: >-
"So what should we pierce next?" Charity purred, holding up the piercing
gun and leaning over him, her pouty cupid's bow mouth painted a lurid
screaming red, her black-rimmed eyes vacant yet kinetic, her tattered
and now blood-stained black mesh half-shirt falling off her shoulder to
reveal one pert, supple young breast; and Kevin knew fear, but could not
let her see it, for he was as enticed as he was terrified by this wild,
raven-haired teenager, and so, with a shrug and a smirk that said, "I
know you're taking me on a fast, Bohemian joyride to Hell and I like
it!" replied, "There's still some room left on my butt."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sara Regan
location: 'Portland, OR'
quote: >-
Kevin blinked away the coruscating moisture on his eyelashes as he gazed
upon his contagiously narcoleptic lover, who peacefully dreamt under the
foehn that caressed their secluded bed of grass until awakened by
Kevin's sultry whisper, "There is no apothecary for miles, but to cheer
you, I have fashioned this diadem of daisies in the traditional Bacon
family weave."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jonathan P. Dowling
location: 'Redstone Arsenal, AL'
quote: >-
Tribes of primitive hunters, with rhinestone codpieces rampant, built
pyramids of Chevy engines--festooned in palm fronds and coconuts--to
exalt the ineffable and scintillating gods of low-tech--as was their
fashion--including an ode to holy refrigerator, Sears be its brand.
'1998':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Bob Perry
location: 'Milton, Massachusetts'
quote: >-
The corpse exuded the irresistible aroma of a piquant, ancho chili glaze
enticingly enhanced with a hint of fresh cilantro as it lay before him,
coyly garnished by a garland of variegated radicchio and caramelized
onions, and impishly drizzled with glistening rivulets of vintage
balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic oil; yes, as he surveyed the body of
the slain food critic slumped on the floor of the cozy, but nearly
empty, bistro, a quick inventory of his senses told corpulent Inspector
Moreau that this was, in all likelihood, an inside job.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Runner Up
author: Larry Sherman
location: 'Fremont, CA'
quote: >-
The international team of astronauts each had a salutary comment as they
paused before entering the troubled Mir spacestation: The German, upon
seeing the Russian tethered in his capsule, said, "Bei Mir bist du
chained"; the American, who had recently reviewed his collection of
Disney cartoons, spoke, "Mir, mir off the wall, who will fix it, proud
and tall"; but the Israeli astronaut just shook his head and, as he
entered, could be heard muttering, "Oy vey is Mir!"
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Terry Mayer
location: 'Oshawa, Ontario 905-434 - 1796'
quote: >-
It was a majestic weapon, a masterpiece of form and function,
hand-crafted by master gunsmiths, accurate to a hundred yards, its
bright silver body and long barrel glistening in the sunlight, the
hand-carved ivory inlay warm against the palm, and mom got a good dollar
for it after my brother was shot in the back.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Alison M. Kelly
location: 'Vero Beach, FL'
quote: >-
My heart skipped a beat as the bearded walrus gently nudged me in the
small of my back with one smooth, curved tusk, expelling a warm breath
of air into my upturned face, its smell of peanuts reminding me of that
precious night on Coney Island; the night when I became a woman . . . a
woman and a convict.
- category: Romance
type: Runner Up
author: Brian Kinlan
location: 'New Haven, CT'
quote: >-
Her toes tingled when she saw him—-mostly the two outer toes, the little
ones, whose nails had been ripped off by a lawnmower when she was
three-—and although it might have been the medicated fungal spray she
used for her athlete's foot that caused the sensuous shiver in her
digits, she thought it was probably him.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Helaine R. Freeman
location: 'Little Rock, AR'
quote: >-
Rita and Michael's passionate lovemaking was brought to an abrupt end by
an unfortunate emission of gas — which prompted Rita to wonder, with
more than a little irritation, why playing around with that stupid mask
was such a turn-on for her dentist fiancee.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Dave Lyon
location: 'Overland Park, KS'
quote: >-
While the technician finished his work, Elmodine Jaatrix reflected upon
how badly the evening was going: the ionizer on her Acme 2100 E-Z Klean
dishwasher had burnt out, the window-bot had developed an attitude, and
the Instafashion clothing dispenser would only produce athletic
supporters and Calvin Klein IX synthawool peasant blouses, and as she
stared at the gibbous moon slowly rising in front of her, she pondered
morosely, "If they can build cities in the rings of Saturn, why can't
they make pants for repairmen that don't droop?"
- category: Science Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: Ross Borden
location: 'Victoria, British Columbia'
quote: >-
"You will make an excellent meal for my slavering minions, Earthwoman,"
gurgled Xardon The Conqueror as he slithered across the floor, propelled
by his scaled tentacles, while his quivering eye stalks ogled the
cowering form of his forlorn captive, "because you have a high protein
content, lots of complex carbohydrates, the full B-vitamin series, and a
really nice set of ta-ta's!"
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Marx Prewett
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Like an armadillo making love to a toaster, "The Emperor" shook
violently upon its launching pad before, after one last frenzied
assault, rising from a thick cloud of smoke and sailing into the
atmosphere that wrapped the planet like a thick Amish quilt handstitched
by loving hands while the menfolk labored in the hay fields.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Suzanne M. Arruda
location: 'Pittsburg, KS'
quote: >-
Sir Lyonnel Ondermappe (so famous for his discoveries of lost
civilizations that when people cited him they had only to say, "Look,
it's Ondermappe!") paddled silently up the frog-clogged tributary of the
Amazon when he spied first one, then a dozen old umbrellas stuck like
warnings on the bank next to picnic baskets ritually painted with
isobars and, as a frightened frog nearly croaked tripping a button on
one umbrella opening it into a blossom of water repellent fabric, he
knew that he had found, not the 'People of the Mist', nor the 'People of
the Rainforest', but the mythical 'People of the Partly Cloudy With a
Forty Percent Chance of Rain-forest.
- category: Adventure
type: Runner Up
author: Philip D. Clark
location: 'Elgin, IL'
quote: >-
Having committed to memory the route maps leading from Alaska to L.A.
and determined to avenge the more than 300 years of ridicule his people
had suffered for the popularly assumed whimsy of Eskimo naming
conventions, Robson Pollowow ("He who moves mountains") glanced one last
time into his hastily rigged rear view mirror before releasing the hand
brake on the Paw Whal Dee Glacier.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Bill Sanders
location: 'West Hartford, CT'
quote: >-
Dave Fisher, Maumee, Ohio (419) 897-0502 In the ghastly rain driven by a
mad El Nino, as Dr. Ann L. View, forensic proctologist, arrived at the
crime scene in her Ford Probe, it was not initially obvious that the
victim, a thirty-something, somebody, had met his [or her, she could not
be certain in that damnable El Nino-driven rain] demise by impalement by
a foreign object [imported, that is] that had pierced his [or her] heart
after being inserted into his [or her] body in a region below and behind
the stomach.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Jim Sheppeck
location: 'Farmington, NM'
quote: >-
"Uh, excuse me, but if you don't mind, I have just one more question I
forgot to ask," said Columbo hesitatingly as he vainly tried to get his
arm into the sleeve of his sleazy trenchcoat because he only had one eye
and had a real problem with depth perception.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dave Lyon
location: 'Overland Park, KS'
quote: >-
The criminal justice system is composed of two separate but equally
important elements: the criminals who commit the crimes, and the victims
of these offenders; these are their stories -- except for crimes like
embezzlement and mail fraud, 'cause they just don't make for exciting
reading.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Felix Gottdiener
location: 'East Amherst, NY'
quote: >-
There are a million torn scarves in the naked city, and this was one of
them, lying by the radiant body of Cloreta Plakstreak, two-bit movie
starlet whose body, ruptured by multiple nail gun wounds, was soft as
Detective Clayborn ran his sweaty hand up and down it until the Chief
came, and he had to stop.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Laura Loomis
location: 'Alameda, CA'
quote: >-
If Jenkins had taken the 6:15 train home from the Butlers' Convention as
he claimed, then he could not have murdered Lord Albert at 6:41;
however, if Jenkins had gotten off the train at Ashford-on-the-Heath,
taken a speedboat down the river, and caught a hang glider off Dead
Man's Bluff, then he could have strangled Lord Albert with the garter
belt and escaped on his skateboard, showing up after the train arrived
at 7:12, the inspector surmised.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Erik Wilson
location: 'San Francisco, CA'
quote: >-
It was a stark and balmy night, the sultry breeze occasionally
interrupted by the hot wind known as the Santa Ana sweeping across the
desert floor (for it is in Palm Springs that our story is set), whipping
violently past the cholla, the ocotillo, and the Joshua tree, moving
inexorably westward where it would push the low-lying smog of the San
Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys toward the ocean to hang like a brown,
toxic, gaseous imitation of The Shroud of Turin above the beach at Santa
Monica.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Runner Up
author: Sharlini Nambiar
location: 'Kuala Terengganu, MALAYSIA.'
quote: >-
Her eyes were green, lichen green, the kind that grows in fish tanks if
you don't clean them for several weeks, because you keep putting it
off--until you're not even sure if you have live fish in there, and you
don't bother anymore, that shade of lichen green.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jon Reinhard
location: 'Corpus Christi, TX'
quote: >-
After we made love, she clung to me ecstatically, like clean laundry
fresh from the dryer when you have forgotten to throw in one of those
fabric softener pads that you can pick up at Price Chopper, the
supermarket that uses an ax hacking off a part of George Washington's
head as a logo, for seventy-nine cents a dozen, when they're on sale.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Jack Stafford
location: 'Thorndale, Ontario'
quote: >-
So saying he inserted the disk into the CD player, and as the strains of
"Mountain Greenery," in the mellow tones of The Velvet Fog, rang through
the Khyber Pass, Lady Elspeth knew finally that this was the dark Khan's
Torme
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: David Howse
location: 'Toronto, Ontario'
quote: >-
Detective Squires was happy with his work, after 48 hours of intense
questioning Moses had spilled the beans, the whole story, everything
there was to know about the "Miracles", how he did it, when he did it
and who his accomplices were, Detective Squire grabbed his phone
restlessly, "Put an APB out on 'The Almighty'" he growled at the
helpless patrolman on the other end of the line, as he turned back into
the interrogation room and thought 'Any time you turn a prophet, that's
gotta be good'.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jefferson J. George
location: 'Lexington, KY'
quote: >-
Bill hadn't laughed this much since that day he executed a quick prank
for his co-workers, a precise pratfall that amused him even while be
concocted it, making him laugh so hard that tears came to his eyes, a
fierce laugh that he had to let loose yet again, just as he had during
the thinking of the tight antic.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Robert M. Quan
location: 'San Francisco, CA'
quote: >-
Having been a total failure at Feng Shui, the ancient Oriental art of
arranging furniture to influence luck, health, and fortune, Sum Dum-Foo
nevertheless became proficient in Beng Shinn, the ancient universal art
of locating furniture in the dark.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jeff Hawley
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Bafld the Barbarian was sore perplexed when he grasped his magical blade
and it spoke to him, saying thus, "I see thou art perplexed . . . I'm
Sword of Bafled myself."
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: T. O. Carroll
location: 'San Jose, CA'
quote: >-
Hemlock wasn't all that bad, Socrates decided philosophically: no
aftertaste, a smooth finish, and (of course) no hangover in the morning.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dr. Scott C. Hartsel
location: 'Eau Claire, WI'
quote: >-
Yes, Jarvik had torn Colette's heart in two, but only after cracking her
heaving, alabaster sternum with the spreader of his infidelity, and
piercing the pericardium of her trust with his pernicious falsity, which
he then poised like the rusty, serrated Scalpel of Damocles over the
ascending branch of the aorta of her desire, threatening to sunder her
intercardial septum of hope, like so much myocardial butter.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tom Hefferon
location: 'Schenectady, New York'
quote: >-
Across the moon-swept lawn Daphne fled his baleful stare from the
Conservatory window, her silken gown flowing behind her but catching on
the sumac sprouts and rabbit berry, the rose of Sharon and
wintercreeper, the milkwort and forsythia, the furze and genista, the
tamarisk and jute, the sisal, sand myrtle and yellowroot until its lacy
tatters gloried in the soft wind and she realized she was naked and cold
near the hothouse. (from "Return To Magnolia Manor")
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Phil Arkow
location: 'Stratford, NJ'
quote: >-
He was more than an Israeli thief of the streets, more than the first
flautist in the Jerusalem Philharmonic Orchestra, more than the
illegitimate child of a Spanish nun; Jose had led a checkered life that
included wrestling and farm work on the kibbutz, a career that truly
made him a Haifa-lootin', flutin'-tootin', son of a nun from Barcelona,
tag-team plowboy Joe.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Penny Downing
location: 'Scarborough, Ontario'
quote: >-
Cats bury their droppings with all the decorum of a state funeral, and
dogs revisit theirs with the fervour of a connoisseur, but cattle hardly
seem to commit to the whole process, wandering off with a truly bovine
indifference while the last soft plop is still echoing through the
pasture, and it was this last which inspired Angela's choice of
vocabulary when Kevin opened his mouth and let fall the words, "I love
you."
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wayne Wilson
location: 'McKinleyville, CA'
quote: >-
As the robber looked away, the pharmacist pulled out a .38 revolver, and
shouted "Take this three times a day!", firing three rapid shots into
the upper left quadrant of the robber's chest, the bullets flying out of
the gun like large, ill-fitting, improperly inserted suppositories.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Robert A. Arnold
location: Portage MI
quote: >-
Scribner scratched himself again, took a drag on his drooping Old Gold,
coughed, popped the top on his last Fallstaff, turned back to his
ancient typewriter, and smiled to himself as he thought back to the day
when his mother had warned him that he had no future writing
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Vanessa Moore
location: 'Springfield, MO'
quote: >-
A shrill scream pierced the black night, and I clutched my Tickle-Me
Elmo doll close to my heaving bosom; it was the blood-curdling shriek of
the wajorcka lop - a vicious, exotic animal that is the cross of a
mallard duck and a cat, that is, if you can keep the cat from eating the
duck.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Greg Kluzak
location: Greenville MI 1-
quote: I opened my Windows 95 users manual and fell into a magical world.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michael J. Saxton
location: 'Davis, CA'
quote: >-
Cletus was utterly innocent of six of the seven deadly sins, mostly
because committing them was just too much effort.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Carolyn Nightingale
location: 'Loganholme QLD, Australia'
quote: >-
"The criminals out there are killing us - it's time to fight back"
roared the excited leader at the midnight meeting of the Sink Drain
Chapter of the Neighbourhood Watch, "and since they have begun this
latest campaign of terror of using chemical weapons on our webs and
eggs, we will retaliate by attacking their weakest, their most
vulnerable - let us away to the cradle, where we will repeatedly make
little tickling motions with our feet in the warm filament-lined aural
orifices of the humans' pink, bald, squealing larva."
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Booth
location: 'Basel, Switzerland'
quote: >-
Dr. Charles Monroe wasn't the kind of guy who took it lying down,
because many years ago a Special Branch trainee bounced one time too
many on his impeccably groomed abdominal muscles and caused seven discs
to dislocate, the way a stack of CDs might dislocate if they were tied
together by string and then the middle ones were pushed out by a lateral
force.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michael Burkhart
location: San Diego
quote: >-
It was doubly fortunate that Stanley "Gorilla" Gutowski, the state
weight lifting champion, was present to give his nephew the Heimlich
maneuver & that his hands were small enough to push the boy's stomach
back down his throat.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Laurie Franks
location: Biloxi MS
quote: >-
The delivery boy felt as though a thousand eyes were upon him after
taking a tumble down the courtyard stairs, but it was probably only
thirty or so, because that's how many he was delivering to the biology
lab for dissection; it just felt like more.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Watson
location: 'Cary, NC'
quote: >-
Herb suffered two maladies that tormented and infuriated him: profound
memory lapses, and something else.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tamar Gonen
location: 'Chicago, IL'
quote: >-
Johnny Baggadonuts knew the game was getting stale; he was pretty sure
Jimmy Dareallibadone, the cruelest guy in the "family", knew what he was
up to, and whatever Jimmy knew, the Boss was sure to find out -- yet
Johnny knew he couldn't crumble, because if they dunked him he'd have
broken his promise to the beautiful if slightly underage Turkish
prostitute Alhava Anna, (whom everyone called "Muffin") and who wanted
nothing more than to be his wife, to finally be Alhava "Muffin" Anna
Baggadonuts: the name positively tripped off his tongue, then
accidentally lit a fire in his loins.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Richard Raymond III
location: 'Roanoke, VA'
quote: >-
Cocking her pretty head coquettishly on one side, Miss Florence
Nightingale smiled, delicately stroked her latest lover's arising
aspirations, and to his scandalously indecent proposal returned the only
possible reply, "Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-wee, too-witta-woo!"
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tom Rohde
location: 'Minneapolis, MN'
quote: >-
Walking back to the hotel in the rain, Ernest Hemingway ducked into the
Louvre as the downpour intensified, but the beauty of its masterpieces
did not move him, for the was thinking about his almost-finished novel,
the one about his stint as an ambulance driver on the Italian/Austrian
front, of his wounding and recuperation, about his romance with a
British nurse that ended catastrophically, and then, standing before the
exquisite statue of Venus de Milo, the title he would give his opus
occured to him.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nancy Bauer
location: 'Philadelphia, PA'
quote: >-
"What the bloody hell," I thought, puzzled, as the car lifted right up
off the Interstate and sailed toward the Big Dipper (or the Little
Dipper, who could think straight?), me at the wheel of course , while
Jill slept in the back seat, oblivious, veins thrumming with Tequila,
dreaming, no doubt, about Jack (tumbling, tumbling, all that shit) and
missing the whole thing as usual while I, good old codependent that I
am, had to cope.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kristen Swaim
location: Garland TX
quote: >-
"No, no . . . a thousand times no," she moaned breathlessly, the milky
white mounds of her chest heaving as nimble hands quickly did their
work, and then she started counting the "yes" votes for the new sewer
system proposal.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jason Allen
location: 'Calgary, Alberta 241-0249'
quote: >-
Something is rotten in Denmark, thought Richard, the third time he
peered over his copy of the Globe to witness the Two Gentlemen from
Verona as they Leared Shrewishly at the young Desdemona, reminding him
of that Dreamy Midsummer's night years ago, when, in a Tempest he had
journeyed to that little Hamlet in upstate New York where the lawns were
green, the picket fences white, and nobody's windows were Bard.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Allison Johnson
location: 'Calgary, Alberta'
quote: >-
His mind frapped by their final conversation, Master Chef Ralph tried
valiantly to deglaze the pan of his brain, reduce the scalding liquid of
his affair with Tiffany Creme-Kaake to approximately one-third its
original volume (or, better yet, boil it away entirely), strain and
discard the lumpy bits, and whisk the memories into a smooth, velvety
hollandaise, but it was no use; his heart had been brutally
shrink-wrapped and reduced to a hard rubbery mass by the microwave of
her indifference.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Neil Massie
location: 'Ridgefield, CT'
quote: >-
She sighed, not just any sigh, but one of those deep, deep sighs that,
emanating from the depths of your lower respiratory tract, works its way
upward, then explodes out of you, pervading the surrounding area,
ubiquitously drawing forth sympathetic sighs from those around you in
increasing concentrations, until finally you are surrounded by such an
intense miasma of wheezing and gasping that it sounds like the emphysema
ward in a geriatric hospital.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Solveig Haugland
location: 'Lafayette, CO'
quote: >-
Back at the badger ranch, Betsy had gone completely nuts; flinging down
the gauntlet of desperation (made from a very high-quality badger hide),
she vowed she would wait no longer and in a twinkling her bags were
packed, her house sold, and, armed with her cat, her cajones and her
capital gains, she left the provincial desolation of Minot and
tremblingly catapulted her life into the hot lights and fleshpots of
Fargo, City on the Edge.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ernie Santilli
location: 'Drexel Hills, PA'
quote: >-
Myopic, gawky Herbert took up the martial arts to hone his balance,
dexterity, concentration, and coordination; the inner calm promised by
serene-yet-deadly Sensei Yawara; and immerse himself in the Asian
culture that had so mystified the high school sophomore ever since his
fourth-grade field trip paused briefly in Chinatown, but mostly to be
able to hang out with the school bullies and beat up other students.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jean Madeleine Hughes
location: 'Lebanon, NH'
quote: >-
One cold autumn morning when Elinor, Queen of the amphibians, arrived at
the fork in the road and saw that one of her subjects waas busily
clearing leaves on the right path, while another stood idly on the left,
she said to her consort, "This really frosts me, Robert; the toad's not
raking!"
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bob Trapnell
location: 'Huntsville, AL'
quote: >-
Have a nice day," called Nadine to her engineer husband, who wondered if
she meant the remaining hours of daylight, a solar day (measured with
respect to the Sun) or a sidereal day (measured with respect to the
celestial sphere), "I know I will," continued Nadine sotto voce, whose
day (however defined) would be nice because of Raoul, the tennis pro at
the country club.
- category: Miscellaneous
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dave Dooling
location: 'Huntsville, AL'
quote: >-
Astronomer Lyman A. Fraunhofer reflected upon the forbidden lines of
poetry as he vainly tried to gauge the magnitude of his wife's
infidelity with Roy G. Biv, the young graduate assistant (with whom she
shared a Milky Way, even now, under the big telescope), yet fully
ignored his own weak interactions that had forced Andromeda to search
for naked singularities until she became smitten with Biv's work on the
Big Bang.
'1999':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Dr. David Chuter
location: 'Kingston, Surrey, ENGLAND'
quote: >-
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.
'2000':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Gary Dahl
location: 'Los Gatos, CA'
quote: >-
The heather-encrusted Headlands, veiled in fog as thick as smoke in a
crowded pub, hunched precariously over the moors, their rocky elbows
slipping off land's end, their bulbous, craggy noses thrust into the
thick foam of the North Sea like bearded old men falling asleep in their
pints.
'2001':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Sera Kirk
location: 'Vancouver, BC'
quote: >-
A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each
other lustily to the respective ends of their distinct musical choices
as the gates flew open to release a torrent of tawny fur comprised of
angry yapping bullets that nipped at Desdemona's ankles, causing her to
reflect once again (as blood filled her sneakers and she fought her way
through the panicking crowd) that the annual Running of the Pomeranians
in Liechtenstein was a stupid idea.
'2002':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Rephah Berg
location: 'Oakland, CA'
quote: >-
On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had
always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when
the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and
every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity
in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of
annoyance that Angela had now almost attained.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Charles Howland
location: 'St. Paul, MN'
quote: >-
The professor looked down at his new young lover, who rested fitfully,
lashed as she was with duct tape to the side of his stolen hovercraft,
her head lolling gently in the breeze, and as they soared over the
buildings of downtown St. Paul to his secret lair he mused that she was
much like a sweet ripe juicy peach, except for her not being a fuzzy
three-inch sphere produced by a tree with pink blossoms and that she had
internal organs and could talk.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Matthew Chambers
location: 'Hambleton, WV'
quote: >-
Chief Inspector Blancharde knew that this murder would be easy to solve
– despite the fact that the clever killer had apparently dismembered his
victim, run the corpse through a chipper-shredder with some Columbian
beans to throw off the police dogs, and had run the mix through the
industrial-sized coffee maker in the diner owned by Joseph Tilby (the
apparent murder victim) – if only he could figure out who would want a
hot cup of Joe.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Vince Lucid
location: 'Pennellville, NY'
quote: >-
Detective Driscoll had fallen off the wagon like a frozen turkey from a
Goodwill helicopter and, like a talking elephant reunited with his old
circus buddies after 50 years, he reminisced about the most memorable
collars of his career – and he guffawed so hard that he fell off the
barstool like another turkey from another helicopter as he recollected
the time he arrested a mime for shoplifting and had to say “You have a
right to remain silent …”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: John Knoerle
location: 'Chicago, IL'
quote: >-
The jangling phone disturbed the fly, the blue bottle fly, the blue
bottle fly performing precise, low-swooping wingovers above my
four-sugar coffee while the potted palm made a feeble attempt at
photosynthesis with the naked 25 watt bulb that hung from the cracked
plaster of my low-rent office on a less-than-desirable (unless you were
vermin) stretch of Pico.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Duke Smith
location: 'Warren, OR'
quote: >-
It was a warm, rank odor that hit Detective Swatworth’s nostrils,
breaking into components that seemed hauntingly familiar, reminiscent of
dangerous deeds past, lighting up every wary fiber in his torso, warning
him to be wary of what lay ahead, on guard, finger on the trigger, then
relaxed again as he realized it was coming from his own armpit.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Jim Sheppeck
location: 'Farmington, NM'
quote: >-
The blood dripped from his nose like hot grease from a roasting
bratwurst pierced with a fork except that grease isn’t red and the blood
wasn’t that hot and it wasn’t a fork that poked him in the nose but
there was a faint aroma of nutmeg in the air and it is of noses we speak
not to mention that if you looked at it in the right profile, his nose
did sort of look like a sausage.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Martin F. Melhus
location: 'Evanston, IL'
quote: >-
Henrietta slept like a log; not your garden variety log, mind you, but
one of those phenomenally enormous old-growth South American rain forest
logs that is completely enshrouded with luxurious plush green moss and
encircling vines with those unworldly twisted rope-like root structures
wrenched from the earth and sitting there on its side in the mud and
when you try to wake it up just lies there like the enormous
moss-covered, vine-enshrouded log in the mud that it is.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Warren T. Smith
location: 'Redmond, WA'
quote: >-
Sheila was easy as opening a jar of pickles, not one closed by a man who
has virility doubts and closes a jar so women and young boys get hernias
opening it or at least the boys get them; although I heard about a woman
who had a hiatal hernia so I guess women get them too but doctors don’t
ask them to cough unless their malpractice covers sexual deviance but a
jar closed by some ninety-year-old whose grip on the jar as well as
reality has slipped.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Cindy Shirak
location: 'Redford, MI'
quote: >-
The cracked, cement-colored, wooden steps to the cellar of the old
haunted mansion lead down to the basement, which also had a creepy
cement color on the walls, although they were constructed from drywall.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Leslie A. Pardo
location: 'Lakewood, OH'
quote: >-
He slumped in his chair like a sack of flour slung over the shoulder of
an aging warehouse man who had seen too many midnight shifts in a town
where second chances were left only to the savvy souls who knew enough
to skip out of this forgotten bastion of whorehouses, rotting fish
carcasses, and a third-tier law school.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Phil Currier
location: 'Cambridge, MA'
quote: >-
As her tears blurred his receding figure into a ghostly memory, she
realized how thoroughly he had broken her heart, like a steamroller
grinding the shards of a perfume bottle into splintered, dusty oblivion,
at least as much as one can “break” a squishy organ composed of 70%
water by weight; heck, let’s be honest, you can no more break a heart
than you can perform an appendectomy with a spoon, which is perhaps a
better analogy for her pain in the first place.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Patrick Bomgardner
location: APO AE 09469
quote: >-
The tropical island rose abruptly from the jade-green sea like some
ancient leviathan skimming the surface for krill and imperceptibly
deflected the warm, spice-tinged trade winds that had once propelled
Drake, Cook, and Chichester on their momentous voyages, but which made
no difference whatsoever to Forbes MacVane as he stood shivering in the
“Windy City,” waiting for his contact to alight from the EL.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Anna Rotenberg
location: 'Sao Paulo, Brazil'
quote: >-
It was a dark and silent night in Pluto, a planet nobody had ever taken
seriously because of its name, which reminded us of the funny cartoon
dog, and it being so far from the sun and having no atmosphere, which
seemed unimportant as it was, obviously, lifeless – we thought – in
those happy and carefree days when all the world had to worry about was
war, famine, pestilence, and death.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Kevin Kriss
location: 'Cedar Park, TX'
quote: >-
The controls looked normal – the beeping thing was beeping, the humming
thing was humming, the blue number display was displaying blue numbers,
the yellow number display was displaying yellow numbers, everything
seemed OK, but the redundancy of this interplanetary trip left Col.
Mountain feeling troubled, troubled like a beeping thing not beeping, or
a humming thing not humming, or a blue number display not displaying
blue numbers, or a yellow number display not displaying yellow numbers;
nothing felt right.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Matthew Chambers
location: 'Hambleton, WV'
quote: >-
It had started off as a prank, but when Major Elyse Livesay discovered
(during her solo space walk, no less!) the tarantula that the boys in
the crew had slipped into her spacesuit, she knew that while in space no
one could hear you scream, it was damn sure not for lack of trying.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Mike Madill
location: 'Toronto, Ontario'
quote: >-
Doc Parker looked down as Sheriff Eddie LaDuke lay desperately gasping
his final breaths in the dusty sun-baked Arizona desert, knowing there
was little he could do as the outlaw’s bullet had shredded Eddie’s
internal organs like fresh coleslaw, leaving Doc to ponder his next move
equipped only with his pistol, some chewing tobacco, and now, one extra
horse.
- category: Spy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Michael McNierney
location: 'Greeley, CO'
quote: >-
It was a long and boring flight to Moscow’s Sheremetevo Airport and when
Special Agent Jasper Smoot debarked and walked into the restroom marked
“Dama“ in Cyrillic he might have found the woman there attractive except
she had more whiskers than a Civil War general and was pointing a
crossbow at his head.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Vance Atkins
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
Hermann lay with Esmerelda, entwined with one another among love-tangled
sheets and he thought how this one constant yet mercurial woman was one
whom he could hold in his arms forever, although eventually he’d have to
get up to go to the bathroom.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Mary Britton
location: 'Berrien Springs, MI'
quote: >-
Ralph awoke groggily, and after searching through the overflowing
ashtray on the nightstand for a half-smoked cigarette, looked over at
the rumpled form of Lila sleeping next to him in bed and wondered idly
why making love with her made him feel as though his body had been
pounded by heavy surf.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Tom O’Leary
location: 'Covina, CA'
quote: >-
As she lay in the embrace of her lover’s arms following their ardent
lovemaking, Sharon quietly hoped the moment could last forever, well,
not really forever, since she had a pedicure in two hours, followed by
lunch with her former college roommates, but at least for a long while
or so.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Jerome Radding
location: 'M.D., Laguna Woods, CA'
quote: >-
It wasn’t a dark and stormy night when the Russian space station burned
up in its final descent through the atmosphere, so it cast a glow on the
face of a young Fiji girl sitting on the beach, causing her boy friend
sitting next to her to utter, “Bei MIR bist du schoen.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Justin Gustainis
location: 'Plattsburgh, NY'
quote: >-
The giant ape’s broken body lay upon the asphalt and I didn’t know which
had finally done him in – the planes’ machine guns, the fall from atop
the building, or maybe just a broken heart – but it was all so
heart-wrenching, so tragic, his climbing the Empire State Building just
to get a glimpse of that woman’s gorgeous derriere, and the sheer waste
of it all finally prompted me to pronounce my own benediction over his
great, furry carcass: “‘Twas booty killed the beast!”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Harry W. Hickey
location: 'Arlington, VA'
quote: >-
The Sultan, having dutifully consulted with his palace sages,
historians, and theologians, was finally convinced that nothing in the
lore of his religion could guide him in the selection of a Network
Operating System, and the conclusion was now clear to him, that though
most computers in the Palace Administration should run under WINDOWS,
yet the Harem Management must be served by UNIX.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Harry W. Hickey
location: 'Arlington, VA'
quote: >-
What though the steed that carried the young knight over the streets of
old Prague was foaled in far Araby, what though the sword at his side
came from distant Spain, what though his armor had been formed on German
anvil, yet the patriot heart of the warrior was all that mattered; in
that mail there was a Czech!
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: David Bubenik
location: 'Palo Alto, CA'
quote: >-
This is a story of twin Siamese kittens, or, more specifically, of their
shared appendage; it is a tail of two kitties.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Allan W. Eckert
location: 'Bellefontaine, OH'
quote: >-
Dispatched to the steamy tropics by crusty editor, Warren Pease, to
interview renowned spiritualist, Serrafima Raire, in her grass shack,
which he truly feared would exacerbate his chronic asthma, London Times
ace reporter John Donne found her dying of jungle fever, forcing him to
write despairingly in his cable to the home office, “Medium Raire not
well – Donne.”
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Geoff Blackwell
location: 'Bundaberg, QLD, Australia'
quote: >-
The sun beat like a molten hammer upon the sand that Jasper trudged
upon, scorching his bare skin, baking his eyeballs dry, boiling his
brains in his skull, and bleaching his hair to that lovely yellowy shade
that perfectly matched his taupe shirt, the one that he could wear with
either his suede jacket or the denim one.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Vance Atkins
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
Ungaloo, although he found the new washer and dryer fair dinkum for
washing his cutoffs, could only wonder at the occasional loss of a
single stocking, something he attributed to his Aboriginal ancestors,
thoughtfully considering the footwear as going sockabout.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Steve Miller
location: 'San Diego, CA'
quote: >-
The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the veldt, but the hot
air still shimmered above the ground, heavy with the pungent melange of
dust and acacia and animal musk – no relief for Weatherby, crouching in
silence for hours in the shelter of the giant thornbush, clinging to
hope and recalling the baleful warning of the old Masai: “Don’t drink
the water.”
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Nina Schroeder
location: 'Damascus, MD'
quote: >-
I traveled long and hard to get here, blindfolded by suspicious gunmen,
riding donkey-back for hours across inhospitable terrain, with no idea
of whether the next valley would contain an ambush or a bomb, cut off
from communication and denied the basic amenities of civilization, but
finally I was able to meet with the terrorist leader and see the
Polaroids of how silly I had looked riding blindfolded on a donkey.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Isaac Emmanuel
location: 'Rio Rancho, NM'
quote: >-
Boris, the flying monkey, shot a glance backwards and although it missed
he did glean that the enemy F-18 was hot on his tail and the serpentine
limb was beginning to smolder and smoke like plump persimmons that have
been in the oven too long.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Matthew Roscoe
location: 'Auckland, New Zealand'
quote: >-
Dorothy could hardly believe her ears as the uniformed Munchkin reeled
off the citations: flying without a license, flying an unregistered
building, reckless flying causing injury or death, parking in an
unauthorized place, double-parking (vertical), failure to give way to
pedestrians, failure to indicate, 2nd-degree witchslaughter, and closing
her eyes she fervently prayed, “Please, I want to go home …”
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Elisabeth Glyptis
location: 'South Shields Tyne and Wear, England, UK'
quote: >-
Pulling her red coat tightly around her and running the gauntlet of wolf
whistles from the nearby building site as she made her way to the short
cut through the woods, Maureen wondered yet again why her grandmother
could not do her shopping on-line or at least get the super-market to
deliver.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Nicolas Juzda
location: 'Montreal, Quebec'
quote: >-
“Oh dear, Mr. Hippity Hop the Bunny is late, and if he does not arrive
soon, we shan’t be able to hold a birthday party for Good Old Busy
Beaver before it is time for me to leave the Fluffy Forrest, which shall
be most disappointing indeed,” said Susan, because she was completely
smashed on the narcotics she had purchased in the alleyway behind the
club from a foul-smelling yet reputable dealer called “Skullz.”
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Albert T. Keyack
location: 'Ambler, PA'
quote: >-
Miss Francesca often lounged in the tiny wood beyond the stile, and here
she lay languidly watching days pass into night; for it was in that good
night that Miss Francesca crept so very stealthily amongst the
daffodils, finding baby bunnies and mice, tearing their heads off and
dragging their lifeless bodies to the back porch door of kindly old Mr.
Marvenschire.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Emily Garber
location: 'Princeton, NJ'
quote: >-
After many years of constant striving, during which Timmy the Tree grew
to be the tallest pine in the forest, men from the National Lumber
Corporation visited the Magic Woods and told Timmy that he was to be cut
down and used as fuel to further the interests of big business, and in
the process he would add to the levels of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, eventually unbalancing the planet’s ecosystem and destroying
all life on Earth, all because he’d simply tried too hard.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Bill Crowley
location: 'Santa Rosa, CA'
quote: >-
It was a stark and dormie night at the University of Texas as the
on-campus residents poured into the central quad, where the shimmering,
wafting, piercing, soaking beams from an authentic Longhorn cheese moon
lit the walls of the encircling buildings the way a really large
flashlight using AA batteries dimly brightens a cavernous mineshaft, for
the results of the city leaders’ baking contest, hoping that they’d be
able to shag some pies from the Austin Powers.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: John Grayshaw
location: 'Bayside, NY'
quote: >-
Toadstool, the lackey of the evil black wizard Dar Kand who had
kidnapped and hid Off-White’s knight in shining armor (Snow Off-White
was a princess by birthright and a detective by profession), had his
head stuck between the floor and one of Off-White’s leather boots;
Off-White’s question was simple, “Where did Dar Kand store my knight?”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Francis Turner
location: 'Mouans Sartoux, France'
quote: >-
Marie-Antoinette, the dusky-eyed Comtesse de la Belle Blague that is,
rather than the more famous wife of Louis XVI, although coincidentally
she was in fact descended from the same aristocratic stock, looked out
across the windswept, storm-lashed terrace where her soiree had been in
full swing up until a few minutes ago and apologized seductively to her
English guest: “C’est vraiment une nuit sombre et orageuse, but later
per’aps I can make amends …”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Cindy Haynes
location: 'Bedford, MA'
quote: >-
While Karen hand-made bows on her pixie bow maker, and Calvin designed
photo nametags on his computer, he couldn’t help but wonder if Martha
Stewart could see them, would she invite them for drinks by a fire
started from rubbing sticks together on a hearth she masoned herself
with stones hauled by reindeer over the North Pole from a remote
Norwegian quarry, while cherubs entertained them with flutes
hand-hollowed from Jordan River bamboo and preserved for centuries in
Palestinian prune sauce at room temperature?
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Debra Allen
location: 'Wichita Falls, TX'
quote: >-
It was just as she had always imagined celebrity would be, Cindy thought
as she stepped dramatically into the limelight created by the flash of
what seemed to be hundreds of reporters’ cameras all going off at once
as they screamed her name in hopes of getting just a moment of her
attention-well, except for the handcuffs, the tack orange overalls, and
the decidedly unglamorous sheriff’s deputies leading her into the
courthouse.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ron Calabrese
location: 'Reisterstown, MD'
quote: >-
My underwear stuck to my backside like an All-Pro cornerback to a rookie
wide receiver as I browsed through the seed catalog that had mistakenly
found its way into my mailbox.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Terrence Clark
location: 'Cameron Park, CA'
quote: >-
Phil Peppercorn tiptoed timidly up to the bleak, nail-encrusted door
that would become the entrance to his so-called home for the next eight
years of his life in the fabulous underground society of bread-makers,
pastry chefs, and other leavened-product producers.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter Cruickshank
location: 'Hanover, Ontario'
quote: >-
As Borson turned around slowly to face the source of the ridicule he was
receiving, crushing the empty tin can in his powerful grip, heedless of
the extra sorting that would ensue for the four teenagers working in the
recycling plant for 6.85 per hour from 6:00 am EST to 5:00 pm EST on
weekdays, but significantly shorter hours on weekends, the entire bar
fell silent.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Julia Fernandez
location: 'Portland, OR'
quote: >-
As he gazed over at his aged and sickly wife lying at his side, he
remembered the woman he had once known – the vibrant exciting beauty
with a heart of gold and a head full of dreams – and instantly wished he
had married her instead.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Franks
location: 'Wichita, KS'
quote: >-
Ladyfingers crackled like knuckles in the distance, and a string of
Black Cats was a more substantial reminiscence of back and shoulder
joints, but it was the flatulent hissing and keening of the younger
kids’ Vesuvius Fountains and Whistling Chasers that enlightened Lee Bob:
he hated the Fourth of July because it sounded like getting up in the
morning.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brenda A. Getsinger
location: 'Lawrenceville, GA'
quote: >-
She walked around the corner and caught Big Jake ripping his boot off
with his teeth once again and she could just hear the words in his
growl, “What moron ever thought it was a good idea to put boots on a
dog?!”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Pokines
location: 'Hickam AFB, HI'
quote: >-
“They say danger is the most compelling emotion of them all,” purred
Evangeline Jones, my trench coat-clad one-time arch-nemesis, with
something like a trace of real regret, if by trace you mean drawn
through a translucent piece of paper over another piece of paper, that
other piece of paper being the regret she was copying, like a petulant
school-girl with her daddy’s knives and too much time on her hands in a
poorly-lit balloon factory.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joel Rodrigue
location: 'Kingston, Ontario'
quote: >-
Listless, Dr. Jekyl returned home to sift through an endless sea of
undergraduate term papers, stacks of late of credit card bills, and a
pile of crusty week-old dishes, but his mind was back in the laboratory,
where earlier that same day his one and only dream had come to a sudden
end, his prized experiment had failed miserably and he finally had to
accept the fact that frozen pizza would never be any good and there was
nothing science could do about it.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Debra Rosenfeld
location: 'San Mateo, CA'
quote: >-
“All rise,” said the Judge of The Company vs. Workers’ Comp., “except
for those with tendonitis, eyestrain, headaches, neck pain, pinched
nerves, carpal tunnel syndrome, repetitive stress injuries, lumbosacral
sprain, ruptured disks, temporomandibular joint pain, chronic fatigue
syndrome, traumatic brain injuries, Axis II mental disorders, smoke
inhalation, amputations, electrocutions, Gulf War Syndrome, Agent Orange
exposure, anthrax poisoning, or
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” leaving only the two
Workers’ Comp. lawyers standing in the courtroom, looking sheepishly at
their feet.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Marina Salazarm
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
There was a time when she did not relate to life as though it were on
the other side of a mesh screen on which she would press her nose close,
inhale dust that was embedded in the corners of the little squares in
the grid, sneeze, and back away.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sander van Daatselaar
location: 'Amsterdam, The Netherlands'
quote: >-
As Professor Wincklespoon took a sip from his coffee, craving the
caffeine that scalding hot water had seduced from the beans, his eyes
fell on an old equation he had written down years ago, metaphorically
speaking, for the falling of his eyes should not be taken literally, and
suddenly it struck him, as if his mind had been cleared by the same
stormy wind that had brought a dark cloud overhead, two million volts of
electricity from that same cloud and gone were the man and his equation,
the solution to the theory of everything.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brook Sprague
location: 'Coeur d’Alene, Idaho'
quote: >-
Throwing his moccasined feet forward with the delicate assurance of a
skilled tracker, Silver Cloud Stevens paused to cautiously swing a
flaxen braid over his manly right shoulder, and in that brief pause
became intensely and intoxicatingly aware of the one sixtieth Navajo
blood surging through his veins and steering him toward the grey SUV he
had earlier nestled somewhere in the vast metallic foliage of the mall
parking lot; his instincts whispered “Row J, near the Cinnabon.”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mona E. Xu
location: 'Forest Hills, NY'
quote: >-
It was then that Caroline remembered her kitchen back in Montana, with a
stove that she might or might not have turned off, and so with a heavy
sigh, she put down the penguin.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Julie Stangeland
location: 'Wichita, KS'
quote: >-
You don’t know about me vitout you have read a book – vell, to tell da
trute, you vouldn’t know me anyvay, because no book is out dere already
dat tells about my earlier vacky adwentures vit anudder kid; so vat I’m
gonna do is describe to you here in my wery own vinsomely vhimsical
dialect da yootful escapades of yours truly, a scrappy liddle Norvegian,
radder dan dose of some scrappy liddle Finn.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ian Monteith
location: 'Regina, Saskatchewan'
quote: >-
“Uncle Albert!” shrieked the chubby-faced cherub of a niece who dashed
excitedly through the parlor, leaping toward the arms of her favorite
relative, until stopped abruptly by the sliding glass door she had
failed to notice, leaving her for a moment curiously suspended in space
like a happy, golden-curled pancake with special anti-gravity powers,
before slipping slowly to the floor.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nicole Dixon
location: 'New Haven, CT'
quote: >-
“If I may beg your pardon, my dear lady, I happened to catch your eye
from across the room and I was entranced by the beauty therein, the pure
and unveiled light of honesty flashing bravely at me, the sweet coyness
couched in the depths of your green iris like a dolphin in the sea, the
smooth marble of your soul in my hand which drew me hither to you,” said
the dark stranger, returning the glass orb to his hostess, who
gratefully popped it back in place with a soft sucking sound.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Thomas Fox
location: 'Riverdale, New York'
quote: >-
And so rosy-fingered Dawn awakened him, first with light
counterclockwise strokes, then with gentle kneading, and finally with
relentless ticklings that made him rue ever buying her finger paint.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mary Gibson
location: 'San Juan Bautista, CA'
quote: >-
“No use crying over spilt milk” she laughed as she handed him a paper
towel to clean up the milk from the toppled carton, which had, in a
torrent, poured across the table (a gray formica and chrome art deco
reproduction), slowing to a trickle by the time it came to the edge,
where it finally dripped to the floor, the droplets exploding on contact
and looking like those in the photograph in that old advertisement for
the Milk Advisory Board.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wendy Chatley Green
location: 'Lexington, KY'
quote: >-
Jenny’s water broke at the most inopportune time – just as her daughter
was rounding third base in her first tee-ball game, pigtails flying
backwards under her batting helmet, pudgy legs piston-like in her bright
blue baggy nylon shorts, the coach yelling “Run! Run!” in the same
rhythm that Jenny’s husband had used when he impregnated her and with
which he urged “Breathe! Breathe!” during their Lamaze class.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Hilja Stöber
location: 'Berlin, Germany'
quote: >-
To put it in a nutshell – though, not an ordinary hazelnut-shell,
because this would be far too small – and not a walnut-shell either,
though it is bigger in size but too rounded – unfortunately, a cashew
nut is too crooked – a peanut would come pretty close in length but it
is too narrow – a chestnut has too odd a form to be suitable – and a
Brazil nut is too unknown and not suitable either – it is more or less a
complete virtual nutshell I am talking about: to put it in such a
nutshell this story has nothing to do with nuts at all.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Alissa King
location: 'St. Helens, OR'
quote: >-
Lady Eva floated down the stairs like a luminescent ghost with lush,
over-ripe, jungle-berry scented décolletage, surveyed the room, pausing
momentarily to brush a yogurt splotch from her vintage Dolce and Gabbana
velvet bodice, and then boldly approached Lord McCreary, whose bald pate
gleamed like the Grand Prize trophy of the ninth annual Oregon Trail
Lanes League Bowling Competition.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Kinzel
location: 'Billerica, MA'
quote: >-
Green, not blue as for some who stare endlessly in to sky or out to sea,
gaping to find some thing of interest backlit by azure or cerulean or
buried in navy or cobalt, nor red as for those who would scan field and
forest for smudges of scarlet or crimson, for smears of cherry or ruby,
nor yet yellow as for others who all their lives lust for gold or long
for blond, nor even purple as for some who think God feloniously
offended should they not notice violet or lilac, lavender or plum, is my
second favorite color.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mrs. Juliet Toland
location: 'Muang, Phuket, Thailand'
quote: >-
“Mummy’s gone to Paris to buy hats, and Daddy’s pranged the Bentley,”
Fiona responded with a mélange of wry acceptance and distant promise,
her ring-less fingers playing slippily on the moist champagne flute in a
way that suggested to the normally jaded Sir Jeremy far more than merely
imbibing Bucks Fizz .
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lindsay Robertson
location: 'Brookyln, NY'
quote: >-
The moon looked like a discarded toenail clipping submersed in a puddle
of saliva on a black formica countertop.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Cynthia Mizner Walgren
location: 'Chadron, NE'
quote: >-
Having opened my 40th birthday present from my husband – a kitchen
window fan – and now on my way to the bakery to pick up my cake, I
started thinking: What if I get hit in this intersection, and, struck
with amnesia, I hobble to the edge of the highway, hungry and confused,
and am picked up by a lonely trucker headed for McDonald’s and since I
have no memory, I’ve forgotten I hate McDonald’s, so I hop in, and he –
just thankful for the company – figures I’m a middle-aged housewife
looking for love in all the wrong places and he’s got several of them?
'2003':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Ms. Mariann Simms
location: 'Wetumpka, AL'
quote: >-
They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each
other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is
orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar
and the white … Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or
just plain American, as it really doesn’t taste distinctly dissimilar
from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it
differently.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: John Dotson (U.S. Naval Officer)
location: 'Arlington, VA'
quote: >-
The flock of geese flew overhead in a “V” formation – not in an
old-fashioned-looking Times New Roman kind of a “V”, branched out
slightly at the two opposite arms at the top of the “V”, nor in a more
modern-looking, straight and crisp, linear Arial sort of “V” (although
since they were flying, Arial might have been appropriate), but in a
slightly asymmetric, tilting off-to-one-side sort of italicized Courier
New-like “V” – and LaFonte knew that he was just the type of man to know
the difference.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Randy Groom
location: 'Visalia, CA'
quote: >-
Colin grabbed the switchgear and slammed the spritely Vauxhall Vixen
into a lower gear as he screamed through the roundabout heading toward
the familiar pink rowhouse in Puking-On-The-Wold, his mind filled with
the image of his comely Olive, dressed in some lacy underthing, waiting
on the couch with only a smile and a cucumber sandwich, hoping that his
lunch hour would provide sufficient time for both a naughty little romp
and a digestive biscuit.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Paul Jeffery
location: 'Oxford, England'
quote: >-
His knowing brown eyes held her gaze for a seeming eternity, his
powerful arms clasped her slim body in an irresistible embrace, and from
his broad, hairy chest a primal smell of “male” tantalized her nostrils;
“Looks like another long night in the ape house” thought veterinarian
Abigail Brown as she gingerly reached for the constipated gorilla’s
suppository.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Cindy Erickson Gilman
location: 'Mission Viejo, CA'
quote: >-
It wasn’t the desolate remoteness of the campsite that bothered him, or
even the terrifying roar of the rapids beating themselves against solid
granite below, so much as the eerie sound of pigs squealing in the
distance and the fact that, in this light, cousin Billy looked
disturbingly like Ned Beatty.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Chuck Keelan & Stern Stewart
location: New York
quote: >-
On the fourth day of his exploration of the Amazon, Byron climbed out of
his inner tube, checked the latest news on his personal digital
assistant (hereafter PDA) outfitted with wireless technology, and
realized that the gnawing he felt in his stomach was not fear – no, he
was not afraid, rather elated – nor was it tension – no, he was actually
rather relaxed – so it was in all probability a parasite.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Lynne Sella
location: 'Susanville, CA'
quote: >-
The Prince looked down at the motionless form of Sleeping Beauty,
wondering how her supple lips would feel against his own and
contemplating whether or not an Altoid was strong enough to stand up
against the kind of morning breath only a hundred year’s nap could
create.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Alan Campbell
location: 'Edinburgh, Scotland'
quote: >-
Detective Inspector Mike Norman slipped six fingers into his overcoat
pocket, five of them clad in a latex glove and attached to his palm,
while the sixth was wrapped in a plastic evidence bag and apparently
belonged to the kidnapped pianist Ricardo Moore, or, as it now seemed
likely, the kidnapped ex-pianist Ricardo Moore.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Robert Salsbury
location: 'Veradale, WA'
quote: >-
Mac was the crustiest ex-LAPD homicide detective with three ex-wives,
two mortgages, a greedy daughter wasting time at college, a gay son
playing acid-blues punk in some Sacramento dive, and a liver that had
been bitch slapped by cheap vodka so many times it looked like a bag of
yellow fat, who ever walked into my floral and gift shop.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Harry H. Buerkett
location: 'Urbana, IL'
quote: >-
They say she carried her own warmth around with her, like one of those
thermoregulating arctic mammals, say, a polar bear, or a baby harp seal
(though not a penguin, which is antarctic, anyway, and not a mammal, but
a bird), but she wasn’t fat or blubbery, which makes it all the more
unbelievable why anyone would have wanted to club her to death for her
fur coat, which wasn’t even white, I’m told, but black.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Karen Clark
location: 'Barkers Creek, Victoria, Australia'
quote: >-
Had Dorothy known Duncan was a psychopath who would seduce, then
brutally murder her, and that her best friend Dana, a forensic
pathologist would investigate her death and also fall in love with him,
but be saved just in time by Dwayne, her much maligned colleague,
perhaps she wouldn’t have bought him that Screwdriver.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Vincent M. Zito
location: 'Monroe, CT'
quote: >-
He knew that, at most, he had five seconds left to live, one
one-thousand, two one-thousand, the gun barrel pointing at his face like
a scolding finger, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, the hired
assassin Ricardo’s grip tightening on the trigger, five white elephants
SIX white elephants, and then a bright blast of light as he wondered
which was really the most accurate way to count five seconds.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Chris Esco
location: 'Miami, FL'
quote: >-
I’d stumbled onto solving my first murder case, having found myself the
only eyewitness, yet no matter how frantically I pleaded with John Law
that the perp was right in front of them and the very dame they’d been
grilling – the sultry but devious Miss Kitwinkle, who played the
grieving patsy the way a concert pianist player plays a piano – the cops
just kept smiling and stuffing crackers in my beak.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Theresa Olin
location: 'Nineveh, NY'
quote: >-
The sobering scene was laid out before Detective Robinson like a
centerfold spread in Better Homes and Gardens or Martha Stewart Living,
if the splayed bodies could be considered home furnishings such as
hand-knotted 100% wool Tibetan area rugs or allergy-free hypodown throw
pillows stuffed with European goose down and the blood on the walls had
been a carefully spattered burnt vermillion latex paint for a classic
aged or contemporary Jackson Pollock-like finish.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Dot Young
location: 'Garland, TX'
quote: >-
Raul strode through the dark night, his way lit by twinkling stars as if
the gods at some celestial concert were all flicking their lighters at
the same time in appreciation of the drum solo-like beat of his boot
heels against the pavement, occasionally accompanied by the
steel-brush-on-a-cymbal sound of a splash as he kicked through a puddle,
the plip-plop of water dripping from leaves like someone playing
staccato on a two-note piano gone flat, and the wind blowing a bluesy
tissue-paper-on-comb harmonica through the trees.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Peter L. Belmonte
location: 'Altus AFB, OK'
quote: >-
There was no question about it, my computer was locked up like a crazy
aunt in a dark, secluded attic, or like the brakes on my ‘73 Chevy
Impala on a rainy day when my wife is driving the kids to origami
lessons and is running late because Isaiah, my son, made a fuss at the
last minute and refused to be put into his car seat.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Debra Allen
location: 'Wichita Falls, TX'
quote: >-
The sun rose over the horizon like a great big radioactive baby’s head
with a bad sunburn but then again it might just have been that Lisa was
always cranky this early in the morning.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: A. Caywood
location: 'Hermantown, MN'
quote: >-
The rhythmic breathing of my companion was interrupted violently by a
fit of coughing, causing the peace of the early morning to be ripped
from me as if Richard Simmons had charged into my bedroom in his
be-sequined health fervor and started Sweating to the Oldies on the end
of my bed.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Bob F. Bledsoe
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
T’asha lay in bed musing at the slight wrinkles in the down comforter
which like waves in a gently wind-blown semi-calm sea heaved gently as
she moved her legs under the cover and alternately wiggled her toes,
causing a rogue ripple to course across the bed and die against the
shore of the pillow.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Susan Walterhouse
location: 'Weeping Water, NE'
quote: >-
She’d been to Boulder, she’d seen Stonehenge, Rocky Bluffs was a distant
memory, and now, as she rocked out to the music blaring from her gem of
a radio, traveling over the gravel road to the Solid Rock cafe, she
pondered the dusty past, and finally Sandy realized that the greatest
achievement was passing her kidney stone.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Andrew Emlen
location: 'Skamokawa, WA'
quote: >-
Anton was attracted to Angela like a moth to a flame – not just any
moth, but one of the giant silk moths of the genus Hyalophora, perhaps
Hyalophora euryalus, whose great red-brown wings with white basal and
postmedian lines flap almost languorously until one ignites in the
flame, fanning the conflagration to ever greater heights until burning
down to the hirsute thorax and abdomen, the fat-laden contents of which
provide a satisfying sizzle to end the agony.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: J. J. McClanahan
location: 'Tyrone, GA'
quote: >-
She lay next to him that night, regretting sleeping with another while
they were broken up, knowing she had done nothing wrong but feeling
vaguely unclean, like freshly washed, once-folded laundry that has been
shoved off the bed onto the floor and slept on by the dog.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: I’m in no mood for a struggle tonight
location: >-
” rolled from Jean-Pierre’s lips like a bowling ball shooting up the
return ramp, only to slow itself abruptly at the top before ka-whonking!
into the balls already lined up there like all the lines she had heard
before, and Sylvia knew at last that all the good ones were not married,
gay, or in Mexican prisons. — James Pokines, Hickam AFB, HI
quote: “Bring a bottle of wine and wear something uncomplicated
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Patricia Benedict
location: 'Calgary, Alberta, Canada'
quote: >-
Chloe hated the way the mud squished up between the toes of her
Birkenstocks like cappuccino-colored bog-ooze, as she ran to meet Teddy,
who hated her Birkenstocks anyway, and would complain bitterly about her
soggy feet as they shared some stolen moments in the back of his
ice-cream truck.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Brian Tacang
location: 'El Prado, NM'
quote: >-
The ballerina stood on point, her toes curled like shrimp, not
deep-fried shrimp because, as brittle as they are, they would have
cracked under the pressure, but tender ebi-kind-of-shrimp, pink and
luscious as a Tokyo sunset, wondering if her lover was in the Ginza,
wooing the geisha with eyes reminiscent of roe, which she liked better
than ebi anyway.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Michael Minihan
location: 'Johns Hill, Waterford, Ireland'
quote: >-
There was something unnerving about the way Jim looked at Doris that
day, something which made her tremble, which brought back painful
childhood memories of a boat trip off the coast of Western Finland
flooding back like a flood, flowing back, onto a boat, oh, you see why
it was so difficult for her to get the memories out of her head once
they had flowed in there.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Deanna Stewart
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
Charles thought Stephanie was at her most attractive when she was
irritated – lips pursed, cheeks flushed, and eyes flashing, though not
so much like lightning flashing as like a spark of static electricity
from touching a fluffy cat after shuffling across plush carpet in a
cold, dark room.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Nicholas R. Eaton
location: 'Saint Charles, MO'
quote: >-
Although Sara could believe the brassiere she had found was from a
mix-up at the laundromat, that the lipstick on Bill’s collar really had
been from a cramped elevator, that the stiletto heel was indeed
something the cat dragged in, when she pulled Chloe’s unmistakable
prosthetic arm from under the bed, she realized she had been played for
a fool.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Mark Silcox
location: 'Auburn, AL'
quote: >-
Colonel Cleatus Yorbville had been one seriously bored astronaut for the
first few months of his diplomatic mission on the third planet of the
Frangelicus XIV system, but all that had changed on the day he’d
discovered that his tiny, multipedal and infinitely hospitable alien
hosts were not only edible but tasted remarkably like that stuff that’s
left on the pan after you’ve made cinnamon buns and burned them a
little.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Jim Sheppeck II
location: 'Newtown, PA'
quote: >-
“Theeeey’re here!” whispered Billy Joe under his foul breath through
yellowed teeth as brilliant white light permeated all of the windows of
his trailer, and he flashed back to fragmented recollections of the
previous four abductions – the questions, the pain, the probe – which he
was powerless to stop but this time was better prepared for, having just
finished a seventh bean burrito, a case of Bud, and four packs of Pop
Rocks.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Wendy Burt
location: 'Colorado Springs, CO'
quote: >-
She fumbled for her laser gun, knowing that the alien was eager to
ravage her, unlike Captain Johnson, who wanted to take things slow since
he was coming off the heels of a very painful divorce.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Geoff Blackwell
location: 'Bundaberg, QLD, Australia'
quote: >-
Brock de-holstered his Maxi-Hurt 3000 phaser and blasted off the
Narguwullian trooper’s head, the way a teenager pops the head off a zit,
except of course on a much larger scale because those Narguwullians are
big suckers, and although Brock had personally had some door stoppers in
his teenage years, most zits aren’t twelve feet high, blue, and liable
to rip your arms off if you look at them the wrong way, and are also
much less inclined to leave a mess on the flight deck.
- category: Spy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Loren Haarsma
location: 'Grand Rapids, MI'
quote: >-
Standing in the concessions car of the Orient Express as it hissed and
lurched away from the station, Special Agent Chu could feel enemy eyes
watching him from the inky shadows and knew that he was being tested,
for although he had never tasted a plug of tobacco in his life, he was
impersonating an arms dealer known to be a connoisseur, so he knew that
he, the Chosen One, Chow Chu, had no choice but to choose the choicest
chew on the choo-choo.
- category: Spy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Patrick Bomgardner
location: 'Baltimore, MD'
quote: >-
It was a bright, beautiful day in Baltimore – not one of those dark and
stormy nights in a land far away where no normal person could ever have
lived because it was inhabited by evil sorcerers and fire-breathing
dragons – so Forbes MacVain decided to eat his tuna sandwich on a bench
overlooking the Inner Harbor while he waited for Yuri to make the dead
drop.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Andrew Vincent
location: 'Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England'
quote: >-
The Insect Keeper General, sitting astride his giant hovering aphid,
surveyed the battlefield which reeked with the stench of decay and
resonated with the low drone of the tattered and dying mutant swarms as
their legs kicked forlornly at the sky before turning to his master and
saying, “My Lord, your flies are undone.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Miltiades Mandros
location: 'Oakland, CA'
quote: >-
The ancient Peruvian Airlines DC-3 lumbered slowly over the snow-capped
peaks far below as Gunderson turned to Ricketts and marveled at how
their avian import business “Incahoots” had led them once again to the
far reaches of South America in search of the elusive gray-spotted owl.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Jay Dardenne
location: 'Baton Rouge, LA'
quote: >-
The final auction item in the estate was the electric home in the frozen
tundra, often referred to as “the top of the world,” even though the
world doesn’t really have a top (or a bottom for that matter), and it
was expected that Mrs. Claus, a pleasantly plump lady who smelled of
cookie dough, would again have to outbid the jovial fat man’s former
employees to purchase his assets, that is until the gavel fell and the
auctioneer announced solemnly, “The elves have left the building.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Brian Racher
location: '01170 CESSY, France'
quote: >-
When the noisy parrots took flight Dark Vador leapt from the sylvan
shadows brandishing his exterminator pod and mercilessly sprayed the
flock with its sizzling lethal rays, and as the silent spiraling cloud
of bright green feathers floated to the ground he hissed, “I hate sky
squawkers!”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Brad Jolly
location: 'Longmont, CO'
quote: >-
Sarah felt bored and unsatisfied, even though her job as a nurse’s aide
included helping patients and keeping track of the billiards equipment
in the recreation room at the Venereal Disease Treatment Center, and she
wondered what her mother had been thinking all those years when she
repeatedly told her that a young lady should mind herpes and cues.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Tracy Edmondson
location: 'Austin, Texas'
quote: >-
The Hoss eyed the deserted town square like a hungry mother vulture
hoping to catch a decaying carcass to feed her squawking young, for he
knew that as sure as a norther would blow in from the Rockies, though
actually the northers in these parts were usually coming from Canada,
sort of up around Lethbridge but not all the way to Banff, he knew that
Jimmy One-Tooth and his band of toughs would be back for their gold.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Greg Eastwood
location: 'Menora, Western Australia'
quote: >-
When Jimmy walked into the saloon the entire bar stopped and stared for
here was the only cowboy who could wear pants as white as the marrow
found in the neck of a well-roasted sheep, one that had been bled
properly first, not like the ones you get now.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Sarah Harris
location: 'White Rock, NM'
quote: >-
It was almost a dark and stormy night – not dark or stormy enough to be
called that but just the kind of sweaty night that makes your shirt
stick to your back and make you wish you were still at home with the air
conditioning and eating pig skins and watching the Martha Stewart trial
on T.V.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Runner Up
author: Jan Socie
location: Campbell CA
quote: >-
It was a barky and wormy night at Dr. Kilmore’s 24-Hour Veterinary
Emporium when, right in the middle of his 3:00 AM stool watch, Alberto
suddenly realized that, pound for pound, Shih-Tzus swallow more tennis
bracelets than most dogs twice their size.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Anna Rotenberg
location: 'Sao Paulo, Brazil'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night and the enormous orb spider-web, lodged
betwixt gigantic branches of the ancient oak, twinkled and sparkled
whenever lightning coruscated through the firmament, resembling an
ectoplasmic pizza studded with a million round, well cut, D, 50pt, FL
diamonds, so utterly beautiful any couturier would give his soul, or
even pay a small fortune, to be able to wrap it gracefully around the
skeletal body of a supermodel.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lawrence Person
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
After escaping the clutches of that crazy cult, it was going to take
more money than that to start a new life, but still, for one day’s work,
30 pieces of silver wasn’t bad.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sian Arthur
location: 'London, England'
quote: >-
When the time came for Timothy to fly the nest, he felt the best years
of his life were ahead of him, if only because he had spent the
childhood ones living in a nest.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
Head Coach Adams found himself in a quandary as he looked at the
scoreboard and saw that his team was going to win 41-13, and he
whispered to Phillips, who was the defensive coordinator, “I really
don’t know why the team plays so much better on grass, but it’s obvious
they do, so, for the sake of winning and our jobs, do I just turn a
blind eye and a deaf ear to their red eyes and constant laughter?”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Melina Costello
location: 'Portland, OR'
quote: >-
As Rachel glared at Clarissa dancing in her smart gilt cage, her jutting
decolletage going bubbuda bubbuda to the throbbing disco beat, Rachel
clutched the lamb shishkebab skewer she had hidden in her purse, a
weapon she now intended to use on Clarissa with deadly force once she
dislodged the last piece of Vidalia onion which stubbornly clung to it.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Milinda Banerjee
location: 'Kolkata, West Bengal, India'
quote: >-
It was from the primeval wellspring of an antediluvian passion that my
story arises which, like the round earth flattened on a map, is but a
linear projection of an otherwise periphrastic and polyphiloprogenitive,
non-planar, non-didactic, self-inverting construction whose obscurantist
geotropic liminality is beyond reasonable doubt.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Celeste Carano
location: 'Dublin, OH'
quote: >-
Struggling helplessly against the iron-clad clasp of the cruel and
unforgiving handcuffs, Penelope Innes stared into the eyes of her
remorseless sibling and bravely stated, “I’ll never clean the bathrooms
for you, nor aid you in any of your chores.”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Marsha Engelbrecht
location: 'Lafayette, LA'
quote: >-
Our story begins in the farthest reaches of the frozen tundra where, due
to the axillary convergence of the solar angle of incidence and the
latitudinal reflective attitude of the quiescent magnetospheric
photoreceptors, it stays light for a really long time.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Eileen Ostrow Feldman
location: 'Oakland, CA'
quote: >-
Holly had reached the age and level of maturity to comprehend the
emotional nuances of Thomas Wolfe’s assertion “you can’t go home again,”
but in her case it was even more poignant because there was no home to
return to: her parents had separated, sold the house, euthanized Bowser,
and disowned Holly for dropping out of high school to marry that
43-year-old manager of Trailer Town in Idaho – and even their trailer
wasn’t a place she could call home because it was only a summer sublet.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Walter Hamp
location: 'Sierra Vista, AZ'
quote: >-
On holiday in Paris, France, we watched the Parisians sing and dance and
soon they made us feel so good we fell into the festive mood of that
city’s cheerful pace that keeps a smile upon your face where there’s
such a lot to do and see, but it’s hard to find a place to pee.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Arthur Helm
location: Tucson AZ
quote: >-
With a shriek like a damned soul tormented by a thousand devils, or by
one really mean devil, not the underachiever kind that just stands idly
around occasionally providing a pitchfork poke to a soul turning on a
spit, but more like the kind that ducks ahead of you into Hell’s only
10-items-or-less aisle with thirteen items and spends all eternity
paying for them with an out-of-state check while standing on your toe
the whole time with his cloven hoof, yeah, that kind of devil, and that
kind of shriek: the vegetable-grater jammed on a particularly burly
spud.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brad Jolly
location: 'Longmont, CO'
quote: >-
When Red Murphy was named Coach of the Year, nobody was surprised, for
Red had taken a last-place baseball team and made them into champions in
just one year, and people said he turned more L’s into W’s than anybody
since Barbara Walters tried to read the “Luke Luck licks lakes” pages in
Dr. Seuss’ “Fox in Socks.”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Beth Knutson
location: 'Coon Rapids, MN'
quote: >-
Jane was toast, and not the light buttery kind, nay, she was the kind
that’s been charred and blackened in the bottom of the toaster and has
to be thrown a away because no matter how much of the burnt part you
scrape off with a knife, there’s always more blackened toast beneath,
the kind that not even starving birds in winter will eat, that kind of
toast.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Deanna Ledgett
location: 'Riverside, CA'
quote: >-
Outside, the rain fell ceaselessly, making a hollow sound on the old
slate roof – thwack, thwack, thwack – as the bare branches of the
ancient tree clawed at the panes of the mullioned window – scritch,
scritch, scritch – and the broken gate repeatedly slammed the gate post
– clack, clack, clack – while inside Edgar Blackmoor and his
apple-cheeked young cousin, Annabelle Gray, watched the old German clock
– tick, tick, tick – had their milk and tea – sip, sip, sip – and
diverted themselves with endless games of whist – slap, slap, slap.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Malinda Lingwall
location: 'Bloomington, IN'
quote: >-
As she contemplated the setting sun, its dying rays casting the last of
their brilliant purple light on the red-gold waters of the lake, Debbie
realized that she should never again buy her sunglasses from a guy
parked by the side of the road.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Elizabeth Metz
location: 'Cincinnati, OH'
quote: >-
I won’t delay this story with any fancy “Once upon a time” nonsense,
preferring to dive right in, like Pete Rose bowling over Ray Fosse at
home plate in the 1970 All-Star game at Riverfront Stadium, erupting a
controversy over the point of the All-Star contest since that infamous
slide did end Fosse’s season and compromise his career in a seemingly
pointless exhibition game, which was nothing compared to the subsequent
controversies surrounding Charlie Hustle’s tax fraud, betting habits,
and haircuts.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joanne Morcom
location: 'Calgary, Alberta'
quote: >-
Our story begins, as very few do, in the small but diabolically clever
town of Torrington, Alberta, where the Gopher Hole Museum, displaying 71
adorable yet eerie stuffed gophers dressed up to resemble the
townspeople, has attracted so many tourists that when a Torrington home
goes on the market, it sells in less than six years.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brian Nash
location: 'Derry, NH'
quote: >-
Penny was always there for me even when she was somewhere else because
we – Penny and me – were literally, though not really, two peas in a
pod: round, green – the naïve kind – and overall, well, pea-like; and
whilst our un-leguminous domicile was not pod-like, it was padlocked.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Caleb Ronsen
location: 'Kenmore, NY'
quote: >-
And thus spake the Lord unto Saint Dominic, who is numbered among the
lands as a baker above bakers, and said, “Ye shall bake it, and the span
of the crust shall be one span, and the thickness of the crust shall be
as of a thumb and the sauce shall be of fresh tomatoes for canned are
anathema unto My sight and the pepperoni shall be sliced thin and be of
meat from an animal that moos and thou shalt not use the meat of the pig
nor mix it with pineapple nor Spam nor shall ye use anchovies strong
enough to maketh even the angels gag and thou shalt deliver it anon
thirty minutes or else it shall be free.”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Barry J. Drucker
location: 'Wildwood, MO'
quote: >-
As darkening shadows skittered tentatively (yet progressively) atop the
rainforest canopy the way telemarketers do when they know you’re on a
no-call list, the proud parrot pondered avian atavism: “descendant of
vicious Velociraptors, I am become the Chicken Kiev of the jungle, a
curious cocktail of predator and prey;” and in the night, a jaguar
howled like Godzilla on helium – the bird stirred, but was not shaken.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rebecca Nagy
location: 'Hilliard, OH'
quote: >-
Harold Goldfinch froze, his fierce pride at having placed the last brick
on what would now be known as the biggest Lego metropolis ever built by
one man melting into terror, as from somewhere in the blue plastic
streets below him a tiny voice called out, “Hey buddy, where can a guy
get a drink in this four-color town?”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lou A. Waller
location: 'Norman, OK'
quote: >-
As Fiona slowly drew the heavy velvet curtain aside, her eyes smoldered
black, deep, and dark as inside the lungs of a coal miner, although it
would be black in anyone’s lungs if you could get in there because there
wouldn’t be any light, even in the pink ones of people who don’t smoke.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Kenyon
location: 'Toronto, Ontario'
quote: >-
“Failure” was simply not a word that would ever cross the lips of Miss
Evelyn Duberry, mainly because Evelyn, a haughty socialite with fire-red
hair and a coltish gait, could pronounce neither the letters “f” nor “r”
as a result of an unfortunate kissing gesture made many years earlier
toward her beloved childhood parrot, Snippy.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Geoff Alnutt
location: 'Philadelphia, PA'
quote: >-
It wasn’t the first time Dame Harriet Bundt had discovered a corpse in
someone’s drawing room, the head turned in a horribly bizarre,
unnatural, rictus-induced pose (so that she quietly retched into the
silent butler) and the teeny-weeny hole exactly four millimeters above
the right eye that had once oozed the bright red stuff of life, but
which now was as hard and brittle as the rock candy her grandfather used
to surprise her with every Wednesday, and it certainly wouldn’t be the
last.
'2004':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Dave Zobel
location: 'Manhattan Beach, CA'
quote: >-
She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight … summarily, like
Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp’s tail … though the
term “love affair” now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism … not unlike
“sand vein,” which is after all an intestine, not a vein … and that
tarry substance inside certainly isn’t sand … and that brought her back
to Ramon.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Pamela Patchet
location: 'Hamilton Beaconsfield, Quebec, Canada'
quote: >-
The notion that they would no longer be a couple dashed Helen’s hopes
and scrambled her thoughts not unlike the time her sleeve caught the
edge of the open egg carton and the contents hit the floor like fragile
things hitting cold tiles, more pitiable because they were the expensive
organic brown eggs from free-range chickens, and one of them clearly had
double yolks entwined in one sac just the way Helen and Richard used to
be.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Jeanne Villa
location: 'Novato, CA'
quote: >-
She sipped her latte gracefully, unaware of the milk foam droplets
building on her mustache, which was not the peachy-fine baby fuzz that
Nordic girls might have, but a really dense, dark, hirsute lip-lining
row of fur common to southern Mediterranean ladies nearing menopause,
and winked at the obviously charmed Spaniard at the next table.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Lyman Littlefield
location: >-
“Sights from the Long Tree”, Nauvoo Times and Seasons (November 15,
1841)
quote: >-
‘Twas morning – the sun rose under the brightest auspices, and the thin,
vaporous clouds that flitted in the heavens, continued gradually to flee
away before the gentle morning breeze, that seemed wont to greet their
golden visages with the soft rustle of its dewy wings – until not a
hand’s breadth of them were seen remaining to mar the spotless beauty of
the ethereal blue.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Siew-Fong Yiap
location: 'Kowloon, Hong Kong'
quote: >-
The legend about Padre Castillo’s gold being buried deep in the
Blackwolf Hills had lain untold for centuries and will continue to do so
for this story is not about hidden treasure, nor is it set in any
mountainous terrain whatsoever.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Melissa Rhodes
location: 'Cherry Valley, CA'
quote: >-
Lord Tarlington gazed upon the crazed Egyptian hieroglyphics on the
walls of the ancient tomb of the petrified pharaoh, he vowed there would
be no curse on him like on that other Lord, unless you count his
marriage to Lady Tarlington who, when the lost treasure was found, will
be dumped faster than that basket in the bulrushes.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Frances Grimble
location: 'San Francisco, CA'
quote: >-
Jack planted the magic beans and in one night a giant beanstalk grew all
the way from the earth up to the clouds – which sounds like a lie, but
it can be done with genetic engineering, and although a few people are
against eating gene-engineered foods like those beans it’s a high-paying
career to think about for when you grow up.
- category: Adventure
type: Runner Up
author: Milton Combs
location: 'Kingston, WA'
quote: >-
When Cinderella saw that the Prince had sent the Duke to find the woman
of his dreams, like some rich schoolboy who pays the smartest kid in the
class to do his homework, or worse, like someone who has been on welfare
so long that he has trouble doing any kind of work, she suddenly
realized the spoiled nature of the King’s son and stealthily slid the
slipper back into her pocket.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Cory Gano
location: 'Camas, WA'
quote: >-
As he entered the room within which so many a wild night of their
sweltering love affair had been spent, the White Rabbit regarded her
with benevolent eyes, her posture such that he suspected something was
wrong, but before he could speak Alice unburied her face from her
trembling hands and between her intense sobs he made out the words, “I’m
late … I’m late.”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: David Kay
location: 'Lake Charles, LA'
quote: >-
It was a stark and dormy night – the kind of Friday night in the dorm
where wistful women/girls without dates ovulated pointlessly and dreamed
of steamy sex with bad boy/men in the backseat of a Corvette – like the
one on Route 66, only a different color, though the color was hard to
determine because the TV show was in black and white – if only Corvettes
had back seats.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Runner Up
author: Gregory Snider
location: 'MD, Lexington, KY'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night – actually not all that dark, but more
dusky or maybe cloudy, and to say “stormy” may be overstating things a
bit, although the sidewalks were still wettish and smelled of ozone,
and, truth be told, characterizing the time as night is a stretch as it
was more in the late, late afternoon because I think Oprah was still on.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rick Sutherland
location: 'Depoe Bay, OR'
quote: >-
It was another dork and Stormy Knight – after snapping the last of his
palm dampened dollar bills into the frazzled elastic of her G string –
sent him packing precisely three-eighths of a mile down Highway 20 to
the spot where she’d promised him a glorious glimpse of self-awareness,
and where he would discover a slight depression in the asphalt and find
himself quizzically contemplating the adjacent Department of
Transportation sign that read simply: “Dip in Road.”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Joe Polvino
location: 'Webster, NY'
quote: >-
Detective Micky Blarke arrived on the scene at 2:14 am, and gave his
cigarette such a severe pull that rookie Paul Simmons swore the insides
of the detective’s cheeks touched, but the judge indicated that that
amount of detail was not necessary in his testimony, and instructed the
jury to disregard that statement.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Alaine Sepulveda
location: 'Las Cruces, NM'
quote: >-
The knife handle jutted from her chest like one of the plastic pop-up
timers in a frozen turkey, but from the blood pooling around the wound,
it was apparent that this bird wasn’t done.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jeonghyun Kim
location: 'Mount Waverley, Victoria, Australia'
quote: >-
After several minutes, Detective Wilson, standing over the lifeless,
tuxedo-clad corpse, the spandex tights it had been strangled with still
around its neck, realized that the poor ringmaster had simply been a
victim of circus dancers.
- category: Fantasy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Sandra Millar
location: 'Gowkthrapple, Wishaw, Scotland'
quote: >-
Gringran Roojner had only gone to see the Great Warlock of Loowith to
get his horoscope and he couldn’t believe he’d been sent on a quest for
the legendary Scromer of Nothleen to ask him for the answer to the
Riddle of Shimmererer so that he could give it to the Guardians of
Vooroniank, thereby gaining access to the Cave of Zothlianath where he
would find the seldom seen Cowering of Groojanc, whose spittle was an
absolute necessity in the making of the Warlock’s famous pound cake, the
kind with raisins.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Don Mowbray
location: 'San Antonio, TX'
quote: >-
Galileo Galilei gazed expectantly through his newly invented telescope
and then recoiled in sudden horror – his prized thoroughbred’s severed
neck, threateningly discarded in a murky mass of interstellar dust
(known to future generations as the Horsehead Nebula), left little doubt
about where the Godfather and his Vatican musclemen stood on the recent
geocentric/heliocentric debate.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Geoff Beech
location: 'Cochabamba, Bolivia'
quote: >-
Clementine sat in the shade of a beech tree, of the family Fagaceae, the
leaves of which were more or less ovate, being perhaps not quite as
pointed as those of the North American, grandifolia species of the Fagus
genus that are the color of a swimming pool that had been left too long
without chlorine, but neither were they like those of Fagus sylvatica
var. purpurea that are the color of dried burgundy stains on cream
linen.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Megan Z. Dinerman
location: 'King of Prussia, PA'
quote: >-
The cat’s whiskers twitched like the wings of a butterfly, not a large
butterfly like a monarch, but a small one, like an Eastern Pine Elfin,
which camouflages wonderfully with the bark of trees, not just pine
trees, but also elm trees, whose slender twigs wave in the early spring
breeze, looking like the twitching whiskers of the cat, which I have
just mentioned.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Ken Loomes
location: 'Winnipeg, Manitoba'
quote: >-
He heard a bang, well not really a bang but more of a crash with
metallic overtones of platinum-encrusted steel alloys, hammering against
unyielding iron and iridium plates; or maybe it was the clash of huge
nickel-zinc rods hitting molybdenum fused sheets of tantalum, then he
felt a stab of pain and heard another bang, and wished, instead of using
his extensive metallurgy skills to try and analyze the sound, he would
have run like hell when he first saw the gun pointed at him.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Georgia Gowing
location: 'Largs Bay, South Australia'
quote: >-
The terrible news had whisked around the becolumned courthouse like a
malevolent, stinking zephyr straight from the sewage works, and on the
gum-besmirched footpath, the hunch of lawyers cackled and cawed like a
group of very large, gowned, wigged, briefcase-clutching crows, or
perhaps ravens since they are of course the larger bird and some of
these lawyers were fairly sizeable.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Bridget Lyle
location: 'Walworth, NY'
quote: >-
She was a tough one, all right, as tough as a marshmallow – not one of
those soft sticky ones used in s’mores, cooked to a turn over a good
campfire, or even like the stale chewy type covered in yellow sugar and
found at the bottom of a three-week-old Easter basket – no, she was
tough like a freeze-dried marshmallow in kid’s cereal that despite being
shaped like a little balloon and colored a friendly pink are so rock
solid that they are responsible for the loss of more baby teeth than
most older siblings.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Gordon Hauptfleisch
location: 'San Diego, CA'
quote: >-
The day was packing heat and cracking wise as the scorching sun torched
the hot dry Santa Anas like fry on rice, crispy with a snap, crackle and
pop, and poured into the surreal bowl of the Los Angeles Basin as the
red winds rattled every dwelling from Bay City bungalow to Bel Air
chateau like a china shop in a bullring, the whole stinking, teeming
tinderbox as combustible as a drill sergeant at clown college, as
unsettling as corn on the cob rationing at an Iowa Society picnic.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Alaine Sepulveda
location: 'Las Cruces, NM'
quote: >-
Students often said that Dr. Storm’s lectures were duller than
dishwater, not the dishwater after a holiday meal with brightly colored
vegetable bits and shimmering glosses of vinaigrette, but the dishwater
after a Wednesday night macaroni dinner, when the cheese has
disintegrated into slime and the macaroni has become mush clogging the
drain.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: David Finch
location: 'Grass Valley, CA'
quote: >-
Stealth was the watchword as two shadowy figures trudged in moonlit
silence along the narrow pathway superimposed upon a boulder-littered
landscape, unwittingly approaching a slimy procession of slugs
vulnerably creeping at a snail’s pace, but heroically trying (quite
unproductively, one does not wonder) to scamper away from the crushing
footfalls of the insentient travelers who stumbled blindly toward a
destination which would not bid them welcome.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Fran Abram
location: 'Overland Park, KS'
quote: >-
Phoebe watched through the library window as the sun sank slowly in the
west, glowing like a ball of molten butter; not the phony margarine kind
of butter that left nothing but the taste of grease in your mouth, but
the real kind that pumped up your cholesterol and gave you a coronary,
when such heart-related musings forced her to glance down at Neville,
determine from the blue coloring of his skin that he really was dead,
and then pick up the telephone and say, “Operator, I believe my husband
is having a heart attack.”
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: David K. Lynch
location: 'Topanga, CA'
quote: >-
Looking up from his plate of escargots, Sean gazed across the table at
Sharon and sadly realized that her bubbly personality now reminded him
of the bubbles you get when you put salt on a slug and it squirms around
and foams all over the place, and her moist lips were also like the
slime on a slug but before you salted it, though after all these years
Sharon still smelled better than slugs, but that could have been the
garlic butter on her escargots.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Scott McIlhany
location: 'Bellingham, WA'
quote: >-
I first saw her from across the crowded dance floor, cedar I think, (as
if I can reference a specie of wood planks at a glance) I just know it
wasn’t that yellowish basketball court wood, the type with the glossy
veneer (now THAT, I could recognize), anyway, she had the refined
elegance and demure fragility of a really old Princess Leia.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Brian Nash
location: 'Derry, NH'
quote: >-
As she eased from our impassioned doorway kiss to slip into something
more comfortable, Julia’s warm breath caressed my face like a hot winter
blast from the foyer of a two-star restaurant where they try to warm you
up real quick so you’re more likely to go in all the way and eat their
food, only they leave you hanging by the “Please wait to be seated” sign
because they have to clean up your table from the previous customer.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Michelle Hefner
location: 'Bema, Victoria, Australia'
quote: >-
The scorched pasture, with its charred and smoking remains of dead
cattle, was the least of Jessica’s worries, and as she pondered her
shredded gown, newly shaved head, and the quickly disappearing spaceship
in the Nevada twilight, she realized if she were going to hitchhike back
to Carson City, she’d have to show a damn sight far more leg than she
had ever intended.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Rob Wyatt
location: 'Concord, NC'
quote: >-
The huge intergalactic cruiser – type 4843-56B, class PVT/X – which was
the color of an unripe blood-grapefruit (a sort of orangey-green like
the skin, not the deep fuchsia of the flesh in the middle) edged its way
carefully between the navigation buoys, which flashed intermittently
like a pair of warning lights outside of a fire house, except they were
more of a pinky-red rather than a dirty yellow.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Scott Palmer
location: 'Klamath Falls, OR'
quote: >-
Commander Svenson rolled quickly in the dirt, dodging the Pravakthian’s
arrow, firing his carbonizer pistol which projects high frequency
electricity provided by a small laser through a copper sheathed carbon
rod to produce a deadly projectile but it didn’t work so he threw it
away and reached for a rock that would.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: David Wyman
location: 'Goffstown, NH'
quote: >-
Criminy, thought Francine as she left the birthing center, if the baby’s
an unknown life-form, it probably means Ricky wasn’t really from West
Hartford, either.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Pat Merrill
location: 'San Anselmo, CA'
quote: >-
Sleepless in Seattle, sleepless in Schenectady, and now – damn her bad
luck – sleepless in this god-forsaken pit Brad assured her was a
perfectly lovely out-of-the way and darling older, but totally updated
and refurbished, accommodation flushed with sunlight and surrounded by
swirling blue waters in Seward named the Tide Ebola Inn.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Roger J. McNichols
location: 'Pearland, TX'
quote: >-
Hans sipped from his bottle of German Bru-hoff beer and idly read the
label: “Bru-hoff, a heady-nosed Rhine beer has a slightly briny pose,
and if you’ve ever drawn it, you would like the way it flows, but all of
the other Rhine beers, Dusen lagers, and thick ales, they never beat our
Bru-hoff in the yearly Rhine beer games.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Tom O’Leary
location: Covina CA
quote: >-
As Reynoldo lit the votive candle at the grotto for San Jose de los
Platanos and prayed for the healthy delivery of his first child, he
heard a disembodied voice say, “Your daughter will be 17 inches long,”
to which Reynoldo replied, “Do you know the weight, too, San Jose?”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Alan B. Combs
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
Alas, all he wanted was to be the best barber in the world, even if only
by a hair, but, alas, he found his ambition thwarted by a headlong rush
of fate and an unexpected side effect of his tonsorial skill – everyone
he served became strangely calmer and less argumentative, and he
discovered that people were coming to him only for his kinder cuts, this
barber of civility.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Patrick G. McNamara
location: 'El Dorado Hills, CA'
quote: >-
“This town’s not big enough for the two of us,” growled Slim Jenkins,
“but I think that if we can get the townspeople to agree to issue a bond
to annex the Carter Ranch, we can then incorporate and there should be
plenty of room for everyone.”
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Barry McAtee
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
It was hardtack and beans for the crouching cowboys in the lee of the
chuck wagon that stormy night when the wind flared the fire and the
light caught the trail boss’ leather-bound, barb-wire muscled face which
might have said, were he not the quiet sort, “Cookie, we should have had
more salads.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Geoff Blackwell
location: 'Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia'
quote: >-
The day dawned much like any other day, except that the date was
different.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Brugliera
location: 'W. Lebanon, NH'
quote: >-
The thing that goes back and forth inside the old grandfather clock
swung like a pendulum.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Barry Nester
location: 'Jerusalem, Israel'
quote: 'It was only a leaking pustule, but for Billy the Bacterium it was home.'
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ann Harper
location: Phoenix AZ
quote: >-
To her dismay, Julia found that her right hand seemed to be pulling her
into an increasingly horizontal position; first her wrist and forearm,
then her upper arm and shoulder, until her cheek lay on her shoulder,
leaving her to surmise that the handrail of the airport’s moving
sidewalk progressed at a more rapid pace than the sidewalk itself.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Heil
location: 'Las Vegas, NV'
quote: >-
Her pendulous breasts swung first to the left, then to the right and
finally in independent directions, much like semaphore signals, and
although he couldn’t understand semaphore, Kyle was sure they were
saying, “Never ride the Tilt-A-Whirl with your grandma.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Robert Salsbury
location: 'Spokane Valley, WA'
quote: >-
Kaitlynn looked like a woman who’d been used by more guys than a porta
potty at a burrito festival yet I loved her madly even if she wasn’t the
kind of girl you’d take home to meet mom unless mom was at her monthly
garden club meeting and dad was home alone mowing the lawn or cleaning
out the garage.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Christine Wilson Brancazio
location: 'Weirton, WV'
quote: >-
She was so delicate that her voice was a mere whisper and her hair
drooped in thinly clumped strands around her pale face with skin as
milky as a china plate painted the starkest white glaze and fired in a
kiln over 940 degrees Fahrenheit.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ben Connelly
location: 'Canberra, Australia'
quote: >-
Her breath came in short, urgent gasps as beads of sweat slowly
coalesced and slipped hesitantly over her lightly-tanned skin, leaving
glistening trails down a cleavage that was both feminine and primal
while her wide eyes betrayed a mind still struggling to accept that her
physical ordeal was over and that she had, in fact, caught the bus.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jason Dias
location: 'Colorado Springs, CO'
quote: >-
Africa: a land of deserts and jungles, a land of wars ancient and
recent, ravaged by disease and famine and yet the source of nine-tenths
of the world’s diamonds, a land of gigantic waterfalls and the great
Rift Valley, the very source of all humanity, a land 6000 miles away
from where this story takes place.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sean Griffin
location: 'Tacoma, WA'
quote: >-
The first time a boy stuck his tongue in her mouth, Jenny surrendered
completely to the invigorating intermingling of their spit – not the
Polidential spit of old age, nor the salivary excretions of middle-age,
with its tart hints of gingivitis even among those who floss daily, but
the invigorating drool of youth – spittle that dazzled the uninitiated
with its exquisite hints of promise, innocence, and bygone braces.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Guyot
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
“Let’s dance,” he uttered perfunctorily, his voice sounding to Meg
almost like tires on gravel, but more like tires on crushed shells, the
kind they use for driveways in Florida and parts of South Carolina, and
the tires being like big snow tires.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: P.S.Hamilton
location: 'Pearland, TX'
quote: >-
Franz made his way through the boulder-strewn alpine landscape stepping
warily over granite monoliths, some resting like bodies of wine-sodden
derelicts asleep in a railway station and others seemed already like
separable prefixes of German verbs lurking at ends of sentences like
crones from a Grimm tale ready to clutch a reader by his Lederhosen and
yank him back from the brink of reverie.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Allison Hazen
location: 'Washington, DC'
quote: >-
Myra pursed her silicone-filled lips in a pouty, sultry smirk that
whispered, “We have synergy, you and I,” like a man and his dog that
have begun to resemble one another after lazy summer days spent sharing
a common food dish and an antique, metal comb.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Denise Hendsbee
location: 'Santa Cruz, CA'
quote: >-
Stamp, stack, stamp, stack, stamp, stack, Rodney was going insane from
the monotony of the job and the cruel irony of being guest of the New
Hampshire penal system forced to read the words over and over: “Live
Free or Die,” “Live Free or Die,” “Live Free or Die.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mel Hughes
location: 'Jacksonville, FL'
quote: >-
“I’ve never done this before,“ she said softly, and she was trembling,
shaking really – shaking like a Harley-Davidson idling at a stoplight,
one of the ones with the old Evo-style engine, where people’s dentures
vibrated out as they rode – and yet when I touched her skin, it was
smooth and inviting like one of the new Harleys, the ones that copy the
Japanese engineering and use rubber mounts and counter-balancers … not
that I would know, because I ride a British bike anyway and haven’t been
able to get it cranked in nearly six years, which is why I was shaking
hands with her, because she owned a bike shop and had never touched a
Vincent Black Lightning.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michael Janicki
location: 'Middleton, WI'
quote: >-
After putting down her hometown newspaper from a small community in the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan (which makes one wonder why it is the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan since no part of their land touches the lower
portion of the state and in actuality they are connected to Wisconsin
which makes you think they should be the Upper Peninsula of Wisconsin
but that is to be discussed another day), Linda needed to find a
sympathy card to send to the family of someone she saw in the
obituaries.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Charles Jaworski
location: 'North Pole, AK'
quote: >-
Maynard Fimble was told that “you can’t compare apples and oranges,”
but, he thought, they are both eatable, grow on trees, are about the
same size, are good for you, have a peel, come in many varieties, and
are approximately round in shape, thus, to his horror and guilt, he
realized that he was comparing them and wondered what punishment awaited
him and on whose order.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tim Lafferty
location: 'Horsell, Woking, U.K.'
quote: >-
As Amy reached for the envelope her heart fluttered in anticipation like
the wings of a fruit bat that has eaten a fermented peach, and even
though she knew the statistic that you are more likely to be hit by a
meteorite than to win the lottery, she was still quite surprised when
opening the envelope to be hit by a meteorite.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Don Laursen
location: 'Grand Rapids, MI'
quote: >-
“Call me Ishmael,” Joanna finally began, a scant fourteen hours before
her book report was due, and she sympathized with him and reflected on
the likeness of the vast paper tome in front of her to the cetacean
antagonist immortalized within, or at least she would have if she’d had
any idea what the book was about.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sandie Lester
location: 'Maumelle, AR'
quote: >-
As she pointed the car due north like a needle on a boy scout’s compass
to head back to the frozen wasteland from which she had come, a light
rain began to drizzle down, forming hundreds – no thousands – of small
cat paw prints, as though a herd of invisible felines of all sizes and
ages with wet feet were jumping on the windshield, totally oblivious to
the fact that the car was traveling at a speed high enough to dislodge
any small animals from the front of the vehicle.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Debra Mann
location: 'Subbury, ON Canada'
quote: >-
Farmer Brown knew the moment he read the ransom note – the tiny, dirty
footprints, childish scrawl, and a spray of seed debris among the angry
peckmarks marring the paper’s surface – that the chickens had kidnapped
his beloved Bichon Friese Fifi, and that the only man who could help
him, George “The Chicken Whisperer” Fitzpatrick, was sleeping off a
killer hangover in the outdoor privy behind the pigpen.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Catherine Martin
location: 'Boston, MA'
quote: >-
As he pressed his heaving, moist, ineffable manhood closer to her
trembling porcelain bosom, Reginal Pompilious-Pomfret, Duke of
Sufferingdale, wondered, not for the first time, whether this Lady
Ashdown might not, in fact, be his sister, and resolved to confront
mater about the subject directly he finished slaking his Jovian lust
upon her ladyship.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Thomas Mills
location: 'Lorton, Virginia'
quote: >-
It was 11:59 A.M. according to the clock located on the lower right hand
side of his desktop display on his task bar (for Microsoft Windows XP
was the standard Operating System in use at his office) and life was
effectively over, as his one true love, his eternal soul mate, called
him from her Nokia 3130 cell phone by depressing and holding the three
key, using the soon-to-be-erased quick dial feature, to let him know
their passionate and tumultuous relationship had to end.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Karl Moeller
location: Tucson AZ
quote: >-
The dead make good neighbors; I mean, they don’t trot over at all hours
and beat upon one’s domicile door for a bit of sugar or whatnot; they
don’t accost one after church and press ragged tickets upon one for some
bally fete or another, nor bung off to Bath after dropping their beastly
pets for me to watch; no, as a whole, your graveyard corpse is a quiet,
peaceful sort of Johnnie.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nathan Murray
location: 'San Diego, CA'
quote: >-
Keith’s popularity as the first openly gay daredevil was rising quickly;
in fact, it was said he ate danger for breakfast, followed by a light
brunch of lemon scones, quiche, and the occasional Mimosa, and then he
was back to eating danger.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sharlini Nambiar
location: Kuala Terengganu Malaysia
quote: >-
If thoughts were threads, Melvin could have woven a multi-hued Persian
carpet that would have encircled the Equator 11.7 times over, because
that was how often he thought of Shelly, the girl he met at the library,
who was taking something out of her locker.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kent Neely
location: 'Edwardsville, IL'
quote: >-
Johnny’s first kiss with Melissa knocked him back on his heels like the
bass line of the “Theme from Peter Gunn” – an odd sensation since Johnny
wasn’t born until 1972 and Peter Gunn was over because Blake Edwards,
who created Peter Gunn, had begun the Pink Panther movies starring
another Peter, Peter Sellers, best remembered for his performance as
Chauncey Gardner in “Being There” but whose truly great role was in “Dr.
Strangelove” co-starring Slim Pickens who rides an atomic bomb to earth
where it explodes – and that was what Melissa’s first kiss was really
like.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Leslie Neumann
location: 'Ballston Spa, NY'
quote: >-
“Where to hide?” was Ovinia’s only thought as she raced madly across the
field outside Aberdeen and up a grassy incline, frantically seeking
escape from the man who was hell-bent on possessing her, on making her
his and his alone, having succumbed to her beauty, drawn into near
madness by the watery depths of her brown eyes and lured by the exotic
perfume of lanolin and newly-mown hay which wafted from her thick coat
as she grazed.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Allan Newell
location: 'Toronto, ON Canada'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, not so dark that one couldn’t see a
hungry Wallaby in a patch of wild gooseberries at fifty paces, nor
stormy enough that a severe weather watch had been issued by the
National Weather Services Department, but a dark and stormy night
nevertheless.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lawrence Person
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
As he felt the baseball bat connect firmly with the six-pointed Bar
Mitzvah pinata, spilling its glorious load of chocolate dreidels and
packages of neatly rolled polyester socks over him, Miguel Valdez
Liebermann knew that, at long last, he was finally a man.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Marx Prewett
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Sheila walked into the room, flaunting the kind of body that made grown
men wish they were teenagers, made teenagers wish they were grown men,
made toddlers wish they were preteens, made preteens wish they were
young adults, and made everyone wish editors swung blue pencils the same
way she swung her hips as she crossed the threshold of both the room and
bad taste, her breasts swaying like dual house-trailers on a windy
overpass.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joanne Rawson
location: Toledo OH
quote: >-
It was a bright, yet sunless day, which left a gray cast to everything
as Michelle, who went by Shellie because there were seven other girls in
her homeroom named Michelle, although three of them went by Shellie
also, looked for her pepper spray in her messy yet extremely fashionable
back pack.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ellen Rhudy
location: 'Marriottsville, MD'
quote: >-
The barren windswept plains beckoned to her like a forlorn lover,
calling, “Come here, come here,” but she thought, “Am I really dressed
right for this occasion, in my black Christian Dior business suit and
high heels, or should I run home real quick and change into something
more Little House on the Prairieish, like a gingham skirt, white ruffled
blouse, and high-button shoes?”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Juliet Toland
location: 'Ban Tinkhao, Muang Thailand'
quote: >-
On the eerily quiet morning of Friday the 13th, a strong Sixth Sense
told Bobbie-Jean it was time to quit her job as Quality Control Manager
at the Cracker Jack Plant, with which her other five quickly agreed that
she had smelled, touched, tasted, seen and heard enough of the stuff to
last an entire lifetime.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jim Waples
location: 'Wauwatosa, WI'
quote: >-
I woke up in Shirley’s father’s dog’s house – or at least most of me
did, because the house was ranch style as near as I could figure it and
Shirley’s father’s dog Tracey was one of those little terrier types with
the sardonic overbite and the haunted eyes of a Flamenco dancer.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Wyman
location: 'Goffstown, NH'
quote: >-
I will tell you a tale of great adventure like in “Treasure Island,”
with some smiles and some tears like in “Lassie Come Home,” some
treachery and some heroism, again, like in “Treasure Island,” some
romance and some betrayal like in lots of Shakespeare (“Romeo and
Juliet,” for example), and even – if the reader doesn’t mind – some
philosophy, but like the Chicken Soup books not like Spinoza or Plato or
anything.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Siew-Fong Yiap
location: 'Kowloon, Hong Kong'
quote: >-
Their eyes met across the crowded room and Morag smiled the smile of a
single, endearingly clumsy thirtysomething female with an unfulfilling
career, a gay best friend, a weakness for chocolate, and a talent for
accessorizing who had found Mr. Right but needed to break-up and have
fantastic make-up sex with him a couple of times before finally
realizing he was the one.
'2005':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Dan McKay
location: 'Fargo, ND'
quote: >-
As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg
carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet
pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold,
aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil
dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter
seven of the shop manual.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Mitsy Rae
location: 'Danbury, NE'
quote: >-
When Detective Riggs was called to investigate the theft of a trainload
of Native American fish broth concentrate bound for market, he solved
the case almost immediately, being that the trail of clues led straight
to the trainmaster, who had both the locomotive and the Hopi tuna tea.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Ken Aclin
location: 'Shreveport, LA'
quote: >-
India, which hangs like a wet washcloth from the towel rack of Asia,
presented itself to Tex as he landed in Delhi (or was it Bombay?), as if
it mattered because Tex finally had an idea to make his mark and fortune
and that idea was a chain of steak houses to serve the millions and he
wondered, as he deplaned down the steep, shiny, steel steps, why no one
had thought of it before.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Bryan Semrow
location: 'Oshkosh, WI'
quote: >-
Captain Burton stood at the bow of his massive sailing ship, his
weathered face resembling improperly cured leather that wouldn’t even be
used to make a coat or something.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Eric Winter
location: 'Minneapolis, MN'
quote: >-
It was high noon in the jungles of South India when I began to recognize
that if we didn’t find water for our emus soon, it wouldn’t be long
before we would be traveling by foot; and with the guerilla warriors
fast on our heels, I was starting to regret my decision to use poultry
for transportation.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Mitsy Rae
location: 'Danbury, NE'
quote: >-
When the great Italian archeologist, Giovanni Battista de Rossi, broke
through the centuries of choking rubble and rock in the abandoned
catacombs under Rome and the dust cleared, he held his blazing torch
high, pickup a flat, dirt-encrusted object with a row of teeth, examined
it with his educated eye, and exclaimed, “By the saints, I do believe
I’ve discovered another ancient kitty comb.”
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Shelby Leung
location: 'Dulwich Hill, NSW, Australia'
quote: >-
The woods were all a-twitter with rumors that the Seven Dwarves were
planning a live reunion after their attempted solo careers had dismally
sputtered into Z-list oblivion and it was all just a matter of meeting a
ten-page list of outlandish demands (including 700-threadcount Egyptian
cotton bedsheets, lots of white lilies and a separate trailer for the
magic talking mirror) to get the Princess Formerly Known As Snow White
on board.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Stephen Farnsworth
location: 'Manchester, U.K.'
quote: >-
When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be
celebrating his eleventy-first birthday, his children packed his bags
and drove him to Golden Pastures retirement complex just off Interstate
95.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
Because of her mysterious ways I was fascinated with Dorothy and I
wondered if she would ever consider having a relationship with a lion,
but I have to admit that most of my attention was directed at her little
dog Toto because, after all, he was a source of meat protein and I had
had enough of those damn flying monkeys.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: P.S. Hamilton
location: 'Pearland, TX'
quote: >-
The children of Hamelin were led away by a pied piper (it’s common
knowledge) to parts unknown; whither they went is now herein revealed,
however the precise location is cloaked in accordance with International
Fantasy Regulation IFR.02.3a governing site specifics as, for example,
in any Harry Potter story the locations are indeed identified, but just
you try and find them.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Vicki Nunn
location: 'Gladstone, Queensland, Australia'
quote: >-
“What are you doing in my bedroom at this time of night, Ernie, and why
are you grinning at me with those sharp teeth and how come you’ve been
spending so much time with the Count lately, and why has Big Bird
disappeared, and you should really do something about that breath, or my
name isn’t Bert the muppet.”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Kevin Hogg
location: 'Cranbrook, BC, Canada'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, although technically it wasn’t black or
anything – more of a gravy color like the spine of the 1969 Scribner’s
Sons edition of “A Farewell to Arms,” and, truth be told, the storm
didn’t sound any more fierce than the opening to Leon Russell’s 1975
classic, “Back to the Island.”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Kari A. Stiller
location: 'College Station, TX'
quote: >-
Patricia wrote out the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night” exactly
seventy-two times, which was the same number of times she stabbed her
now quickly-rotting husband, and the same number of pages she ripped out
of “He’s Just Not That Into You” by Greg Behrendt to scatter around the
room – not because she was obsessive compulsive, or had any sentimental
attachment to the number seventy-two, but because she’d always wanted to
give those quacks at CSI a hard time.
- category: Fantasy Fiction
type: Winner
author: SSG Kevin Craver
location: 'Fort Polk, LA'
quote: >-
“Why does every task in the Realm of Zithanor have to be a quest?”
Baldak of Erthorn, handyman to the Great Wizard Zarthon, asked
rhetorically as he began his journey to find the Holy Hammer of Taloria
and the Sacred Nail of Ikthillia so Baldak could hang one of Zarthon’s
mediocre watercolors, which was an art critique Baldak kept to himself
unlike his predecessor, whom Zarthon turned into the Picture Frame of
Torathank.
- category: Fantasy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Constance Barrett
location: 'Ruby, NY'
quote: >-
The dragon cast his wet, rheumy eyes, heavy-lidded with misery, over his
kingdom – a malodorous, rot-ridden swamp, with moss cloaking brooding,
gloomy cypresses, tree trunks like decayed teeth rising from stagnant
ponds, creatures with mildewed fur and scales whom the meanest roadside
zoo would have rejected – and hoped the antidepressants would kick in
soon.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Robert Peltzer
location: 'Baltimore, MD'
quote: >-
Sphincter, the gladiator, girded his loins in preparation for today’s
games, glad to be part of the season opener since he hadn’t been sure
until yesterday that his contract would be renewed, given his slump
during the Germans-versus-lions series but he knew that swatting Germans
into the lion’s pit was trickier than it looked and he told the
officials that they should look at his other stats, not just Huns batted
in.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Mark Hawthorne
location: 'Rohnert Park, CA'
quote: >-
A column of five hundred Roman foot soldiers – a column held together by
the plaster of courage – advanced on a teeming sea of rebellious slaves
– slaves who had, ironically, built most of Rome’s columns, although
they actually used lime and not plaster to cement the structures, and
though it is perhaps more historically precise to describe the soldiers’
column as bound by the lime of courage, that doesn’t really have the
same adventurous ring to it.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Alf Seegert
location: 'Salt Lake City, UT'
quote: >-
Wet leaves stuck to the spinning wagon wheels like feathers to a freshly
tarred heretic, reminding those who watched them of the endless movement
of the leafy earth – or so they would have, if only those
fifteenth-century onlookers had believed that the earth actually
rotated, which they didn’t, which is why it was heretical to say that it
did – and which is the reason why the wagon held a freshly tarred
heretic in the first place.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Rick Holinger
location: 'Geneva, IL'
quote: >-
Horatio Keelhaul sailed buoyantly up Cutter Street ironclad in his
resolve to torpedo the reviewer of his literary launches who threatened
his Titanic reputation with accusations of relying solely on nautical
parlance to propel his gondolaic characters through the sinuous canals
of his plots.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Kristin Harbuck
location: 'Bozeman, MT'
quote: >-
She walked toward him, her dress billowing in the wind – not a calm and
predictable billows like the sea, but more like the billowing of a
mildewed shower curtain in a cheap motel where one has to dance around
to avoid touching it while trying to rinse off soap.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Devery Doleman
location: 'Brooklyn, NY'
quote: >-
The night resembled nothing so much as the nose of a giant Labrador in
excellent health: cold, black, and wet.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Chris Bui
location: 'Pensacola, FL'
quote: >-
After months of pent-up emotions like a caffeine-addict trying to kick
the habit, Cathy finally let the tears come, at first dripping
sporadically like an old clogged percolator, then increasing slowly like
a 10-cup coffeemaker with an automatic drip, and eventually pouring out
and noisily wailing like a cappuccino maker complete with slurping
froth.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Tami Farmer
location: 'Rome, GA'
quote: >-
After she realized the man she had fallen in love with was her long lost
twin brother and they must break up immediately, they shared one last
kiss that left a bitter yet sweet taste in her mouth – kind of like
throwing up after eating a Junior Mint.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Lester Guyse
location: 'Portland, OR'
quote: >-
The rising sun crawled over the ridge and slithered across the hot
barren terrain into every nook and cranny like grease on a Denny’s grill
in the morning rush, but only until eleven o’clock when they switch to
the lunch menu.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: James Macdonald
location: 'Vancouver, B.C., Canada'
quote: >-
Mitzi’s wet T-shirt clung to her torso like paint on the nose cone of a
jumbo jet.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Barbara Bridges
location: 'Sierra Madre, CA'
quote: >-
Coincidentally, just as Rose hung out the third sheet out to dry, it
started to rain down in sheets and not the soft kind like a fine
400-count Egyptian cotton, but more harsh like a cheap poly blend but
even so, Rose didn’t notice as she was three sheets to the wind.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Gordon Grant
location: 'Savannah, GA'
quote: >-
The golden-haired dawn curled back the fading face of night in a
perpetual coiffure like an Ace comb in God’s hand parting the day,
making pompadours of mountains, crew cuts of Kansas wheat fields, and
trendy cuts of the oceans’ rolling waves.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Ed Buhrer
location: 'Louisa, VA'
quote: >-
As the sun sank low beyond the glistening horizon, even that far into
the dusk, the violent rays shot up from below, lighting up the
undersides of the clouds in magnificent oranges and golds, turning the
owls and bats and starlings black against the sky and sending chills
through Myrna, who paused from squeezing the last lactic acid from the
dripping curds inside the cheesecloth.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Alison Heft
location: 'Lititz, PA'
quote: >-
Our fearless heroine (well, mostly fearless: she is deathly afraid of
caterpillars, not the fuzzy little brown ones but the colossal green
ones that terrorized her while she was playing in her grandmother’s
garden when she was just five or six years old, which, coincidentally,
was also when she discovered that shaving cream really does not taste
like whipped cream) awakened with a start.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Glenn Lawrie
location: 'Chung-buk, South Korea'
quote: >-
Billy Bob gushed like a broken water main about his new love: “She’s got
long, beautiful, drain-clogging hair, more curves than an under-the-sink
water trap, and she moves with the ease of a motorized toilet snake
through a four-inch sewer line, but what she sees in me, a simple
plumber, I’ll never know.”
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Jere Hudson
location: 'Ashland, OR'
quote: >-
“Oh my God!” Amber whispered as the compressor throbbed to life,
shuddered rhythmically towards its inevitable conclusion, and shot
ninety pounds of sultry air through custom-bored, cold-drawn,
boss-lock-fitted crimp-couplings as Chuck Key glanced up with a smile
that only tire shop guys can smile.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Mary P. Potts
location: 'Bradenton, FL'
quote: >-
Sandra had waited and wished for Gary to come sweep her off her feet,
feeling just like Lois Lane waiting for her handsome, masculine Superman
to come fly her away from the humdrum of everyday life, but Gary had
never come, and so she’d ended up with Herman, a man as bald as Lex
Luthor with worse eyesight than Clark Kent and the maturity level of
Jimmy Olsen.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Keriann Noble
location: 'Murray, UT'
quote: >-
Looking sideways at Thomas, Mireille slowly removed her scarf, waiting …
hoping … praying that when he came close enough to smell the delectable
fragrance of her long, luscious waves that he wasn’t going to start
sneezing or sniffling or rubbing his eyes, because those were tell-tale
signs of his allergies acting up, and if they did, he would know that
she had been out rolling around in the lavender fields with Luc again.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Brendan Wright
location: 'Portland, OR'
quote: >-
Garwood dearly loved his time spent in the goat-house, where he could
court Thordia – regaling her with his prowess at treating goat-udder
growths, shoveling manure like a nuclear chemist trying to bottle the
Christmas spirit, and making the precious fermented limburger of the
lactate goat secretions.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Mary Potts
location: 'Oneco, Fl'
quote: >-
Long, long ago in a galaxy far away, in General Hospital born I was, and
quite happy were my parents, but when a youngling still I was, moved we
did.
- category: Spy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Charles Jaworski
location: 'North Pole, AK'
quote: >-
The double agent looked up from his lunch of Mahi-Mahi and couscous and
realized that he must escape from Walla Walla to Bora Bora to come
face-to-face with his arch enemy by taking out his .30-.30 and shooting
off his nemesis’ ear-to-ear grin so he could wave bye-bye to this
duplicitous life, but the chances of him pulling this off were only
so-so, much less than 50-50.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Jay Dardenne
location: 'Baton Rouge, LA'
quote: >-
Falcon was her name and she was quite the bird of prey, sashaying past
her adolescent admirers from one anchor store to another, past the
kiosks where earrings longed to lie upon her lobes and sunglasses hoped
to nestle on her nose, seemingly the beginning of a beautiful friendship
with whomsoever caught the eye of the mall tease, Falcon.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Jim Dehn
location: 'Clovis, CA'
quote: >-
Max thought the night-time burglary at the California surfing museum
would be a safe caper, but that was before he spotted the security cop
riding a bull mastiff, blond hair blowing in the wind, and noticed the
blue-and-white sign wired to the cyclone fence, “Guard dude on doggy.”
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Keriann Noble
location: 'Murray, UT'
quote: >-
As soon as Sherriff Russell heard Bradshaw say, “This town ain’t big
enough for the both of us,” he inadvertantly visualized a tiny
chalk-line circle with a town sign that said “population 1,” and the two
of them both trying to stand inside of it rather ineffectively, leaning
this way and that, trying to keep their balance without stepping outside
of the line, and that was why he was smiling when Bradshaw shot him.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Chip Haynes
location: 'Clearwater, FL'
quote: >-
It was high noon as Dusty rode into town, slumped low in the saddle on a
horse so blinded by thirst from their long days in the desert that you
could follow their slow shuffle to the local tavern by the hollow sound
of a horse head against the worn clapboard buildings that lined the
town’s only road.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Becca Mallary
location: 'Bradford, VT'
quote: >-
For the fifteenth time that evening my narcoleptic lover opened his
eyes, smiled at me, and said, “Good morning!”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mike Bender
location: 'Portland, OR'
quote: >-
The assassin drew his dagger – a simple line drawing in black ink on
rose-tinted vellum.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lawrence Person
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
Inside his cardboard box, Greg heated a dented can of Spaghetti-O’s over
a small fire made from discarded newspapers, then cracked open his last
can of shoplifted generic beer to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his
embarkation on a career as a freelance writer.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Harvey McCluskey
location: Vancouver WA
quote: >-
Derwin Thoryndike vowed to place a 14-carat engagement ring on the
finger of Glenda-Sue Ellington, so now all he had to do was save up
enough money to buy the ring, get it inscribed, and then locate a person
named Glenda-Sue Ellington and convince her to marry him.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Edo Steinberg
location: 'Beer-Sheva, Israel'
quote: >-
James found “Spider-Man 2” to be quite an average movie, like a
superhero episode of “Dawson’s Creek,” but not from the excellent first
season, nor from the horrible final seasons, but rather from somewhere
in the mid-run of the show, when it wasn’t as good as it used to be but
it didn’t totally suck yet.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Claudia Fields
location: 'Santa Barbara, CA'
quote: >-
Rocko Gallante was as slick as a broken egg on a linoleum floor and as
polished as a Washington apple that had been spit on and rubbed to a
gleaming finish on the tail of a very clean shirt.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Geoff Blackwell
location: Bundaberg QLD Australia
quote: >-
I peeled my body off the alcohol-soaked carpet, spat the cigarette butts
out of my mouth, licked my lips with a tongue that felt and tasted like
a rat that had been lightly sauteed in lighter fluid, and after
struggling to what a quick visual inspection confirmed were apparently
my feet, decided that the next time a seven-foot tall Lebanese fisherman
called Bottomless Mary challenged me to an ouzo-drinking contest I
wouldn’t wear suede shoes.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bill Crowley
location: 'Santa Rosa, CA'
quote: >-
They ask me if it was dark that night the hyenas showed up and ate the
little beagle as he sat typing away on his dog house and then ate all
the little round-faced kids, and I tell ‘em, “no,” it was not even
stormy, kind of a calm, half-moon lit night where you’d sit on your deck
having some peanuts, until the hyenas arrived of course and then it got
so noisy you had to go in the house.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Micheal Rossiter
location: 'Usworth, Washington, Tyne and Wear England'
quote: >-
It was Angela’s 96th birthday party, and as she leaned over to blow out
the candles on her cake and thought back on her long, long life, the
children she’d given birth to, the man she had married and then sadly
buried, she thought to herself, well no matter what at least I’ve grown
old with dignity, then the nursing home attendant pointed out that her
breasts were dipping in the trifle bowl again.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sam Gerring
location: 'Lexington, KY'
quote: >-
A warning to the reader: Tom dies in the end of the story so don’t get
too attached to him.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Hywel Curtis
location: 'Abercarn, Caerphilly, Wales'
quote: >-
“So you see,” concluded Lance, “there are certain things that every
woman regardless of personal situation should do at least once in their
lives and I am foremost amongst these things.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gordon Grant
location: 'Savannah, GA'
quote: >-
During the entire exhilarating, bright and lively day in the summer of
the year, when the clouds passed like cotton puffs high in the heavens,
I had been passing alone, in my Alfa Romeo, through exceptionally
appealing countryside; and finally found myself, in the gloaming of the
day, within view of the cheery prospect of the House of Sol Asher, my
old friend and haberdasher. (Apologies to E.A.P.)
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark D. Harmon
location: 'Knoxville, TN'
quote: >-
Charles stuck his head out the window, not fully realizing that the salt
air and warm breeze would have no beneficial effect on a head severed
and shrunk in Borneo and sold on a stick to tourists in Bali, and with
little thought of the irony of the former missionary’s vacant gaze on a
nude beach with at least two couples in the missionary position.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Lindley
location: 'Sheffield, England'
quote: >-
Anyone with a less refined air of unabashed insouciance would not have
been able to so easily slip through the security cordon, charm their way
past the armed guards, breeze through the marbled reception area and
blithely enter the inner sanctum of the UN Security Council and there
successfully negotiate an end to all conflict in the Middle East, but
that was the sort of man Nigel Simpkins was.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Audrey Jordan
location: 'Hope, IN'
quote: >-
We crossed America that week, the red states melding into the blue
states like stomped grapes along our route, leaving our tires with a
stain not unlike the stains on Lucy Ricardo’s feet when she stomped
grapes during the “I Love Lucy” episode in which the Ricardos and the
Mertzes visited Italy.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rita Kasperek
location: 'Oakland, CA'
quote: >-
You could tell it was going to be a perfect beach day, maybe the best
one all summer – when the air is the temperature of a gymnasium locker
room and the sea sways over the dunes like a yoga instructor doing the
downward facing dog.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nancy Lee
location: 'Chapel Hill, NC'
quote: >-
She was standing weepily at her father’s grave in the old family
cemetery, where the ancient headstones tipped and tumbled like a flock
of spring lambs, when she raised her weary eyes to see a shirtless man,
his mighty thighs clutching the loins of a raging steed whose breath
came hot as a desert wind, and made a mental note to get her hairdryer
repaired.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter Loughlin
location: 'Santa Rosa, CA'
quote: >-
The wheel of love had left its treadmarks in his chest once too often,
like a knobby mud tire on a monster truck, or like a really big ponce
wheel, the kind that tailors use to punch little holes in patterns and
that would leave lots of nasty little welts if you were to run it up and
down your arm.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mario Martinez
location: 'San Jose, CA'
quote: >-
She was independent and impetuous and winning her heart would be like
capturing lightning in a bottle, not the plastic kind that is prevalent
everywhere today but the glass kind that I used to buy crème soda in at
the service station, when they were actually SERVICE STATIONS, two
blocks from my house back in the 50’s and early 60’s and I would return
them for two cents deposit which was a quick source of income back then
because my allowance was only ten cents a week.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Stuart K. Allison
location: 'Driffield, East Riding of Yorkshire, England'
quote: >-
In considering the wisdom of entering upon an affair of the heart with
the redoubtable Miss Ffiona Sensuosa, MacFadden Perfidy weighed the
undeniable erotic advantages of such a confluence of physiologically
coinciding characteristics against the demonstrably unfortunate fact of
her exhibiting pronounced advantages over him in terms of wealth,
intelligence and personality, and concluded that their union could
possibly be inadvisable.
'2006':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Jim Guigli
location: 'Carmichael, CA'
quote: >-
Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one
small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to
reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while,
whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you
dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Stuart Vasepuru
location: 'Edinburgh, Scotland'
quote: >-
“I know what you’re thinking, punk,” hissed Wordy Harry to his new
editor, “you’re thinking, ‘Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only
five?’ – and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement;
but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world,
whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask
yourself one question: ‘Do I feel loquacious?’ – well do you, punk?”
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Irene Buttuls
location: 'Lytton, B.C'
quote: >-
Christy, lounging in the gondola which slipped smoothly through the
enveloping mist had her first inkling that something was afoot as she
heard pattering hooves below (for our story is not in Venice but
Switzerland with its Provolone and Toblerone) and craning her not
unlovely neck she narrowed her eyes at the dozen tiny reindeer, pelting
madly down the goat trail.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Christin Keck
location: 'Kent, OH'
quote: >-
She looked at her hands and saw the desiccated skin hanging in Shar-Pei
wrinkles, confetti-like freckles, and those dry, dry cuticles – even her
“Fatale Crimson” nail color had faded in the relentless sun to the color
of old sirloin – and she vowed if she ever got out of the Sahara alive,
she’d never buy polish on sale at Walgreen’s again.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Chris Harget
location: 'Campbell, CA'
quote: >-
It was a day, like any other day, in that Linus got up, faced the
sunrise, used his inhaler, applied that special cream between his toes,
wrote a quick note and put it in a bottle, and wished he’d been stranded
on the island with something other than 40 cases each of inhalers,
decorative bottles, and special toe cream.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Pat Hricko
location: 'Nicholson, PA'
quote: >-
The cold, cynical wind molested the auburn tresses of the fair damsel
clinging to the steel of the rail trestle, from which vantage point she
could see that it was a long way down to where she would land if she
fell, which, given the velocity she would attain and the unfriendly
pavement leering up at her, added to soft tissue’s low tolerance for
sudden impacts, would be a very bad thing.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Johnathan Munroe
location: 'Halifax, NS'
quote: >-
Gripping his six-shot Colt Python with 8-inch barrel and Royal Blue
finish, and tightening the straps on his Paratec Speed 2000 parachute,
Jake leaped from the left aft hatchway of the tumbling,
green-and-silver, twin-engined Embraer Lineage 1000, which had seating
for nineteen passengers.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Jeffrey Barnes
location: 'Atlanta, Georgia'
quote: >-
Todd languished there, neck deep in the pumpkin-hued Amargosa Desert
sand like a long forgotten cupcake in an Easy Bake Oven gone hellishly
amok, and it finally made sense … “ooohhhh, DEATH Valley.”
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Barbara Bridges
location: 'Sierra Madre, CA'
quote: >-
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe who had so much equity
(because our story, dear children, is set in Miami’s hot real estate
market) that she upgraded the exterior to blue suede siding as a tribute
to her idol, Elvis, moved her kids to a bootee out back, and then
reopened the place as the “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” motel (but you’ll
have to wait until you’re 18 to read any further).
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Derek Fisher
location: 'Ottawa, ON'
quote: >-
It was a dreary Monday in September when Constable Lightspeed came
across the rotting corpse that resembled one of those zombies from
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” except that it was lying down and not
performing the electric slide.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Linda Fields
location: 'Framingham, MA'
quote: >-
The victim said her attacker was nondescript – 5’ 10 and 3/4”, 163
pounds, with Clairol #83N hair (a hint of #84N at his temples) – and
last seen wearing Acuvue2 contacts, a white Hanes 65/35% poly-cotton
t-shirt with a 3mm round Grey Poupon stain on the neckband, Levi’s 501s
missing the second button, and Nike Crosstrainers with muddy aglets.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Ed Buhrer
location: 'Louisa, VA'
quote: >-
Nick Stiletto, a three-inch ash hanging from his generic P&Q-brand
cigarette, squinted through the wispy smoke across the nicked
linoleum-covered table at the man in the blue suit, wondering why he had
gone into private detection when he could have easily inherited his
father’s cat-stretching business in Peoria.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Bill Raftery
location: 'Glen Rock, NJ'
quote: >-
Dawkins leaned against the building to avoid both the November wind and
his prey and quietly congratulated himself for selecting his
calf-length, double-breasted trench coat in a 60 cotton/40 poly
left-hand twill weave with its wool felt collar, snug fitting belt with
gun-metal fittings, reinforced buttons and inverted back pleat for
repelling thugs and inclement weather.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Ben Ross
location: 'Lexington, NC'
quote: >-
“Christmas Eve fell upon the piazza, and the pealing, the tintinnabulous
pealing, (perhaps not a pealing but an incessant tinkling, albeit an
appealing incessant tinkling) of the street performers reached my ears,
masking the shot, which would have rung out had not the
tintinnabulations raised such an incessant tinkling that the sound died
as dead as the musician who fell like Christmas Eve at my feet – his
bell having been rung.”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Mary Hickey
location: 'Kirkersville, OH'
quote: >-
Detective Otto Slugbert liked to compare himself to a legendary chess
master, but his arch-enemy Bert Boswell often sneered that at best he
resembled a merely average player of Mille Bornes® or Tri-Ominoes®.
- category: Fantasy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Camille Barigar
location: 'Twin Falls, ID'
quote: >-
It was within the great stony nostril of a statue of Landrick the Elfin
Vicelord that Frodo’s great uncle, Jasper Baggins, happened to stumble
upon the enchanted Bag of Holding, not to be confused with the Hag of
Bolding, who was quite fond of leeks, most especially in a savory Hobbit
knuckle stew.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Christopher Backeberg
location: 'KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa'
quote: >-
While Hector and the heroes of Troy trembled behind the ramparts as
cowboys below the walls raced up and down the beach, six-guns blazing
and cries of “yee-hah!” filling the air, other cowboys across the sea
were laboring gamely but in vain to throw a palisade around Wichita,
Kansas, thereby adding veracity to the old homily of history that it is
easier to cow a fortified city than to fortify a cow city.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Carmen Fought
location: 'Diamond Bar, CA'
quote: >-
The McCain boys strode off proudly to fight in the Civil War, one for
the Union and one for the Confederacy, neither of them giving a single
thought to who would play them in the television movie of their story,
which would be decided more than a hundred years later by 20-something
casting agents who kept getting the Civil War and World War II mixed up.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Jim Guigli
location: 'Carmichael, CA'
quote: >-
When Debbie decided that Salt ‘n’ Pepper Beard was the most attractive
pirate on the ship, she realized that choosing him was due to the advice
of Sylvia, her new Life Coach, to be realistic about her own age and to
open herself up to romance where it lay, unlike the troublesome past
where she would have wished that only the younger pirates take advantage
of her.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Hubert Kennedy
location: 'Concord, CA'
quote: >-
If Gilbert had known then what he knew now, he would have seen that the
dilemma facing him – to do a good deed for the wrong reason or to do a
bad deed for the right reason – had long ago been shown to be two sides
of the same coin by the philosopher known as Theragora of Crete even
though he was not from Crete at all, but from Malta, which of course was
not called Malta when Theragora was there.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Daniel Kern
location: 'Boise, ID'
quote: >-
The king’s men breathed heavily under their thick black hoods as they
secured the wrists and ankles of prisoner William Tumey of Kent and as
the rack’s handle began to turn the ropes tightened and William’s limbs
were slowly stretched in opposite directions until his spine began to
pop much like a bag of Redenbachers in a microwave and for something
like the time it takes a hummingbird’s wings to complete one cycle
William smiled and euphorically languished in perfect lumbar alignment.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Bill Mac Iver
location: 'Berkeley, CA'
quote: >-
A single sparkling tear fell from Little Mary’s cheek onto the sidewalk,
then slid into the storm drain, there to join in its course the mighty
waters of the Los Angeles River and, eventually, Long Beach Harbor, with
its state-of-the-art container-freight processing facilities.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Pamela Patchet Hamilton
location: 'Beaconsfield, Quebec'
quote: >-
Her angry accusations burned Clyde like that first bite of a double
cheese pizza, when the toppings slide off and sear that small elevation
of the oral mucosa, just behind the front teeth, known as the incisive
papilla, which is linked to the discriminatory function of the taste
buds except, where Clyde was concerned, when it came to women.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Gerald R. Johnson Vancouver
location: WA
quote: >-
It had been a dark and stormy night, but as dawn began to light up the
eastern sky, to the west the heavens suddenly cleared, unveiling a pale
harvest moon that reposed gently atop the distant mesa like a pumpkin on
a toilet with the lid down.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Debra Allen Wichita Falls
location: TX
quote: >-
Lisa moved like a cat, not the kind of cat that moves with a slinky
grace but more like the kind that always falls off the book shelf when
he’s washing himself and then gets all mad at you like it’s your fault
(which it wasn’t although it probably was kind of mean to laugh at him
like that), although on the bright side, she hardly ever attacked
Ricky’s toes in his sleep.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Mary Barberio Northville
location: MI
quote: >-
Words cannot describe the exquisite loveliness of the brilliant azure
sky with its cerulean striations of periwinkle, cornflower, and cyan.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Ron Bird
location: 'Lakehills, TX'
quote: >-
As he saw his master approach, his tail wagged severely like an elderly
lady fanning herself with a cardboard fan with a Bible verse on one side
and a picture of Jesus on the other while singing hymn 567 from the
Common Book of Hymns on an August afternoon revival in southern Indiana.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Ron Bird
location: 'Lakehills, TX'
quote: >-
He rose quickly when she entered, not like the flag being raised at the
American Legion in a jerky fashion, but more like the light red Creme
Soda in the straw of a teenage girl or boy on the back porch of his
mobile home late in the evening.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Dennis Grace
location: 'Austin, Texas'
quote: >-
As I watched the sun rise through the wisps of smog like an angry
Scandinavian sumo wrestler clad in a gold lamé muumuu, riding an
arthritically slow escalator through the smoke of his own cheap panatela
to the linens and beddings floor at J C Penneys, I realized that upon
the orb’s overtopping the horizon, simple geophysics would deal that
metaphor a quick and far less painful death than it deserved.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Dwight Jenkins
location: 'Sun City, CA'
quote: >-
The nervous and untried exotic dancer seemed to cling protectively to
her brass pole like the edge of a roll of plastic wrap when you are
looking for the beginning of the roll and it seems like it’s healed up
or melted into the rest of the wrap until finally you just give up and
use foil or wax paper instead.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: T. Edward Lavoie
location: Essex Junction VT
quote: >-
The steam rose off his sweaty red flannel shirt like cotton candy on a
cardboard cone, if cotton candy were transparent in a misty sort of way
and didn’t actually stick to its cone, but instead rose upwards
something like steam rising off a sweaty flannel shirt in the twilight
of an early winter Vermont afternoon.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Jennifer G. Liggett
location: 'Stow, OH'
quote: >-
The widow Hasha Brown, whose agrarian husband had died from an
unfortunate accident involving a hoe, leaned on the filigree railing of
her balcony, overlooking her lavish, ornate Idaho estate, her dewy
breasts protruding from her Pucci-print dressing gown like subterranean
tubers saturated and distended from the vernal rains.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Stephen V. Masse
location: 'Medford, MA'
quote: >-
David loved Marisela’s voice, which was like fresh honeydew melon
wrapped in fine prosciutto, and pierced with a round, teal gourmet
toothpick, set on a Lenox Fruits of Life serving plate upon a mahogany
table in a brilliantly sunlit (albeit in need of redecorating) dining
room, but he wasn’t very fond of anything she said.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Katrina Medoff
location: 'Wilmington, DE'
quote: >-
The sun, which much resembled the yolk of a sunny-side up egg, set over
the slight hill like a cheerio falling off the back of a spoon when a
spoon is upside-down on a table and a cheerio is set on top of it.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Linda Shakespeare
location: 'Elk Grove, CA'
quote: >-
When he heard the woman upstairs scream, the Maytag man’s heart thumped
in his chest like an off-balance washer full of heavy bath towels.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Russ Winter
location: 'Janesville, MN'
quote: >-
Gray hung over the morning like a gauze bandage, the kind you wrap
loosely over an oozing wound to keep it covered but still let air in,
but the eastern sky reddened slowly, like the first signs of blood
poisoning moving up an arm.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Dennis Barry
location: 'Dothan, AL'
quote: >-
Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious
upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the
most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor
Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in
the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the
wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Dan Winters
location: 'Los Altos Hills, CA'
quote: >-
Sex with Rachel after she turned fifty was like driving the last-place
team on the last day of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race, the point no longer
the ride but the finish, the difficulty not the speed but keeping all
the parts moving in the right direction, not to mention all that
irritating barking.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Gordon Bassham
location: 'Andover, KS'
quote: >-
Our story begins with Raul, gently stroking Priscilla’s raven hair,
gazing into her coal-dark eyes, eyes that reminded him of the blackness
of the inside of a size 11½ D shoebox, which in turn reminded him he
needed to get his Bass Weejuns re-soled before that job interview next
week with the owner of the janitorial service.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Ted Begley
location: Lexington KY
quote: >-
Ramon kissed Juanita hard and fast, his tongue probing her mouth like an
urologist’s finger searching for a lone polyp on an engorged prostate
gland, which reminded Ramon that he needed to get a colonic irrigation
to make next week’s annual physical more pleasant for both him and his
doctor.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Janna Harris
location: 'Littlerock, CA'
quote: >-
Sylvia leaned seductively back in her chair and downed the shot of cheap
gin that Brad had poured for her, and speculated once again that, even
if it did taste like something you’d rub on a horse, it had the pleasant
side effect of softening Brad’s facial symmetry which had always
reminded her of the collapsed, pocked surface of a cheese quiche that’s
been cooked at too high a temperature.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Jeremy Perreaux
location: 'Sarnia, Ontario'
quote: >-
He loved her like no other, their romance developing quickly, like the
rapid growth of farm swine which grow from 2 to 4 pounds daily until
they’re fully grown and put to market for slaughter, or like the rapidly
growing cells that produce moose antlers until they fall off in early
spring, and suddenly Bill sensed the imminent doom of his romance lying
in wait.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Michael J. Sheehan
location: 'Cedar, MI'
quote: >-
Like a baleen whale inhaling krill – a collection of small marine
crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea – or an anteater sucking up
Formicidae – characteristically having wings only in the males and
fertile females and living in colonies that have a complex social
organization – her lips sought out mine in a passionate kiss.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Christopher Backeberg
location: 'KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa'
quote: >-
“Send a message back to Command Central on Earth and ask for their
advice, which we will be able receive immediately even at this great
distance, thanks to the ingenious manipulation of coherent radiation
through a Bose-Einstein condensate and the bizarre influence of the
Aspect effect, which enables us to impart identical properties to
remotely separated photons,” Captain Buzz told the feathered Vjorkog at
the comms desk, “and tell them our life-pod is going to explode in eight
seconds.”
- category: Science Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: Talha bin Hamid
location: 'Karachi, Pakistan'
quote: >-
It was just another day at the office aboard “StarCruise” until David
spotted a tiny speck in his passenger window, approaching from the
direction of the Masai Nebula and making a right angle with bisector of
the isosceles formed if you joined Bendy’s Star, Planet Anet, and White
Hole 14437-5A, but sighed peacefully as it turned out to be the
reflection of the fluorescent light swinging loose above Captain
Mudlove’s head.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Dick Davis
location: 'Circle Pines, MN'
quote: >-
As Johann looked out across the verdant Iowa River valley, and beyond to
the low hills capped by the massive refrigerator manufacturing plant, he
reminisced on the history of the great enterprise from its early days,
when he and three other young men, all of differing backgrounds, had
only their dream of bringing refrigeration to America’s heartland to
sustain them, to the present day, where they had become the Midwest’s
foremost group of refrigerator magnates.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: John L. Drost
location: 'Barboursville, WV'
quote: >-
Herr Professor Doktor Weiss’ reputation was made when he conclusively
proved the fraudulency of the Mayan codex that claimed to show that that
ancient people knew the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its
diameter to an exactitude unknown until modern times, in his article,
“Bye, Bye, Mesoamerican Pi.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Tracey MacDonald
location: Antigonish NS
quote: >-
Cheralynn posed before the unblinking mirror, panting weakly, as her
private surgeon hovered around her, tightening the straps on her
custom-made girdle, and it dawned on her for the first time in her
pampered, overindulged 49 years, that it was only a matter of time
before she would succumb to Furniture Disease, and her chest would fall
into her drawers.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Samuel Goldstein
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
His mistake, Shut-eye McBlamaway reflected, was not in standing up to a
gang of desperadoes and rustlers on the high country, but in standing up
to a gang of desperadoes and rustlers who had just left the set of a
Sergio Leone shoot, and were thus equipped with those guns that never
run out of ammunition.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Geoff Blackwell
location: Bundaberg QLD Australia
quote: >-
Butch glared balefully across the saloon at Tex, who had been stone dead
since the scorpion he had unwittingly sat on had bitten him on the butt
some half an hour or so ago, little suspecting that this was going to be
his toughest staring contest since the one against old Glass-eyed Juan,
during the great sand-storm of ’42, at the height of the Arizona
conjunctivitis epidemic.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Wayne Spivey
location: 'Major, USAF Retired, Huntsville, Texas'
quote: >-
As she sashayed out of the police station, her high heels clicking a
staccato rhythm on the hard tile floor, like a one-armed castanet player
in a very bad mariachi band, her ample bosom held in check only by a
diaphanous blouse, and bouncing at each step like a 1959 tricked out
Low-rider Chevy with very good hydraulics – she smiled to herself as she
thought of the titillating interrogation from Detective Tipple about the
Twin Peaks Melon Heist.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Stan Higley
location: 'Fairport, NY'
quote: >-
When she sashayed across the room, her breasts swayed like two house
trailers passing on a windy bridge.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Mark Schweizer
location: 'Hopkinsville, KY'
quote: >-
Although Brandi had been named Valedictorian and the outfit for her
speech carefully chosen to prove that beauty and brains could indeed
mix, she suddenly regretted her choice of attire, her rain-soaked
T-shirt now valiantly engaging in the titanic struggle between the
tensile strength of cotton and Newton’s first law of motion.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jim Lubell
location: 'Mechanicsville, Maryland'
quote: >-
Getting the performance rating of highly successful, although clearly
nothing to be ashamed of, left Blevins somewhat oddly dissatisfied, like
when you realize, upon having the triage nurses greet your ambulance,
that your underwear, as far as you can determine, is in pretty decent
condition, but you’ll, nonetheless, never pull through the surgery.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mary Montiel
location: 'Wichita, KS'
quote: >-
The goose waddled slowly, heavily, across the road, exactly the way my
mother-in-law would if she were a goose.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Terry Johnson
location: 'Tularosa, NM'
quote: >-
Kathy, who had bound her breasts and cropped her hair, and lied about
her gender to join a monastery of Jesuits in northern Kentucky, until
she was discovered one night in the shower, winced as the dentist pulled
her tooth.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Stephen E. Moore
location: 'Edmonds, WA'
quote: >-
A Lodgepole Pine grew straight and tall in front of his cabin, sort of
like a lodgepole, only with branches.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: >-
Buck was reminded of his lifelong dream of becoming a brilliant
veterinary surgeon
location: >-
a dream he’d vacuum-packed to his heart since watching a crime show
about a rash of unsolved tail dockings on the Isle of Man. — Leslie
Muir, Atlanta, GA
quote: >-
As diaphanous curlicues of tobacco smoke tumbled gracefully in the
honky-tonk air – like double-jointed gymnasts from the spirit world
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Carl C. Partlow
location: 'Rancho Cucamonga, CA'
quote: >-
Withdrawing his hand from her knee, the English professor stormed,
“Ending a sentence with a preposition is the sort of nonsense up with
which I will not put,” although she had merely looked at his hand and
asked, “What are you doing that for?” in a sentence intended to end the
proposition.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lawrence Person
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
Frank took one look at Tina’s moderately shapely legs, her adequate
waist, her decent bosom, and her not-unattractive face, and said to
himself ”Well, hello Miss You’ll-Do-Until-Something-Better-Comes-Along!”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Matt Fidiam
location: 'Soquel, CA'
quote: >-
Yet again Imelda was exacerbated, or at least she assumed she was, as
she was never sure exactly what the term meant though when she felt
bloated and crampy as she was now, she was pretty sure she was,
exacerbated that is.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Richard A. Polunsky
location: Houston TX
quote: >-
Twas brillig, and the toves were not just slithy, they were stinking
drunk.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Robert Salsbury
location: 'Spokane Valley, WA'
quote: >-
“Please Jeffrey, don’t tell him this time” a beautiful woman, with eyes
like cobalt fire, implored of me as she staggered obviously a bit tipsy,
if not completely obliterated, out of the Wagon Wheel Tavern and onto
West Fourth Street and blinking twice from the afternoon sun managed to
slink past me and into the arms of a fellow who I’m guessing was
Jeffrey.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Cathy Bannister
location: 'Kaleen, Canberra, Australia'
quote: >-
Ah, yes, it was a beautiful face with skin smoother than pumice and
breath fresher than a twenty-five-day-old tuna sandwich stored for safe
keeping in a Wichita schoolgirl’s lunchbox, and I found myself beset,
nay, overcome, with twin urges: to ravish her there and then on the cash
register, or to slough off the skin of my calloused feet on the stubble
of her chin.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mariann Simms
location: 'Wetumpka, AL'
quote: >-
Houses dotted the landscape in the small village where Hans lived …
somewhat resembling a Monet painting … although he wasn’t really the
father of pointillism … but since it did directly offshoot FROM
impressionism, it would still be appropriate; plus, the fact his name
was Hans, made it seem all the more in keeping with the overall theme.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Wilson
location: 'New Albany, IN'
quote: >-
The day was like any other, except that this was a Wednesday so it was
really only like 1/7th of the other days.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Charles Wells
location: 'Albuquereque, NM'
quote: >-
Her romance ended, not a quick separation but like the gradually fading
white dot on one of those old black-and-white vacuum tube TVs when it’s
turned off; and she was glad, because she felt uneasy in his arms and
required as many adjustments to the “horizontal hold” and “vertical
hold” as when she would stay up late watching scary shows like “Twilight
Zone” and “Outer Limits” long ago.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Caedman Oakley
location: 'Auckland, New Zealand'
quote: >-
Her moans and sighs stoked the fire of his libido more, engineers to the
red-hot locomotive of his lust.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Terrë Yuki
location: London
quote: >-
Maybe it was because he was feeling dizzy after the four litres of crème
de menthe he’d drunk, or perhaps it was because the day had started with
his slippers exploding completely unexpectedly as he ate his cornflakes,
but, as Anthony looked behind him for the fortieth time, walking home
from the bar, he could have sworn he was being followed by a large
silver-backed gorilla.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Beth Worrall
location: Australia
quote: >-
Gripping the handle of the knife carefully, Vanessa made a nervous
incision in the body on the table, wondering vaguely if she was anywhere
near the heart as the surgeon, her work-experience supervisor, flicked
vaguely through the latest “Who magazine” that was placed over the head
of the patient, and in taking a deep drag of her filtered 16-milligram
noticed that, if the Oscars were anything to go by, orange was back in
again.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lori Yates
location: 'Kezier, OR'
quote: >-
I saw her from across the room and knew I had to meet her, not because
of her ample bosom, or her full lips, or her beautiful creamy skin, or
the way her hair was twisted into a nice tight bun, or the buttoned-up
blouse that begged to be torn off her body, or the skirt that was
perhaps a size too small, but because she was my kid’s teacher and I was
here for the parent-teacher conference.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Bailie
location: 'Chicago, IL'
quote: >-
Her eyelashes fluttered like the windshield wipers of an
eighteen-wheeler on the Ohio Turnpike when the weary-eyed driver is
trying to have at least some vision in a heavy August rainstorm that is
like an Appaloosa urinating on solid asphalt.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Stephen Farnsworth
location: 'Manchester, England'
quote: >-
Hardly a day passed without poor Matilda looking back on her life and
ruing that fateful day she decided that to cut her toenails with her
father’s scythe to make up that extra four minutes she had wasted
listening to “Muskrat Love” by the Captain & Tennille.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Andy Otes
location: 'Frenchs Forest NSW, Australia'
quote: >-
“Grasshopper, the three secrets of life are as follows: first, keep your
eyes and ears open; second: don’t tell everything you know.”
'2007':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Jim Gleeson
location: 'Madison, WI'
quote: >-
Gerald began – but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him
ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a
ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for
them “permanently” meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by
searing lava or suffocated by choking ash – to pee.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Scott Palmer
location: 'Klamath Falls, OR'
quote: >-
The Barents sea heaved and churned like a tortured animal in pain, the
howling wind tearing packets of icy green water from the shuddering
crests of the waves, atomizing it into mist that was again laid flat by
the growing fury of the storm as Kevin Tucker switched off the bedside
light in his Tuba City, Arizona, single-wide trailer and by the time the
phone woke him at 7:38, had pretty much blown itself out with no damage.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Andrew Cavallari
location: 'Northfield, IL'
quote: >-
LaVerne was undeniably underdressed for this frigid weather; her black,
rain-soaked tank top offered no protection and seemed to cling to her
torso out of sheer rage, while her tie-dyed boa scarf hung lifeless
around her neck like a giant, exhausted, pipe cleaner recently discarded
after near-criminal overuse by an obviously sadistic (and rather
flamboyant) plumber.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Tim Lafferty
location: 'Horsell, Woking, UK'
quote: >-
As the hippo’s jaws clamped on Henry’s body he noted the four huge teeth
badly in need of a clean, preferably with one of those electric sonic
toothbrushes, and he reflected that his name would be immortalized by
his unusual death, since hippo killings are not a daily occurrence, at
least not in the high street of Chipping Sodbury.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: P.C. Burchard
location: 'San Diego, CA'
quote: >-
“This is no time for safety,” Lance Steele thought to himself as he
raced in hot pursuit of the evildoer through the cold night along the
narrow road winding through the desolate twisting pass, the smell of
burnt rubber rising from the macadam and the occasional spark bursting
from the gravel heaved against the titanium guard rail, and he wished
that he had remembered to turn the oven off, and that he were not on
foot and wearing his new Florsheims.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brad R. Frazer
location: 'Boise, ID'
quote: >-
Miss Cardinal mused over the singularly decadent manner in which Master
Hammond consumed the steak and kidney pie and was reminded of the
practices of certain cannibalistic tribes with whom she had lived during
her travels in Borneo, not New Guinea, although New Guinea is certainly
nice this time of year, despite the fact steak and kidney pie is rarely
served there, at least not the kind made from sheep or cows.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Allison Kelly
location: 'Great Falls, VA'
quote: >-
Agent 53986262.9 was strapped precariously to a giant Chinese firework,
the fuse slowly shortening like a noodle getting slurped into someone’s
pursed lips, and although he knew he was running out of time and still
had no plan for escape, all he could think of was the song about the
Muffin Man and how the word “polyurethane” made it sound like the
material was made out of multiple urethras.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dave McKenzie
location: 'Federal Way, WA'
quote: >-
Danny, the little Grizzly cub, frolicked in the tall grass on this sunny
Spring morning, his mother keeping a watchful eye as she chewed on a
piece of a hiker they had encountered the day before.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Julie Jensen
location: 'Lodi, CA'
quote: >-
Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was Polartec 200 (thanks to gene
splicing, a diet of force-fed petrochemical supplements, and regular
dips in an advanced surface fusion polymer), which had the fortunate
side effect of rendering it inedible, unlike that other Mary’s organic
lamb which misbehaved at school and wound up in a lovely Moroccan stew
with dried apricots and couscous.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Veronica Perez
location: 'Palm Springs, FL'
quote: >-
Out of a hole in the ground popped a bunny rabbit which had a long thick
orange carrot between its teeth and a big splotch of mud on its back
that had dried into a dirt clump the size of a tumor.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Bob Millar
location: 'Hässelby, Sweden'
quote: >-
I’d been tailing this guy for over an hour while he tried every trick in
the book to lose me: going down side streets, doubling back, suddenly
veering into shop doorways, jumping out again, crossing the street,
looking for somewhere to make the drop, and I was going to be there when
he did it because his disguise as a postman didn’t have me fooled for a
minute.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Mark Schweizer
location: 'Hopkinsville, KY'
quote: >-
She’d been strangled with a rosary – not a run-of-the-mill rosary like
you might get at a Catholic bookstore where Hail Marys are two for a
quarter and indulgences are included on the back flap of the May issue
of “Nuns and Roses” magazine, but a fancy heirloom rosary with pearls,
rubies, and a solid gold cross, a rosary with attitude, the kind of
rosary that said, “Get your Jehovah’s Witness butt off my front porch.”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Katie Alender
location: 'Studio City, CA'
quote: >-
What shocked Juliette as she entered the room was not that there was an
escaped convict under her coverlet snuggling with her best teddy bear,
but that there was a knife through his back, “And who,” she wondered out
loud, steadying herself against the faux-taffeta wallpaper, “would stab
a teddy bear?”
- category: Fantasy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Celine Shinbutsu
location: 'Hino City, Tokyo, Japan'
quote: >-
Lady Guinevere heard it distinctly, a sharp slap, as if a gauntlet had
been thrown, and yet it was hardly plausible that she, perched
delicately on the back of her cantering steed, should be challenged to
ride faster, since protocol determined that Arthur should ride in front,
then she, then Lancelot, for that was the order prescribed by Merlin,
ever since he invented the carousel.
- category: Fantasy Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: Michael L. VanBlaricum
location: 'Santa Barbara, CA'
quote: >-
Hiram had been a three-toed dragon, well on his way to a promotion to
Imperial five-toed dragon, when he accidentally choked on the pink
chiffon scarf of Princess Chloe’s hat, and his coughing set the new
oaken parapet, on the old stone bulwark, ablaze, thereby earning a
demotion to Troll 3 – now his only responsibility was to keep billy
goats off the bridge.
- category: Fantasy Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wayne McCoy
location: Gainesville Fl
quote: >-
At Elvenheim there was great joy, in that the legendary Ring of the
Nordlings had been retrieved from the evil Sudlings by the hero Bill
Baggydrawers, who it must be said looked nothing like a hero, at least
none I’ve ever seen, and the Ring had once again been placed on the
middle finger of the left hand of the Elvenking, who did rather resemble
a king, even if his buck teeth made him look for all the world like a
great rabbit.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Neil Prowd
location: 'Charnwood, ACT, Australia'
quote: >-
Samson looked in the mirror and, when he saw what a fantastic haircut
Delilah had given him, he went weak at the knees.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Wayne McCoy
location: Gainesville Fl
quote: >-
Professor Radzinsky wove his fingers together in a tweed-like fabric,
pinched his lips together like a blowfish, and began his lecture on
simile and metaphor, which are, like, similar to one another, except
that similes are almost always preceded by the word “like” while
metaphors are more like words that make you think of something else
beside what you are describing.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Brent Sheppard
location: 'Morganton, NC'
quote: >-
The highway coiled up and around the mountain like a snake ready to
strike because it was being harassed by one of those annoying guys on
“Animal Planet.”
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: John O’Byrne
location: 'Dublin, Ireland'
quote: >-
Marilyn’s main feature was her mountainous breasts, with an associated
sharp ravine of cleavage – the breasts not awesome like Everest, but
like one of the Highland peaks near Balquhidder, where the notorious
outlaw Rob Roy spent his last days.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Randy Wilson
location: 'New Albany, IN'
quote: >-
There was a numbing chill in the air – harsher than a localized
anesthetic, far less jarring than your average epidural, but still
effective at creating that tingly sensation which often precludes a
general lack of feeling in one’s extremities or sometimes leads to
uncontrollable drooling if administered within the confines of a
dentist’s chair.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Lisa Lindquist
location: 'Jackson, MI'
quote: >-
The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife, not even a sharp
knife, but a dull one from that set of cheap knives you received as a
wedding gift in a faux wooden block; the one you told yourself you’d
replace, but in the end, forgot about because your husband ran off with
another man, that kind of knife.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Jack Mac’Kie
location: 'Naples, Florida'
quote: >-
The inebriated sailor cast himself into the safe harbor of the diner,
and once he had run aground in one of the orange Formica booths, without
a nod of recognition or greeting brought the distracted waitress into
the present by ordering in a voice both blustery and belligerent the
vegetable soup, an unctuous amalgam of the kitchen’s leftover odds and
ends sunk in a sulfurous sea of brine.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Richard Preddy
location: 'London, England'
quote: >-
The car headlights were pale – like a struck match viewed through a
piece of smoked glass which you think you remember using to watch a
solar eclipse around the time Alison and the children were still living
here, which would have been the year before you got the job at the
all-night bakery, twenty humid summers ago – because the alternator was
faulty.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Russell Wren
location: 'Amsterdam, The Netherlands'
quote: >-
His feelings for Lydia became a jumbled mess, like when the pen slips
out of the hole on a Spirograph wheel, ruining the drawing you have been
working on for hours, or possibly, the pen running out of ink during the
process, snagging and tearing a hole in the 110# cover rated vellum of
his heart.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Amber Dubois
location: 'Denver, CO'
quote: >-
She had curves that just wouldn’t quit, like on one of those car
commercials where a stunt driver slides a sexy new sports car around
hairpin turn after hairpin turn while some poor musician, down on his
luck and having been forced to sell out his dream of superstardom for a
lousy 30-second ad jingle, sings “Zoom, zoom, zoom” in the background.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Michael A. Cowell
location: 'Norwalk, CA'
quote: >-
Her hair was the color of old copper, not green with white streaks like
you see on roofs and statues where birds have been messing, but the kind
you find on dark pennies from back in the nineteen-forties or fifties
after God knows how many thumbs have been rubbing Abe Lincoln’s beard.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Pamela Hibbert
location: 'Crowthorne, Berkshire, England'
quote: >-
Stanley frowned, his brow wrinkled like the furrows of a newly ploughed
field in the far reaches of East Anglia, England’s prairie, when the
mighty Massey Ferguson has just completed its traverse of God’s good
soil in the heat haze of a late August afternoon, and wondered for the
umpteenth time where on earth he had left his reading glasses.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Kathleen Luisa
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The moon rose in the east, a thin, yellow sliver like a fingernail
ripped off with a jagged edge that goes to the quick and hurts like the
dickens, making Selena wince as she looked on from Dirk’s strong embrace
and, recalling the last time she clutched at something so hard she broke
a nail, brooded as she remembered that tomorrow was her annual pap
smear.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Christopher D Brunkhorst
location: 'Oxford, NJ'
quote: >-
Karl awoke with a start, his heart pounding away like a drum, not a well
mannered tympani such as one might hear in a Boston Pops rendition of
“Also Sprach Zarathustra” but rather more like a snare drum in the hands
of Terry Bozzio during the time when he was performing with Frank Zappa.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Philip Bateman
location: 'Kenilworth, South Africa'
quote: >-
As her quivering lips met his, and her eyelashes fluttered softly on his
sweating cheek, Dr Robbins reflected, “I didn’t realize she had upper
dentures … in fact, her slippery plastic palate reminds me of going down
a waterslide that hasn’t been properly chlorinated, as evidenced by the
distinct nitrous and sulfurous emanations, or could it be sinus
trouble?”
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Tracy Stapp
location: 'Santa Ana, CA'
quote: >-
There was a pregnant pause – as pregnant as Judith had just told Darren
she was (about seven and a half weeks along), which was why there was a
pause in the first place.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Pamela Patchet Hamilton
location: 'Beaconsfield, Quebec, Canada'
quote: >-
She clung to the memory of their love like those tiny bits of used
tissues he always left in his pockets, which mostly ended up in the
dryer lint basket although enough of them welded themselves to her
favorite navy blue, polar fleece pullover, rendering it as permanently
flawed and unappealing as his name tattooed on her butt.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Bill Kerschbaum
location: 'Ann Arbor, MI'
quote: >-
He held her desperately in his arms and stroked her silken hair, and as
he drew her full red lips to his, he ravenously smothered her with lots
of smooches.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Linda Morgan
location: 'Manassas, VA'
quote: >-
Ruthanne felt as though she was frozen in time, staring into Steve’s
eyes, deep turquoise pools of Tidy-Bowl blue, reflecting back the deep
passionate love that Ruthanne felt in her heart because Steve certainly
didn’t feel anything, being in a coma as he was, so what Ruthanne had
reflected back to herself was what she herself felt, bouncing off
Steve’s eyes, because there was absolutely zip going on behind those
eyes.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Ann Medlock
location: 'Lenah Valley, TAS, Australia'
quote: >-
What a pity Dave was too young to have seen “2001: A Space Odyssey,” for
he might have been able to predict what would happen next, when the ape
standing next to the big black slab picked up the tapir bone.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Mike Bollen
location: 'Brighton, UK'
quote: >-
“So that was your Earth emotion ‘love’,” gasped Zyxwlyxgwr Noopar, third
in line to the holo-throne of S-6, as he hosed down his trunk and
removed the shallots.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Gary Smith
location: 'Florissant, CO'
quote: >-
Racing through space at unimaginable speeds, Capt. Dimwell could only
imagine how fast his spaceship was going.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Karl Scott
location: 'Brisbane, Australia'
quote: >-
I was in a back alley in Fiji, fighting desperately and silently for my
life, fighting desperately for oxygen, clawing at the calm and almost
gentle pressure of the fabric held over my face by implacable, ebony
thighs when I realized – he was killing me softly with his sarong.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Kevin P. Craver
location: 'Lakewood, IL'
quote: >-
The droppings of the migrating Canada geese just missed the outdoor
revelers at the inaugural Asian math puzzle competition, marking the
first time that dung flew over Sudoku Fest.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Ed Harrison
location: 'Lyman, ME'
quote: >-
He was often found lurking behind the bakery, begging for scraps and
practicing his rap, which is why he was known locally, as the synonym
bum.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: David K. Lynch
location: 'Topanga, CA'
quote: >-
Upon discovering that his chief executioner Dr. Szekely had been
secretly releasing prisoners, Vlad the Impaler ordered him to be
skewered on one of the good doctor’s own fiendish spears, when suddenly,
not recognizing the type of wood that was slowly advancing through the
screaming victim, the nutty Romanian ruler quipped “What’s up doc?”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Joe Wyatt
location: 'Amarillo, TX'
quote: >-
A rather youthful Billy Joel was fascinated when he entered the Green
Room at the Tonight Show and saw a group of matronly nuns hastily
applying hair color to the noggin of the show’s next guest, Neil Young,
whose agent offered an explanation from the corner of the room: “Only
the good dye Young.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Frank Kahren
location: 'Danville, CA'
quote: >-
Determined to slip the leash, Everett reflected upon his folly, for he
had followed the dusky Doberman of his desire into the kennel of lust,
telling himself that here, at last, was the perfect pedigree for him,
only to learn that she was a Bichon wheels.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Glenn Lawrie
location: 'Chungnam, South Korea'
quote: >-
The easy and comforting roll of the saddle was second nature to Luke,
and as he gazed off into the distant setting sun, he wondered whether he
had enough change for one more ride at the supermarket before he had to
return to the home.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Syler Womack
location: 'Eustace, Texas'
quote: >-
Slim pulled the branding iron away from the yearling’s seared flank and
looked up to see Tuffy Edwards, the boss’s daughter, trotting towards
him on her sorrel mare, Brandi, wearing absolutely nothing but tight
blue jeans and a green tank top – her gi-normous, heaving, unrestrained
hooters resembling nothing so much as a pair of fat Charolais heifers
trying to beat each other through a loading chute.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Terry Drapes
location: 'Taipa, Macau'
quote: >-
A par on the final hole would clinch the U.S. Open for the in-form Tiger
Woods but, in truth, this mattered little to Herbert Cruddle as a
gigantic wave swept him over the side of his floundering shrimp trawler.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: JL Strickland
location: 'Valley, AL'
quote: >-
Morty, a dedicated track and field athlete, was disqualified and charged
with animal cruelty after giving Viagra to his 20-foot boa constrictor
and using the snake to pole vault.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wayne Spivey
location: 'Huntsville, TX'
quote: >-
Nothing looked good on the two young celebrities, Scarlett Johansson and
Kiera Knightly, as they posed on the cover of a fashion magazine, with
their lips the color of a Big Ben Hybrid Teas Rose, and flawless
complexions, but they could not compare to the one with Jennifer Lopez
with her smoky gray diaphanous blouse, high heels, and a black leather
belt that would leave a nasty red mark if she were to spank you with it.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lupe Amezquita
location: 'San Jose, CA'
quote: >-
The stench would have been too much for most people to take, but Karl
was used to it, having served as a Mess Specialist on board the “U.S.S.
Constitution,” an aircraft carrier that launched planes off its deck
like so many maggots off a hot skillet.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Steve McAllister
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
His hat fit his head as snugly as a manhole cover does the thing it fits
into.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mr. William J. Harvey
location: 'Midwest City, OK'
quote: >-
The small boat pitched violently upon the heaving bosom of the ocean,
causing Johnson to reflect that, although he generally liked bosoms, he
was getting really tired of the ocean’s bosom, and wished that it would
at least drop from a 44D to a 34B.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jim Holman
location: 'Gresham, OR'
quote: >-
As master luthier Francesca turned the night-black ebony tuning pegs of
her latest creation, a flamenco negra guitar with glowing palosanto back
and sides, she thought about Vicente, his manly left hand soon caressing
this same fretboard in an outpouring of mournful tarantas and
siguiriyas, and at that very moment her g-string snapped.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Patrick Baker
location: 'Caledonia, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
Joshua was as dumb as a bunny and not at all like the egg-carrying one,
more like the one who has never gone to middle school, or even the
schools at either end.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michael D. Bess
location: 'Nashville, TN'
quote: >-
The poetry teacher’s bullet-riddled body lay sprawled on the verandah
floor like a patient etherized upon a table.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jonathan Blay
location: 'Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada'
quote: >-
There was only one thought in Kurt’s mind as his trembling hand and
timid fingertips edged closer to the neck of Annabelle’s silk blouse,
his heart pounding ever faster in syncopation with her panting breaths,
gentle cries coming from her slightly-parted lips, her pleading eyes
wide with a primitive emotion – if only he’d kept a tighter hold on that
gerbil.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Roger Bond
location: 'Whittlesea, Victoria, Australia'
quote: >-
Clark Kent, in his alter ego known as Superman, the Man of Steel,
huddled deep into the doorway to escape the pelting spring shower, well
knowing that wearing wet clothes for any length of time would give him
surface rust, which he would have to remove by bathing in dilute
phosphoric acid, and then sanding with 400-grit wet-and-dry sandpaper.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Katy Brezger
location: Dowagiac.MI
quote: >-
Allison sipped her tea as she thought about the Isabella Rosselini types
– tiny, fragile, etiolated, willowy creatures of ethereal beauty whose
delicate spaghetti-strapped sundresses seemed to hover about a quarter
of an inch above their skin, while Alison’s sundress cut into her flesh
at the straps and bound at the waist or it ballooned out like the muumuu
it really was.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ray Campbell
location: 'Redwood Shores, CA'
quote: >-
Hector had just met Sabina minutes before, and yet there they were,
knees touching, faces just inches apart in the dimly-lit room, and her
gazing deep into his eyes, which should not have been a surprise to
either of them given that she was an ophthalmologist and he was a boxer
whose left retina may have become detached the night before when “Mad
Dog” Washington clocked him with a vicious right cross.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ellen Diamond
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
It was pleasant for Zandra to remember the beach at Cannes where she and
Jean-Yves had lain, his pianist hands touching her in patterns of the
Rachmaninov he’d played at Languedoc, to recall the scent of his
lavendar mosquito repellant, his deep laugh when she’d said: “Tu es le
premier homme pour jouer la musique classique sur mon estomac,” and his
reply: “C’est dommage, Zandra.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Cale Dempster
location: North Las Vegas
quote: >-
Maurice slathered on the cherry colored lipstick continually, like some
transvestite from a low-budget, 70’s rock opera, and plotted his next
escape attempt, as he watched carefully once again while the
absent-minded guard turned the knob to his prison with such ease, and
cursed his Creator for giving him a luscious, silver, hairy back, but no
opposable thumbs.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Terry Drapes
location: 'Taipa, Macau'
quote: >-
Miles Otterman thought he could get away with carving his initials on
the old oak tree in the town square – and he just might have if Sheriff
Mitchell hadn’t recognized his MO.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Janina Eggensperger
location: 'Conway, AR'
quote: >-
If you think that the resemblance between the characters in this book
and any person living or dead is only coincidental, you’re just not
trying hard enough.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Linda A. Fields
location: 'Framingham, MA'
quote: >-
“Send an ambulance; I’m glistening profusely … bosom heaving . . .
luscious, ripe orbs threatening to burst the seams of my black lace
bodice … pulse galloping apace like a knight’s sleek steed … exquisite
pain radiating down my graceful, alabaster arm, shooting upward to the
finely chiseled jaw … I shall swoon – oh, my address?” the romance
writer gasped into the phone before collapsing.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Marc "Zeke" Kossover
location: 'San Francisco, CA'
quote: >-
It was dark that night, dark as the hood of a black ’77 Firebird and
with the same glossy feel as rain had washed the Big Easy, but New
Orleans did not seem any cleaner, just hot and sweaty like the back of a
French Quarter stripper.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Barbara Lauriat
location: 'Oxford, England'
quote: >-
Everything about Randy proclaimed him to be a man’s man, though neither
in the sense of being the kind of man women are drawn to and men want to
be nor in the homosexual sense, rather, in the sense of being a highly
efficient and well-compensated valet.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Frank Leggett
location: 'Sydney, NSW, Australia'
quote: >-
Jake entered the small suburban bank, his face as cold and frozen as
Theodore Roosevelt’s on Mount Rushmore while at the same time his sweaty
hands clenched and unclenched nervously in his pockets like one of those
fast motion movies of flowers blooming and dying, to open a savings
account.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ella Meumann
location: 'Lenah Valley, Tasmania'
quote: >-
As the budgies and parrots descended upon him, Rolf began to regret his
decision to wear an outfit made entirely of cuttlebones; unfortunately,
this was the first of many a fashion faux-pas resulting from Beatrice’s
none-so-sensible advice.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Leslie Muir
location: 'Atlanta, GA'
quote: >-
Cooter – prone to deep cogitation when troubling bouts of constipation
resulted in long-winded visits to the loo – reflected sentimentally on
the oft underrated pork rind, envisioned its golden “pigmentation,” its
pleasingly rough exterior where marriage of deep fryer to fat-rendered
skin hath borne progenies of crispy bubbles, deceptive in their
parchment-skinned fragility – in reality a coordinated cacophony of
crunch hitherto unmatched in the snack world.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Steve Petermann
location: 'Plano, TX'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, although according to meteorologists
since the lightning density on the satellite imagery for the area was
only about 0.5 strikes per square mile, it wasn’t stormy, and according
to members of the American Society of Cinematographers because the
lights from the city reflected off the clouds and created about 13
lumens of light, it didn’t really fit the technical definition of dark.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paula Price
location: 'California, MO'
quote: >-
My tongue moistened my parched lips and my stomach started to churn as I
hungrily admired Leslie’s hair, which loosely resembled my great aunt
Betty’s daughter Cornelia’s famous tuna casserole – brown, dry and crisp
around the edges, yellow and creamy in the center with just a hint of
grease spilling out over the top.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tom Rohde
location: 'Minneapolis, MN'
quote: >-
With “Bambi” eyes and an angelic face made for singing “The hills are
alive” while traipsing across an Alpine meadow, Heidi Weissbrot seemed
as pure as driven snow to older folks around Peach Blossom, but among
boys her own age, there was a nasty rumor that her purity was more akin
to snow driven to the river in dump trucks after being scraped from
roads and parking lots.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wendy Spoelstra
location: 'Hamilton, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
The crater of the volcano glowed red against the black sky, looking as
if God had taken a drag of His cigar – if He smoked – which of course,
He didn’t.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dan Stuart
location: 'Burlington, VT'
quote: >-
John lay in the morning dew next to his sleeping love as the pink hues
of the sun rose over the rolling hills, illuminating a tender scene
where for the first time satisfaction had come for a happy couple, who
had fought all manner of obstacles to come to this one glorious moment,
defiant in the face of Montana’s repressive bestiality laws.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jessamyn Sudhakaran
location: 'New Boston, OH'
quote: >-
“I love the library,” Hilary said for no particular reason except to
hear her own soft voice among the myriad of books which contained
characters as familiar and recognizable to her as the neighborhood bum
she passed everyday, who looked like Ted Danson when he dressed up as
Dracula in Three Men and a Little Lady.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Graham Thomas
location: 'St Albans, Hertfordshire, England'
quote: >-
When Marcel sank his dentures into the tarte frappée aux moules
demi-tantalisées à la provençale to be suffused not with a pot-pourri of
gilded remembrances of infancy, nor with vignettes of past hurly-burlies
on the chaise longue, but with a bland mélange of ephemeral insipidities
of quotidian contemporaneity, “That takes the biscuit,” he thought,
“Madeleine’s forgotten the salt, again.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mary Ann R. Unger
location: 'Ewing, NJ'
quote: >-
The Archbishop, imprisoned for ten years in various palaces where he was
called “Traitor” instead of Christoph, returned home amid cheers of
those who knew his happiness and stature soon would be cut short by the
sword of the Black Knight, who was actually quite pale since sunlight
doesn’t penetrate armor, chain mail, and woolen underwear.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Matthew Warnock
location: 'Elgin, IL'
quote: >-
Dane worked the Spyrograph furiously, first red, then green, then red
again, and finally blue; the pattern he sought was in there somewhere,
and the correct combination would open the doors to a euphoria only
known to dogs getting their stomachs scratched and parakeets viewing
themselves in the mirror.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Shane Spears
location: 'Blytheville, AR'
quote: >-
“I’ll have a pack of cigarettes please, no, Marlboro 100’s … lights
please, in a box, yeah, no, wait, give me a soft pack, no, not those,
the ones right above them, no, no, right next to those, yeah, wait, make
it two packs, no wait, how much are they … no, one pack will do me, and
a lighter please, no the other one, yeah, that one will be fine,” he
said quickly.
'2008':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Garrison Spik
location: 'Washington, D.C.'
quote: >-
Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and
like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their
bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through
manhole covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”—
Garrison Spik, Washington, D.C.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Shannon Wedge
location: New Hampshire
quote: >-
Leopold looked up at the arrow piercing the skin of the dirigible with a
sort of wondrous dismay – the wheezy shriek was just the sort of sound
he always imagined a baby moose being beaten with a pair of accordions
might make.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Dave Ranson
location: 'Calgary, Alberta'
quote: >-
“Die, commie pigs!” grunted Sergeant “Rocky” Steele through his cigar
stub as he machine-gunned the North Korean farm animals.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Tim Ellis
location: 'Haslemere, U.K.'
quote: >-
Joanne watched her fellow passengers – a wizened man reading about
alchemy; an oversized bearded man-child; a haunted, bespectacled young
man with a scar; and a gaggle of private school children who chatted
ceaselessly about Latin and flying around the hockey pitch and the
two-faced teacher who they thought was a witch – there was a story here,
she decided.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Domingo Pestano
location: 'Alto Prado, Caracas, Venezuela'
quote: >-
Dorothy had reasons to be nervous: a young girl alone in a strange land,
traveling with three weird, insecure males badly in need of psychiatric
help; she tucked her feet under her skirt to keep the night’s chill (and
lewd stares) away and made sure one more time that the gun was secured
in her yet-to-develop bosom.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Neil Prowd
location: 'Charnwood, ACT, Australia'
quote: >-
I’m convinced that the Doc is dealing drugs to most of the mining crew
because they either can’t stay awake, constantly sneeze, grin like
maniacs, or won’t look you straight in the eye (not to mention behaving
like a moron) and they wonder why a dwarf gets grumpy!
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Robert B. Robeson
location: 'Lincoln, Nebraska'
quote: >-
Mike Hummer had been a private detective so long he could remember
Preparation A, his hair reminded everyone of a rat who’d bitten into an
electrical cord, but he could still run faster than greased owl snot
when he was on a bad guy’s trail, and they said his friskings were a lot
like getting a vasectomy at Sears.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Russ Winter
location: 'Janesville, MN'
quote: >-
The hardened detective glanced at his rookie partner and mused that who
ever had coined the term “white as a sheet” had never envisioned a bed
accessorized with a set of Hazelnut, 500-count Egyptian cotton linens
from Ralph Lauren complimented by matching shams and a duvet cover nor
the dismembered body of its current occupant.
- category: Fantasy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Alex Hall
location: 'Greeley, CO'
quote: >-
“Toads of glory, slugs of joy,” sang Groin the dwarf as he trotted
jovially down the path before a great dragon ate him because the author
knew that this story was a train wreck after he typed the first few
words.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Simon Terry
location: 'Broadfield, Crawley, West Sussex, U.K.'
quote: >-
As she watched the small form swing backwards and forth from the crystal
chandelier – hands on hips, sniffing the air and squeaking inaudibly –
it suddenly became clear to Madame de Pompomme that she had done the
wrong thing asking Jacques to find and bring back her long-lost sister:
for, whilst her coterie would doubtless be enchanted for a short while,
the novelty of Janine having been raised by bats since the age of two in
caves of the North-west Congo would soon wear off in seventeenth-century
France.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Edo Steinberg
location: 'Beer-Sheva, Israel'
quote: >-
Our tale takes place one century before the reign of Alboin, the Lombard
king who would one day conquer most of Italy and who would end up being
murdered by his own wife (quite rightfully, I’d say, since Alboin made a
drinking cup out of her daddy’s skull and forced her to drink from it),
when our little Sonnebert was seven years old.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Christopher Wey
location: 'Pittsburgh, PA'
quote: >-
The mongrel dog began to lick her cheek voraciously with his sopping wet
tongue, so wide and flat and soft, a miniature pink fleshy cape soaked
through and oozing with liquid salivary gratitude; after all, she had
rescued him from the clutches of Bernard, the curmudgeonly one-eyed
dogcatcher, whose own tongue – she remembered vividly the tongues of all
her lovers – was coarse and lethargic, like a slug in a sandpaper
trenchcoat.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Graham Thomas
location: 'St Albans, Hertfordshire, U.K.'
quote: >-
The complementary crepuscularities of earth and sky shrank away from one
another as the roseate effulgence of a new dawn burst forth, not unlike
a reclining pneumatic beauty’s black silk stocking splitting apart at
the seam to reveal the glowing radiance of an angrily sun-burned leg.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Jim Thomas
location: 'Gilbert, AZ'
quote: >-
The pancake batter looked almost perfect, like the morning sun shining
on the cream-colored bare shoulder of a gorgeous young blonde driving 30
miles over the speed limit down a rural Nebraska highway with the rental
car’s sunroof open, except it had a few lumps.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Jeanne Villa
location: 'Novato, CA'
quote: >-
Bill swore the affair had ended, but Louise knew he was lying, after
discovering Tupperware containers under the seat of his car, which were
not the off-brand containers that she bought to save money, but
authentic, burpable, lidded Tupperware; and she knew he would see that
woman again, because unlike the flimsy, fake containers that should
always be recycled responsibly, real Tupperware must be returned to its
rightful owner.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Beth Fand Incollingo
location: 'Haddon Heights, N.J.'
quote: >-
Like a mechanic who forgets to wipe his hands on a shop rag and then
goes home, hugs his wife, and gets a grease stain on her favorite
sweater – love touches you, and marks you forever.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Leslie Muir
location: 'Atlanta, GA'
quote: >-
He was a dark and stormy knight, and this excited Gwendolyn, but
admittedly not as much as last night when he was Antonio Banderas in
drag, or the night before that when he was a French Legionnaire who
blindfolded her and fed her pommes frites from his kepi.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Bruce Portzer
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
Carmen’s romance with Broderick had thus far been like a train ride, not
the kind that slowly leaves the station, builds momentum, and then races
across the countryside at breathtaking speed, but rather the one that
spends all day moving freight cars around at the local steel mill.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Joe Schulman
location: 'Cartersville, GA'
quote: >-
Timothy Hanson, Commander of the 43rd Space Regiment in the 52nd
Battalion on board the USAOPAC (United Space Alliance Of Planets Attack
Carrier) and second in command to Admiral L. R. Morris of the USAOP
Space Command, awoke early for breakfast.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Mark Murata
location: 'Kirkland, WA'
quote: >-
Lightning flashed from the blue-black sky of this alien world and
shattered the engines of the spaceship, destroying Reninger’s last
chance of escaping and reminding him of the time his sister returned
from New York with the tips of her hair dyed blue, except for the part
about the lightning and the spaceship.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Gregory Homer
location: Sacramento CA
quote: >-
The dual-headed Zhiltoids from Beta Quadrant in the Crab Nebula, who
lived entirely on a diet of steaming hot asphalt, thought they had died
and gone to heaven upon landing in the Midtown Mall of Fresno,
California on the planet Earth during the month they called “July”.
- category: Spy Fiction
type: Winner
author: John R. Cooper
location: 'Portland, Oregon'
quote: >-
Special agent Mark Park’s strong chin and firm mouth showed that he was
a man to be reckoned with, while his twinkling blue eyes revealed
surprising depths of kindness and humor, the scar on his cheek a past
filled with violence and danger, and his left ear a fondness for M and
Ms, but only the red ones.
- category: Spy Fiction
type: Winner
author: David Potter
location: 'Nagoya, Japan'
quote: >-
The KGB agent known only as the Spider, milk solids oozing from his
mouth and nose, surveyed the spreading wound in his abdomen caused by
the crushing blow of the low but deadly hassock and begged of his
attacker to explain why she gone to the trouble of feeding him tainted
milk products before effecting his assassination with such an inferior
object as this ottoman, only to hear in his dying moments an escaping
Miss Muffet of the MI-5 whisper, “it is my whey.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Becky Mushko
location: 'Penhook, VA'
quote: >-
Vowing revenge on his English teacher for making him memorize
Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality,” Warren decided to pour sugar
in her gas tank, but he inadvertently grabbed a sugar substitute so it
was actually Splenda in the gas.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Michael L. VanBlaricum
location: 'Santa Barbara, CA'
quote: >-
The Jones family held their annual family reunion on Easter going
through over six dozen spiral-cut, hickory-smoked hams and several
bottles of a fine Australian shiraz, before Farmer Jones, the head of
the family, took the leavings back to Manor Farm to slop Napoleon and
his other champion hogs but the seventy-six ham bones fed the pig’s
tirade.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Matthew Chambers
location: 'Parsons, WV'
quote: >-
Jan Svenson, having changed his fortune in the annual “Scandinavian King
of the Beach” in Santa Cruz with a bottle of black hair coloring and
thus standing out in a sea of fair-haired rivals to win the coveted
title, realized the ironic truth of the old adage "That in the kingdom
of the blonde, the one dyed man is king."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Jay Dardenne
location: 'Baton Rouge, LA'
quote: >-
Dimwitted and flushed, Sgt. John Head was frustrated by his constipated
attempts to arrest the so-called “Bathroom Burglar” until, while wiping
his brow, he realized that each victim had been robbed in a men’s room,
thereby focusing his attention on the janitor, whose cleaning habits
clearly established a commodus operandi.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Alec Kitroeff
location: 'Psychico, Greece'
quote: >-
Nell Gwynn, a descendant of the famous English actress and friend of
King Charles II, decided she would help French aristocrats, who were
being decimated by the guillotine during the French Revolution, cross to
safety in England by hiding them under her voluminous skirts and putting
off French customs inspectors by confronting them with a face and arms
covered with angry red pimples, earning for her the sobriquet of Scarlet
Pimple Nell.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Stefan Croker
location: 'Bury, Greater Manchester, UK'
quote: >-
Upon discovering that Miles Black, the famous phrenologist from
Yorkshire was going to take up yodeling to lonely goats in Bali, James
White decided to balance four planks of wood on a beer keg and call it
an abstract work of art in the style of a famous fourteenth-century
architect, just going to prove that people will read any old garbage if
they think there will be a good pun at the end of it.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: David McKenzie
location: 'Federal Way, WA'
quote: >-
Nobody knew just who the steely-eyed stranger was, where he came from,
where he was headed, or what his intentions were while he was in Dodge
City; but he wasn’t an hombre you’d want to stick your tongue out at or
flip off, and any man who tried to tickle him would be asking for a long
stay in a pine box, if you know what I mean.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Maree Lubran
location: 'Saratoga, CA'
quote: >-
Bryson the Plainsman seldom spoke a discouraging word but he did when he
filed for divorce after discovering his dear and an interloper played.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Elaine Deans
location: 'San Jose, CA'
quote: >-
Behind his pearly white smile lay a Bible black heart, not like the
Psalms with its, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord,” but like
Revelations where God just smites people.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Barry J. Drucker
location: 'Bentonville, AR'
quote: She had the kind of body that made a man want to have sex with her.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Camille Barigar and Jeff Blick
location: 'Twin Falls, ID'
quote: >-
As Kevin thumbed through the thick pages of the ancient manuscript
lately found deep in the bowels of the Enzo family library in
Castellino, with its depictions and detailed woodcuts of the morbid
crimes committed during the Spanish Inquisition, he couldn’t help but
marvel at the serene faces of the Florentine martyrs (Italians are so
much tougher than they look!) and thought that his own expression would
differ slightly if he were being sawn in half using the crack of his
butt as a straight-line.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jason Garbett
location: 'London, U.K.'
quote: >-
There are certain people in the world who emanate an aura of well being
– they radiate sunshine, light up a room, bring out the best in others,
and fill your half empty glass to overflowing – yes it was these very
people thought Karl, as he sharpened his mirror-finished guthook knife,
who were top of his list.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Malcolm Booth
location: 'Brinsworth, Rotherham, U.K.'
quote: >-
Creeping slowly over the hill, the sun seemed to catch the small village
nestled in the valley by surprise, which is a bit unusual really, as
you’d think that something with a diameter of 865,000 miles and a
surface temperature of 5780 degrees Kelvin, and which is more normally
seen from 93,000,000 miles away, wouldn’t be able to creep anywhere, let
alone catch anything by surprise.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Curtis
location: 'Randburg, South Africa'
quote: >-
“Let’s see what this baby can do, Virgil,” said Wyatt, as he floored the
Charger, brushing a Dart out of the way, sideswiping an oncoming Lancer,
rear-ending a Diplomat, and demolishing a row of Rams before catapulting
head-on into the sheriff’s Viper – realizing that we’d indeed missed the
turn-off to Abilene and ended up instead, in Dodge City.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lili R. Lillie
location: 'Alamo, CA'
quote: >-
Though her beloved Roger had departed hours ago, Lila remained in their
rumpled bed, daydreaming about his strong arms, soulful eyes, and how,
when he first fell asleep, his snoring sounded not unlike two grizzly
bears fighting over a picnic basket full of sandwiches, but as he
drifted off into deeper slumber, his snoring became softer, perhaps as
if the bears decided just to rock-paper-scissors for it instead.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Robert B. Robeson
location: 'Lincoln, Nebraska'
quote: >-
I hadn’t fallen in love with Monique because of her intellectual level –
she referred to the 6th grade as her “senior” year – or her habit of
eating popcorn off the floor of theaters during movies – okay, so maybe
love is a bad archer with a low IQ – but you couldn’t carve a finer or
shapelier figure out of a hedge.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jay Solmonson
location: 'Orinda, CA'
quote: >-
Emerging from the dark and dusty wine cellar of Lord Parker after a year
of fattening up on wine, truffles, and caviar, head butler Hastings,
sans his servility and his tan, was well larded and ready to slip into
the Lord’s slippers after pickling Parker in a punt of port.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jon Starr
location: 'Rumford, ME'
quote: >-
The day started out as uneventfully as any other, and continued thus to
midday and from there it was nothing at all to ease into an evening of
numbing, undiluted monotony that survived unmarred by even the least act
of momentary peculiarity – in fact, let’s skip that day altogether and
start with the day after.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dr. Ford Sutherland
location: 'Venice, Florida'
quote: >-
As usual, Mr. Riddle came home from work, and, as usual, took the toy
poodle, Fluffy, out for her walk, and, as usual, Fluffy “did her
business” at the usual places, first at the bush, second, on the
sidewalk, and third, in the grass, so that there, on the pavement, was
evidence of Fluffy’s evening sojourn: Mr. Riddle’s little poodle’s
middle piddle puddle.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Melissa Alliston
location: 'Coraopolis, PA'
quote: >-
Watching Felicia walk into the bar was like watching two fat Rottweilers
in yellow spandex and spike heels that had treed a scrawny bleach blond
cat at the top of a skinny flagpole that for some reason had decided to
sprout casaba melons.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Steven W Alloway
location: 'Granada Hills, CA'
quote: >-
Her name was Mauve, like the color of paint, which was apt: not only was
she “pretty as a painting,” she was also “smart as paint,” and certainly
as thin (assuming sufficient solvents had been added); she was, however,
Arnold discovered when she stepped from the shower, a lot more fun to
watch dry.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jane Auerbach
location: Los Angeles CA
quote: >-
When he concentrated, his thick black eyebrows furrowed, looking not
unlike a pair of Hypercompe scribonia caterpillars on a collision course
over the bridge of his nose, but unlike them, his eyebrows would never
evolve into giant leopard moths, and would find better places to hover
after nightfall than around her 40-watt backporch light.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Roz Black
location: 'Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland'
quote: >-
Earthy ochre and russet hues in the lifeless leaves which rustle under
his feet, and spiral down from the majestic trees above, signal that
October has now arrived, but of course he knew this already because he
has a calendar above his breakfast bar in the kitchen.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Chris Carlos
location: 'City of Industry, CA'
quote: >-
As she skipped past the giant mushroom Alice was not surprised –
because, after all, she had always suspected it was opium and not simply
hookah, as many Lewis Carroll defenders had claimed, and tar heroin had
since become a much cheaper and more available alternative – to see the
track marks up and down the Caterpillar’s abdomen.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wayne Carmichael
location: 'Tyler, TX'
quote: >-
Ted feared that the line between his jobs as plastic surgeon and butcher
was blurring when he found himself injecting Botox into a rump roast he
was preparing for his wife and mother-in-law, who was a decent person
except for the hideous wart on her nose that begged to be removed – a
simple task for his boning knife.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bill Crumpler
location: 'McKinney, TX'
quote: >-
The homicide detective was an aging woman with a crusty and somewhat
ill-tempered personality, an individual who reminded me of the kind of
woman my mother, a Sunday-school teacher, would have been if she had
been a crusty and somewhat ill-tempered homicide detective.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: I write this
location: >-
dear reader, because a writer talks to a word processor because he does
not trust a real person. — Surit Das, BR, New Delhi, India
quote: >-
Lonely as I might like to feel – the helplessness of loneliness, and its
simulation, is so responsibility-relieving it fills me with relief of
the sort we feel after using the urinal after a long funeral of an
elderly relative we had never met
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Larry Davick
location: 'San Francisco, California'
quote: >-
Her lips were full and wanting in the kind of way that your tongue
anticipates the happy burn of Hunan beef followed by the cooling swill
of cheap beer, but never a malt liquor, as that would bruise the
delicate tang of monosodium glutamate, the kind that only Sue Hong uses,
that probably exacerbates her water retention, causing her lips to be
unnaturally full and plump and always thirsty.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bruce Hannem
location: Citrus Heights CA
quote: >-
I heard her husky breathing as she came up the stairs, breathing exactly
the way a sled dog breathes after competing in the Iditatrod as she
sauntered into the room, her hips swiveling from side to side like a
Sherman M-4 tank with a 75mm gun forcing its way through the hedgerows
of Normandy after D-Day in 1944.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Laura Loomis
location: 'Pittsburg, CA'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, except when the lightning flashed,
because then it wasn’t dark; it sort of turned the windows into a giant
disco ball for a moment, but eventually the thunder and lightning
stopped and it settled down to a steady light rain, so then it really
was dark, but it would probably be a stretch to call it stormy.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Diana Maloney
location: 'Northampton, MA'
quote: >-
Tom and Kelly’s relationship had hit a dead end, like that road in your
neighborhood when you were little that everyone used to throw their old
chairs away at, and then the kids would use them to build forts.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David K. Mullen
location: 'Batesville, IN'
quote: >-
Fittingly for a butcher, Carl resembled a fresh turkey – pale, knobby,
and large through the middle with spindly appendages – and as he was
wont to do on slow days, he had nearly finished reassembling the hams,
loins, and chops into something approaching a pig when she walked in –
long, flat, and lean, like a flank steak, radiating a heat that would
cause him to flush, then darken, and, eventually, to crisp up
deliciously.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Olson
location: 'San Jose, CA'
quote: >-
Vito watched as Robert squirmed in his life vest while the Great White
brushed against his chum-soaked and shackled body, but it wasn’t until
the terrible fish circled back, finally ending Robert’s evening, that
Vito, with the vision of the legless torso undulating up and down in the
Farallon current had his epiphany, and uncovered one of life’s truly
great mysteries: when you shorten Robert you really do get bob.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ray Pasimio
location: 'Chicago, Illinois'
quote: >-
Carey, unnerved by an affair that had suffered through weeks of
volatility, walked unsteadily, her dress etching complex runes in the
fine patina of dust along the antiquated floor, to a rose-scented box of
love letters in a vain attempt to find solace, like a security fund
struggling to find liquidity in the US sub-prime mortgage market.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Arndt Pawelczik
location: 'Hennef, Germany'
quote: >-
As a cold winter sun was just rising above the lonely French village of
Vicres-le-Buffeur, the forlorn figure of a man dressed in rich Arabian
silks could be seen crouching in the center of the market square, crying
softly and cradling in his arms the limp and lifeless body of what
appeared to be a large hamster.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Macdonald
location: Vancouver B.C.
quote: >-
The band had stopped almost two hours ago, the musicians had packed up
their horns and strings and were halfway to Biloxi, but the lone couple
on the dance floor moved to their own silent music as they clung to each
other like barnacles on the rusty hull of an old oil tanker with a belly
full of sweet crude hoping to drop their hook at the Big Easy before the
dancing stopped.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bob Salsbury
location: 'Spokane Valley, WA'
quote: >-
Like almost every other post-Hegelian neo-hipster angst monkey at
Evergreen State College in Olympia, Rene flatly rejected the labels
society placed upon him.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brent Sheppard
location: 'Morganton, NC'
quote: >-
It was common knowledge around town that Bill drank like a fish, the
kind of fish that consumes large quantities of cheap scotch on a daily
basis.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Stephen A. Silver
location: 'San Francisco, CA'
quote: >-
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day – though the
Little Leaguers themselves, who all attended Mudville’s famed Albert
Einstein School for Science and Technology, were certainly very, very
smart.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sarah Totton
location: 'Owen Sound, Ontario'
quote: >-
The penguin stood on the iceberg, cutting a striking black-on-white
profile, much like the silhouette produced by a person standing behind a
screen in front of a bright light while holding up a Twinkie to
represent the penguin and placing it atop a Yorkshire terrier to
represent the iceberg.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Pixie
location: >-
Trixie, Moxie, Gertie, and Howard – as they reached for the same size-10
champagne-colored lace Teddy in Filene’s basement that fateful Thursday
morning. — Julia Tryk, Shaker Heights, OH
quote: >-
Although the family resemblance was almost palpable, there was no glint
of recognition in the eyes of the
separated-at-birth-but-nearly-identical quintuplets
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jane Louise Thalken
location: 'Shenandoah, IA'
quote: >-
Sandy applied a fresh coat of lipstick, snapped her gum and pulled the
specially-made thigh-high waders on for one last time before the New
Year rang in; Anchorage didn’t hold much for a girl from the Bronx, but
Catherine the Great, in a snowdrift, had become her specialty.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Maile Valentine
location: 'Lakeland, FL'
quote: >-
The tiny boat got tossed around on the ocean like a pinball in a pinball
game played by a player who was really good at hitting all of those
bumper things to get a really high score.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tara Lazar
location: 'Basking Ridge, NJ'
quote: >-
Rudy’s feline senses tingled as he watched Minerva pour a glass of milk,
thrusting his tongue outward involuntarily, urging him to inexplicably
lick his hand and smooth his cowlick, but he could not let Minerva know
about the vampire kitten that had sucked his neck – attacking him with a
feral ferocity that belied its adorable whiskered face – and how the
meowing and purring that had become an integral part of their lovemaking
was really just an injection of half-dead Calico.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy R. Wise
location: 'Paradise, TX'
quote: >-
Town mayor Alvaredo Sanchez, in defense of Carmelita’s indubitable
honor, cracked the very expensive ocean-mist smoky-blue bottle of
worm-in-bottom tequila over the badly balding head of his political
opponent senior Montaya Gonzales, who runs the Toyota factory in town.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Edward Vincent Tennant
location: 'Edgemead, Cape Town, South Africa'
quote: >-
Gripping his terrified victim by her sensual slender neck with his foul
piercing talons like a lawnspiker, Igor the Terrible bellowed, “How do
you want to die? over the coals? with a plastic bag over your head? with
your blond hair seeped in red blood? in agony? today? tomorrow? – hurry
up, please, my fingers are getting sore.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jay Dardenne
location: 'Baton Rouge, LA'
quote: >-
Surveying his shattered and splintered ship, Baskin pronounced it
wrecked, glanced at his first mate, Robbins, and began a careful
assessment of his new surroundings: sand as white as whipped cream, lush
greenery layered like a cake against the fruit-filled treeline, a
vanilla sky blended into an evening as dark as chocolate with a
pie-shaped moon, prompting him to wonder aloud, “what’s so unappetizing
about being stranded on a desserted island?”
'2009':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: David McKenzie
location: 'Federal Way, WA'
quote: >-
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.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Warren Blair
location: 'Ashburn, VA'
quote: >-
The wind dry-shaved the cracked earth like a dull razor – the double
edge kind from the plastic bag that you shouldn’t use more than twice,
but you do; but Trevor Earp had to face it as he started the second
morning of his hopeless search for Drover, the Irish Wolfhound he had
found as a pup near death from a fight with a prairie dog and nursed
back to health, stolen by a traveling circus so that the monkey would
have something to ride.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Marguerite Ahl
location: 'Prescott Valley, AZ'
quote: >-
Fleur looked down her nose at Guilliame, something she was accomplished
at, being six foot three in her stocking feet, and having one of those
long French noses, not pert like Bridget Bardot’s, but more like the one
that Charles De Gaulle had when he was still alive and President of
France and he wore that cap that was shaped like a little hatbox with a
bill in the front to offset his nose, but it didn’t work.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Joe Wyatt
location: 'Amarillo, TX'
quote: >-
How best to pluck the exquisite Toothpick of Ramses from between a pair
of acrimonious vipers before the demonic Guards of Nicobar returned
should have held Indy’s full attention, but in the back of his mind he
still wondered why all the others who had agreed to take part in his
wife’s holiday scavenger hunt had been assigned to find stuff like a
Phillips screwdriver or blue masking tape.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Tony Alfieri
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
In a flurry of flame and fur, fangs and wicker, thus ended the world’s
first and only hot air baboon ride.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Mark A. Gray
location: 'Wokingham, Berks., U.K.'
quote: >-
Karen Buffalo, sensing that her 1894 Brassic & Middon .45 calibre
revolvers, mounted with mother-of-pearl grips and clasped by ivory
buttons carved in the shape of elephants at play, were no match for
“Duke” Bunton’s double-barreled shotgun, muttered under her breath “Darn
that Parisian gunsmith in the Fourteenth Arrondisement!”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Eric Rice
location: 'Sun Prairie, WI'
quote: >-
She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged
birds that you see in Florida – the pink ones, not the white ones –
except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like
those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn’t wearing pink, but I knew
right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren’t.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Tony Alfieri
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
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?”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Steve Lynch
location: 'San Marcos, CA'
quote: >-
The appearance of a thin red beam of light under my office door and the
sound of one, then two pair of feet meant my demise was near, that my
journey from gum-shoe detective to international agent had gone horribly
wrong, until I realized it was my secretary teasing her cat with a laser
pointer.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Donna Kain
location: 'Ph.D., Greenville, NC'
quote: >-
After quickly scrutinizing the two dangerously buff men coming toward
her in the dark and wondering whether she could take them both out, P.I.
Velma Plusch mentally inventoried her arsenal – two pistols, two
stiletto-clad feet, two leather-gloved hands, two each eyes, ears, lips,
and breasts – and decided that she could.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Shannon Gray
location: 'Wichita, KS'
quote: >-
Detective Pierson mentally reviewed the group of suspects milling around
the recent crime scene – two young siblings eating gingerbread, a young
girl in a red hoodie, a beautiful girl with narcolepsy, and seven little
people with the profession of miners – then gave his statement of “It’s
a grim tale” to the press.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Lynn Lamousin
location: 'Baton Rouge, LA'
quote: >-
Darnell knew he was getting hung out to dry when the D.A. made him come
clean by airing other people’s dirty laundry; the plea deal was a new
wrinkle and there were still issues to iron out, but he hoped it would
all come out in the wash – otherwise he had folded like a cheap suit for
nothing.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Lisa Lindquist-Perez
location: 'Daytona Beach, FL'
quote: >-
I entered the bedroom again, looking for anything the killer might have
missed in his obvious attempt to clean the crime scene, when it hit me,
the victim hadn’t been eating just any potato salad, it was German
potato salad, the kind usually served warm, with bacon and although most
people prefer the traditional American potato salad, it was clear that
this victim didn’t, oh no, he didn’t prefer it at all.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Jeff Riley
location: 'Fort Worth, TX'
quote: >-
It was a quarter ‘til eight in the ninth precinct when I got the call of
a possible two-eleven at a nearby Seven-Eleven that turned out to be
just a four-fifteen – that is until my number two from the ninth
discovered the one-eight-seven under the Tenth Street Bridge, some
two-bit mob soldier with a blossom of five .357’s right in the ten-ring.
- category: Fantasy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Stuart Greenman
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
A quest is not to be undertaken lightly – or at all! – pondered
Hlothgar, Thrag of the Western Boglands, son of Glothar, nephew of
Garthol, known far and wide as Skull Dunker, as he wielded his chesty
stallion Hralgoth through the ever-darkening Thlargwood, beyond which,
if he survived its horrors and if Hroglath the royal spittle reader
spoke true, his destiny awaited – all this though his years numbered but
fourteen.
- category: Fantasy Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: Andrew Manoske
location: 'Foster City, CA'
quote: >-
Towards the dragon’s lair the fellowship marched – a noble human prince,
a fair elf, a surly dwarf, and a disheveled copyright attorney who was
frantically trying to find a way to differentiate this story from Lord
of the Rings.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Dr. Sarah Cockram
location: 'Edinburgh, U.K.'
quote: >-
The Cunard “Carinthia” glided through the starry waters of the Bering
Sea, 843 passengers aboard, including Harriet Dobbs, resignedly single
for over a decade, while a nautical mile due west slunk the K-18
submarine, under the command of lonely Ukrainian Captain First Rank
Nikolai Shevchenko: ships that passed in the night (although the second
technically a boat).
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Joseph Aspler
location: 'Kirkland, QC, Canada'
quote: >-
On a fine summer morning during the days of the Puritans, the prison
door in the small New England town of B----n opened to release a
convicted adulteress, the Scarlet Letter A embroidered on her dress,
along with the Scarlet Letters B through J, a veritable McGuffey’s
Reader of Scarlet Letters, one for each little tyke waiting for her at
the gate.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Eric Stoveken
location: 'Allentown, PA'
quote: >-
The gutters of Manhattan teemed with the brackish slurry indicative of a
significant though not incapacitating snowstorm three days prior, making
it seem that God had tripped over Hoboken and spilled his smog-flavored
slurpie all over the damn place.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Christin Keck
location: Akron OH
quote: >-
Warily – as if his hands were a green-bean casserole in a non-tempered
glass dish that had just come out of the freezer, and the patient was an
oven that had been preheating for a good 75 minutes at 450F – the
surgeon slowly reached into the incision and groped for the bullet
fragment in the pancreas, at last finding it nestled near one of the
Islets of Langerhans like a small wrecked lifeboat foundered on a
sandbar as it floated in the fog, adrift in the Sea of John’s Innards.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Rick Cheeseman
location: 'Waconia, MN'
quote: >-
Mortimer froze in his tracks; the rhythmic clicking on the stones of the
path (well … not really a clicking sound so much as a kind of clinking
sound, more like the noise made by shaking a charm bracelet filled with
Disney characters to a salsa beat) made him suddenly realize he had
forgotten to buckle one of his galoshes.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Matt Dennison
location: 'Erie, PA'
quote: >-
Without warning, their darting tongues entwined, like a couple of
nightcrawlers fresh from the baitshop – their moist, twisting bodies
finally snapping apart, not unlike an old man’s muddy galosh being
yanked away from his patent leather shoe.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Rita Hammett
location: 'Boca Raton, Florida'
quote: >-
She expected a beautiful morning after the previous night’s hard rain
but instead stepped out her door to a horrible vision of drowned
earthworms covering the walkway – their bodies curled and swirled like
limp confetti after a party crashed by firefighters.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Harol Hoffman-Meisner
location: 'Greensboro, NC'
quote: >-
The first time I saw her she took my breath away with her long blonde
hair that flowed over her shoulders like cheese sauce on a bed of
nachos, making my stomach grumble as she stepped into the room, her red
knit dress locking in curves better than a Ferrari at a Grand Prix.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Lisa Mileusnich
location: 'Willoughby, OH'
quote: >-
He slowly ran his fingers through her long black hair, which wasn’t
really black because she used Preference by L’Oreal to color it (because
“she was worth it”); her carrot-colored roots were starting to show, and
it reminded him of the time he’d covered his car’s check engine light
with black electrical tape, but a faint orange glow still shone around
the edges.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Michael Reade
location: 'Durham, NC'
quote: >-
Their relationship hit a bump in the road, not the low, graceful kind of
bump, reminiscent of a child’s choo choo train-themed roller coaster,
rather the kind of tall, narrow speed-bump that, if a school bus ran
over it, would cause even a fat kid to fly up and bang his head on the
ceiling.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Maisey Yates
location: 'Jacksonville, OR'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, well, not pitch dark so much a plumby,
you know, that time of night where it turns into that kind of eggplant
color, which I hate – eggplant not the time of night – and it wasn’t
stormy so much as drizzly, like a cold that’s not so bad but really
annoying, where you sound a little plugged up and all your mucus just
sort of hovers at the edge of your nostrils or drips down the back of
your throat, it was like that.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Ada Marie Finkel
location: 'Boston, MA'
quote: >-
Melinda woke up suddenly to the sound of her trailer being pounded with
wind and hail, and she couldn’t help thinking that if she had only put
her prized hog up for adoption last May, none of this would be
happening, no one would have gotten hurt, and she wouldn’t be left with
only nine toes, or be living in a mobile home park in Nebraska with a
second-rate trapeze artist named Fred.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Kathryn Minicozzi
location: 'Bronx, NY'
quote: >-
As she slowly drove up the long, winding driveway, Lady Alicia peeked
out the window of her shiny blue Mercedes and spied Rodrigo the new
gardener standing on a grassy mound with his long black hair flowing in
the wind, his brown eyes piercing into her very soul, and his white
shirt open to the waist, revealing his beautifully rippling muscular
chest, and she thought to herself, “I must tell that lazy idiot to trim
the hedges by the gate.”
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Robert Friedman
location: 'Skillman, NJ'
quote: >-
The golden, starry wonders of the dark universe unfurled before the
brave interstellar vessel “Argus” like a black flag of victory with a
whole bunch of holes in it as the mysterious mission buoyantly commenced
that would one day resolve critical questions about space, time, and the
appropriate ratio of nuts to chips in a perfect chocolate chip cookie.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Harol Hoffman-Meisner
location: 'Greensboro, NC'
quote: >-
George scratched his head in abject puzzlement as he tried to figure out
where he’d parked the rocket this time in the 100-acre parking lot of
Nallmart 75B, but then he remembered that a ship-boy had taken his DNA
key – but which one, the kelly-toned humanoid or the
atmosphere-of-Rylak-hued android; scanning the horizon, he at last
turned to Babs and asked “how green was my valet”?
- category: Spy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Rafaela Canetti
location: 'Rio de Janeiro, Brazil'
quote: >-
Oliver Smith, spy on Her Majesty’s service – not that she knew about it,
because that tended to spoil the whole secrecy thing and really, who’d
want an un-secret spy, anyway? Not to mention that any spy worth his
salt would kill anybody who knew his identity … so I wouldn’t go around
mentioning that I read this if I were you – looked both ways before
crossing the street.
- category: Spy Fiction
type: Winner
author: Amy E. Gross
location: 'Fair Lawn, NJ'
quote: >-
The serrated butter knife tossed capriciously onto the 38th Street
sidewalk amid the detritus of Salem cigarette butts and a Mentos box was
devoid of zero trans fat margarine, but glinted invitingly in the
sunlight nonetheless, poised for the opportunity to be repurposed to cut
up a Snuggie, and Vladimir took it.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Greg Homer
location: 'Placerville, CA'
quote: >-
Using her flint knife to gut the two amphibians, Kreega the Neanderthal
woman created the first pair of open-toad sandals.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Eric Davies
location: 'Dunedin, New Zealand'
quote: >-
Medusa stared at the two creatures approaching her across the Piazza
and, instantly recognizing them as Spanish Gorgons, attempted to stall
them by greeting them in their native tongue, “Gorgons, Hola!”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Janine Beacham
location: 'Busselton, Western Australia'
quote: >-
Eyeing the towering stacks of food colouring that formed the secret to
his billion-dollar batik textile empire, grumpy Old Man Griffington was
forced to admit that dye mounds are a churl’s best friend.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Brett Hawkins
location: 'Burleson, TX'
quote: >-
He was the desert nightmare whose name no one dared breathe, this deadly
gun-slinger Garth Tedder, whose face struck terror in the hearts of man
and beast, its macabre, round, maroon cheeks almost exactly like the
pickled beets that farmers’ wives force-fed their horrified families.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Eric Davies
location: 'Dunedin, New Zealand'
quote: >-
There stood Tex Omaha, fillin’ his canteen with his last bottle of Fiji
water – a case of which, oddly, he’d got off an Irishman travelin’ west
on the railroad – ‘cause it’s good water, better than the dirt-brown
stuff at the waterhole that tastes like a rusty nail, worth the two
buffalo hides he traded for it, and it’ll keep him cool, calm and
well-hydrated while he’s huntin’ down that dirty, no-good Scots-English
cattle rustler, Angus “Shorthorn” Hereford.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Steve Heckman
location: 'Taylors, SC'
quote: >-
”I want you to follow my husband,” said my newest client, the enigmatic
Mrs Yogi, estranged wife of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Denise Welding
location: 'Amesbury, MA'
quote: >-
Automotive power and the color red proved fatal to Santino; Sophia found
his body wrapped around the exposed custom pistons of his ruined Ferrari
Testarossa, and remembered the morning she found a sowbug on her red
anthurium, a racy flower with an exposed pistil.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nikkia Daniel
location: 'Marietta, GA'
quote: >-
As Laurel made her way through the plaza, she couldn’t help but notice
the gorgeous co-anchor for the morning news show, out yet again signing
autographs, smiling broadly, and infusing everyone around her with
happiness, and she wondered, just for a second mind you, how good it
would feel to punch her right in her stupid little face.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Macdonald
location: 'Vancouver, B.C.'
quote: >-
“They clang to me like horse flies on cow dung,” said angry, shivering
onion farmer Jesper Lunk, whose clothes had been eaten off him by a
plague of locusts except for his boxer shorts, which were a comfortable
cool blend of rayon and nylon in a floral pattern with a three-button
fly and a snug elastic waistband.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jeff Eller
location: 'New Orleans, LA'
quote: >-
From my car I took thorough stock of the loose group of illegals
standing around outside the Home Depot – plasterers, roofers, painters,
all for hire … girls, too – and fingered the FEMA money in my pocket
ruminatively; my house was a mess, but so was my love life – what was my
pleasure?
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ted Begley
location: 'Lexington, KY'
quote: >-
As Oedipus watched his mother gracefully glide across the great hall, he
felt a stirring in his loins which he immediately regretted but then
quickly dismissed, for he knew if these wanton desires for his mother
were wrong then someone would have named the condition by now, thus
proving once again that where his emotions were concerned there was only
one description for Oedipus … complex.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Biggie
location: Melrose MA
quote: >-
Rosalita came in looking, with a look of surprise not unlike that of
Hedy Lamarr in the 1947 version of “Samson and Delilah” when she learns
that Samson will marry the woman, portrayed by Angela Lansbury, but with
less fervor than that of Joan Crawford’s 1948 version of “Mildred
Pierce” discovering her daughter, played by Ann Blythe, was to run away
with her, (Mildred’s) boyfriend, to discover that Ernesto had once again
left up the toilet seat.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dan Blaufuss
location: 'Glenview, IL'
quote: >-
As Lieutenant Baker shrank his lips back to their normal size, he tried
desperately to think of a situation in which his new-found power might
be useful, as have I, your narrator.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Barry Bozzone
location: 'Allentown, PA'
quote: >-
She had whispered wantonly, “Come to bed, Yul,” but was now staring in
utter disgust because the green lava lamp was too revealingly bright as
he fumbled to adjust his new Merken, a $300 pubic toupee that had looked
like a steal on eBay, but now looked just like a wet Tribble that had
inexplicably crawled up his crack from an old “Star Trek” episode.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Matthew Brady
location: Seattle WA
quote: >-
Her kiss grasped his lips like an aroused sea barnacle; her breath
smelled like wet feet mated with ham – marinated, salty, delicious; and
the sea wailed around them like lovers in a trailer park.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Trent Bristol
location: 'Mandan, ND'
quote: >-
Peter shaded his eyes from the brilliant April morning sunlight as it
suddenly illuminated the Bunny Trail, contemplated his handiwork,
(separating all of those pearly white chicks-to-be from their mothers)
and prepared for the final task to complete his mission – yes, this was
a good day to dye.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rich Buley-Neumar
location: 'Amityville, NY'
quote: >-
There were earthquakes in this land, terrible tsunamis that swirled
flooding torrents of water throughout, and constant near-blizzard
conditions, and not for the first time, Horatio Jones wished he did not
live inside a snow globe.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David J Button
location: 'South Australia, Australia'
quote: >-
Grimly aware of the rapidly approaching disaster, Spiderman leaped from
rooftop to flagpole, from flagpole to fire escape, hurling himself
recklessly from building to building, darting glances through every
window in his desperate search for one vital room, while silently
cursing the fact that the last thing he had done before donning a
one-piece skintight costume, was to eat a large bowl of hot chili.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Drew
location: 'Santa Clarita, CA'
quote: >-
They said that his writing was rich in metaphor … not the type of rich
that one likens with the amassing of great wealth, but rather the
richness that one might associate with a Pot Pourri pasta meal available
at Spaghetti Factory, featuring a mix of Brown Butter and Mizithra
Cheese, Meat, Clam, and Marinara sauces – yes, that’s how rich his
metaphors were! (for John Updike-RIP)
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Roger Collier
location: 'Ottawa, Ontario'
quote: >-
Before she was Tabloid Sally, the impossibly foxy movie star who
destroyed marriages like a busty ball-peen hammer, before she was Nobel
Sally, the mercurial chemist who cured chronic halitosis, and before she
was Pulitzer Sally, the honey-dipped scribe who brought Washington to
its knees, she was just little Sally Barns from Crow’s Neck, Neb., Bill
and Margie’s daughter, a doe-eyed pixie who loved fairy tales and onion
rings.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joe Dykes
location: 'Denver, CO'
quote: >-
I awoke in my sleeper on the way from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, my
nightmare riven by a train of thought that abruptly stopped me in my
tracks with cataclysmic, explosive, and yet equal and opposing force,
like a train on its way from Rotterdam to Amsterdam; then I realized I
was on the wrong train and headed for Rotterdam, instead of Amsterdam.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Faherty
location: 'Queensbury, NY'
quote: >-
The skydiver jumped out of the plane and felt his skin being pulled back
like that of a dog sticking its head out of a car going 110 on the
highway, owned by a driver rushing to be on time for work or else he
would get fired by his boss with the curly mustache who owned a large
speedboat.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
Swain had always come out of bar fights unscathed, built as he was like
a ’70 Dodge pickup (with that “Adventurer” styling package), but after
tangling with Big Luther tonight, he felt like he’d been in a wreck, not
a five-car pileup, exactly, but a pretty bad fender bender, busted
headlights, maybe a bumper knocked loose, and, for sure, his tailgate
dragging.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David G. La France
location: 'Burbank, CA'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, dark like the inside of a spare tire in
the trunk of a 1957 Chevy sitting up on blocks in a tumbledown barn
somewhere in rural Ohio, and stormy like the romance of Pete Kimball and
his girlfriend Betty Lou, who used to make out in the back seat of that
Chevy when it was new and shiny and the Dell-Vikings were singing “Come
Go With Me”; but this is not their story, it just starts out dark and
stormy like that.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jesse Kolman
location: 'Goodyear, AZ'
quote: >-
Perry had come a long way in the nine years since being arrested by a
park ranger in his ’81 Firebird tenderly holding a spiral-cut,
honey-glazed ham (with the bone removed).
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dorinda Partsch
location: 'Chesterton, IN'
quote: >-
Crickets chirped in the lawn, katydids made that annoying grating sound
in the trees, a mosquito whined near the ceiling, squirrels snuggled
down in wherever it is they sleep, somewhere – probably Africa – a lion
roared, ants gathered together in their underground tunnels like so
many, well, whatever, and – in spite of the fact that it was night (dark
and stormy) – Jimmy cracked corn and no one cared.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sandra Trentz
location: 'Yakima, WA'
quote: >-
If she wasn’t the poster girl for the word voluptuous, with her not
exactly “bedroom,” but definitely “walking-down-that-hallway” eyes, her
hair a palomino mane rather than platinum blond, lips reminding me of
Marilyn Monroe not Angelina Jolie, and that slow hip-swaying walk that
sweet-talks a man’s thoughts into dim, smoky rooms where R&B is played,
she should’ve been.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Frank J. Weidler
location: 'Placentia, CA'
quote: >-
Lady Rowena, fresh from her bath, knew she had time to be ready to meet
the Prince at 6:00 o’clock even though the mantle clock was striking
six, because the brass escapement lever mechanism that engages the teeth
of the large gear which drives the smaller gears that send the hour and
minute hands on their circular paths, was worn.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Deanna Stewart
location: 'Heidelberg, Germany'
quote: >-
On a lovely day during one of the finest Indian summers anyone could
remember – a season the Germans call “old wives’ summer,” obviously
never having had Native Americans to name things after, but plenty of
old wives, and “Indian summer” in German would refer to the natives of
India in any case, which would make even less sense than the current
naming system – on such a day, however named, John Baxter fell in the
creek and drowned.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jim Seamon
location: 'Punta Gorda, FL'
quote: >-
Fenwick was concerned when his voices returned, but they hadn’t been
troubling him much until now – now that they were singing an old tune by
the Shirelles, or the Crystals, or the Ronettes, or the Angels, or the
Chiffons, or one of those damn girl groups he couldn’t keep straight,
the uncertainty making him very agitated again, although he had to admit
the harmonizing was quite good, really.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Andrew Pitt
location: 'Paris, France'
quote: >-
As my darling Jean-Claude entered the salon, with a single rose bud
bouquet, I felt a wave wash over me, like the full brunt of Napoleon’s
forces at 9:05 am on the second of December 1805 ripping through once
fertile fields to the Prutzen Heights, and I knew that Paris in
printemps would be to my liking.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Pellicane
location: 'Highland Park, NJ'
quote: >-
As always, that morning he awoke to the melodious sound of a stream of
water cascading into a still pool, punctuated by several ominous
silences – and he could judge, by the length of the silences and the
volume of the cascade, just how much of his three-year-old son’s urine
he would have to wade through to get to the sink.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Hugh Trethowan
location: 'Bath, U.K.'
quote: >-
Tinkerbell landed softly on the bedpost in a sparkle of Industrial Light
& Magic, handed the packet of cigarettes to a rather stubbly “Pete” Pan
and, seeing his little green tights strewn carelessly on the floor and a
still sleeping Wendy lying naked beside him, quickly realized they were
now a very long way from Never Never Land.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Edward Vincent Tennant
location: 'Cape Town, South Africa'
quote: >-
Harvey placed the muzzle of the .45 against his head, and as the cold
steel touched his temple a sudden shiver raced along his spine, and the
hair-trigger took on the frisson, his brains missing Marlene’s photo,
where he wanted it to go, and splattered across his burgundy nightgown,
so he got the color combination right.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mr. S. J. Crawford
location: 'Redlynch, QLD, Australia'
quote: >-
It could have been no more than midnight’s icy incipit when Clifford,
stumbling in hitherto sanguine emprise through the tombstone teeth of
the raven lit Kirk-yard like some well-performed but lichen-hushed human
bullet-catch, heard the manifest bactrian vociferation which betrayed
with desperate flourish the inexplicably wretched fact that his camel
was out there, out on the ice – and she was in mortal peril.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Glen Robins
location: 'Brighton, East Sussex, U.K.'
quote: >-
No man is an island, so they say, although the small crustaceans and the
bird which sat impassively on Dirk Manhope’s chest as he floated lazily
in the pool would probably disagree.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jay Clifton
location: 'Berkeley, CA'
quote: >-
A dark and stormy night it was; in torrents fell the rain – except at
occasional intervals, when, by a violent gust of wind was it checked, as
up the streets it swept, (for in London it is that lies our scene),
along the housetops rattling, and the scanty flame of the lamps fiercely
agitating, that against the darkness, struggled. (The story of Paul
Clifford, is Yoda, to a padawan telling)
'2010':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Molly Ringle
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one
another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss—a lengthy, ravenous kiss,
Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity’s mouth as if she were a giant
cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world’s thirstiest gerbil.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Runner Up
author: Tom Wallace
location: 'Columbia, SC'
quote: >-
Through the verdant plains of North Umbria walked Waylon Ogglethorpe
and, as he walked, the clouds whispered his name, the birds of the air
sang his praises, and the beasts of the fields from smallest to greatest
said, “There goes the most noble among men”—in other words, a typical
stroll for a schizophrenic ventriloquist with delusions of grandeur.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Adam McDonough
location: 'Reedsburgh, WI'
quote: >-
The blazing equatorial sun beat down on Simon’s head and shoulders as he
dug feverishly in the hot sand with the ivory shoe-horn his mother had
given him before the homecoming game with Taft, when the field was so
wet that he’d lost his low-tops seven times in the cold sucking mud.
- category: Adventure
type: Runner Up
author: Greg Homer
location: 'Placerville, CA'
quote: >-
When Hru-Kar, the alpha-ranking male of the silver-backed gorilla tribe
finished unleashing simian hell on Lt. Cavendish, the once handsome
young soldier from Her Majesty’s 47th Regiment resembled nothing so much
as a crumpled up piece of khaki-colored construction paper that had been
dipped in La Victoria chunky salsa.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Winner
author: Pete Watkins
location: 'Broken Arrow, OK'
quote: >-
without answering a word knowing well that his magic was only going to
be used to make sure his forest would be annexed into the neighboring
community of Leaftown where the property values were much higher.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Steve Lynch
location: 'San Marcos, CA'
quote: >-
She walked into my office wearing a body that would make a man write bad
checks, but in this paperless age you would first have to obtain her ABA
Routing Transit Number and Account Number and then disable your own
Overdraft Protection in order to do so.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Dennis Pearce
location: 'Lexington, KY'
quote: >-
As Holmes, who had a nose for danger, quietly fingered the bloody knife
and eyed the various body parts strewn along the dark, deserted highway,
he placed his ear to the ground and, with his heart in his throat,
silently mouthed to his companion, “Arm yourself, Watson, there is an
evil hand afoot ahead.”
- category: Fantasy
type: Winner
author: Rick Cheeseman
location: 'Waconia, MN'
quote: >-
The wood nymph fairies blissfully pranced in the morning light past the
glistening dewdrops on the meadow thistles by the Old Mill, ignorant of
the daily slaughter that occurred just behind its lichen-encrusted
walls, twin 20-ton mill stones savagely ripping apart the husks of wheat
seed, gleefully smearing the starchy entrails across their dour granite
faces in unspeakable botanical horror and carnage—but that’s not our
story; ours is about fairies!
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Mary Ann R Unger
location: 'Ewing, NJ'
quote: >-
In Southwestern Germany just east of the Luxemburg border and north of
France where history pitted various related Hapsburg Royals against each
other and the Archbishops of Trier, theAbbots of St. Maximin, various
members of the nobility, and mobs of axe-bearing villagers, there stands
a ruin whose building stones mostly were carted off to build other
buildings.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mike Mayfield
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
The band of pre-humans departed the cave in search of solace from the
omnipresent dangers found there knowing that it meant survival of their
kind, though they probably didn’t understand it intellectually since
their brains were so small and undeveloped but fundamentally they
understood that they didn’t like big animals that ate them.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Scott Davis Jones
location: 'Valley Village, CA'
quote: >-
The dark, drafty old house was lopsided and decrepit, leaning in on
itself, the way an aging possum carrying a very heavy, overcooked
drumstick in his mouth might list to one side if he were also favoring a
torn Achilles tendon, assuming possums have them.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Runner Up
author: Dennis Doberneck
location: 'Paso Robles, CA'
quote: >-
The wind whispering through the pine trees and the sun reflecting off
the surface of Lake Tahoe like a scattering of diamonds was an idyllic
setting, while to the south the same sun struggled to penetrate a sky
choked with farm dust and car exhaust over Bakersfield, a town spread
over the lower San Joaquin Valley like a brown stain on a wino’s
trousers, which is where, unfortunately, this story takes place.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Derek Renfro
location: 'Ringgold, GA'
quote: >-
Elaine was a big woman, and in her tiny Smart car, stakeouts were always
hard for her, especially in the August sun where the humidity made her
massive thighs, under her lightweight cotton dress, stick togetherlike
two walruses in heat.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Alf Seegert
location: 'Salt Lake City, UT'
quote: >-
The Zinfandel poured pinkly from the bottle, like a stream of urine
seven hours after eating a bowl of borscht.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Paul Chafe
location: 'Toronto, ON'
quote: >-
“Trent, I love you,” Fiona murmered, and her nostrils flared at the
faint trace of her lover’s masculine scent, sending her heart racing and
her mind dreaming of the life they would live together, alternating
sumptuous world cruises with long, romantic interludes in the mansion on
his private island, alone together except for the maids, the cook, the
butler, and Dirk and Rafael, the hard-bodied pool boys.
- category: Romance
type: Runner Up
author: Jonathan Blay
location: 'Bedford, Canada'
quote: >-
Cynthia had washed her hands of Philip McIntyre—not like you wash your
hands in a public restroom when everyone is watching you to see if you
washed your hands but like washing your hands after you have been
working in the garden and there is dirt under your fingernails—dirt like
Philip McIntyre.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Greg Homer
location: 'Placerville, CA'
quote: >-
Bleen and Golxxm squelched their way romantically along the slough beach
beneath the three Sommodian moons, their eye stalks occasionally
touching, and tenderly belched sweet nothings like, “I don’t think I’ve
ever had such a charming evening,” and, “Say, would you like to gnaw
that hunk of suppurating tissue off my dorsal appendage—it really
itches.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Amy Torchinsky
location: Greensboro NC
quote: >-
It was a risky production unlike any mounted prior on the Met stage, the
orchestra first imitating the perpetually beating heart of a man
walled-in while in pursuit of wine, and then a soprano singing the
plaintive aria of a barely alive woman stuffed up a chimney as her
ancestral home was destroyed; however, it certainly was Opera Poe.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Brad Taylor
location: 'Iowa City, IA'
quote: >-
As Jeffrey Hicks, the event safety coordinator for the Renaissance
Festival finished posting the revised standards for weaponry, he thought
of the day an unleashed dog wandered onto the jousting field, causing
the rider from Indianapolis to stop short, impaling himself on the butt
of his spear, and the following day’s newspaper headline which read:
“Stray Injures Indy Knight, Hicks Changing Lances.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Greg Homer
location: 'Placerville, CA'
quote: >-
Wearing his new slacks from L.L. Bean, and entering the pen to feed his
three big dogs their usual three cans of dog food, some of which ended
up on his new pants, Kevin then left the house to attend a revival
screening of Serpico with Alpo chinos.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Linda Boatright
location: 'Omaha, NB'
quote: >-
He walked into the bar and bristled when all eyes fell upon him —perhaps
because his build was so short and so wide, or maybe it was the odor
that lingered about him from so many days and nights spent in the wilds,
but it may just have been because no one had ever seen a porcupine in a
bar before.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jesse Kolman
location: 'Phoenix, AZ'
quote: >-
His chest glistened like a pumpkin seed, either one fresh out of the
pumpkin but with all the orange strands of pumpkin flesh removed, or one
straight out of the oven after being coated in just the right amount of
oil and then baked; the point is that it was smooth, fairly shiny, and
that color.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: David K. Lynch
location: 'Topanga, CA'
quote: >-
The life-saving salve had not arrived to help Dr. Sybil Carter dress the
mutant killer bee wounds because landslides blocked roads, the rivers
were jammed by earthquake debris, and even the jungle foot paths were
clogged with dead bees and their victims, yet without the medicinal
unguent, many more would die, so reluctantly giving in to her promise
never again to speak to her aviator ex-boyfriend, she picked up the
radio and begged him to fly in the ointment.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: John Mackesy
location: 'Victoria, Australia'
quote: >-
Faintly silhouetted against the shadowy murk of a nameless Devonian sea,
the Megalodont shark was unaware of trilobites foraging in the
primordial ooze not far below, trilobites that unlike the shark’s
cartilaginous being would become part of the fossil record of an ancient
seabed that would in time heave up, dry out and go through the crusher
at the Marulan Cement Works somewhere north of Sydney, Australia.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Ernie Santilli
location: 'Drexel Hill, PA'
quote: >-
Leaning back comfortably in a plush old chair, feet up, fingers laced
behind his head, Tom Chambers inventoried his life and with a satisfied
grin mused, “Ah, marlin fishing off the coast of Majorca, a bronze star
for that rescue mission in Jamir, the unmatched fragrance of pastries
fresh out of the oven at Café Legrande, two sons who would make any
father proud … I’ve never done any of that.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jeff Flegel
location: 'Racine, WI'
quote: >-
Living next door to the Lesters for nearly twelve years now, Mrs.
Nestor, fully aware of her husband’s fondness for pulchritudinous
posteriors, was unable to deter Chester Nestor’s constant quest for Mr.
Lester’s sister Hester’s monster keister.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Judy Fischer
location: 'Prospect, KY'
quote: >-
As Ethel arranged the list of company phone numbers under her clear
plastic desk cover, perfectly aligning the lower right corner of the
list with the lower right corner of the plastic, then swiveled her chair
to file one more inter-office memorandum on trimming the budget, she
considered how different her life might have been if her parents had
named her Tiffany.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Karen Arutunoff
location: 'Tulsa, OK'
quote: >-
As the under-appreciated autumn evening faded into yet another soft
black velvet fall night, all creatures large and small had settled in
except for one, Loupy, the Schipperke, whose job was to keep Anatoly,
the night watchman, informed of all things pertaining to the property
with her signature uninterrupted warning barks which at this very moment
would not subside until her master explained, “We don’t know anyone
named Timmy and we don’t have a well.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Charles Alworth
location: 'Port Aransas, TX'
quote: >-
“You ask me, ‘Why did you do it, Charlie, I could’ve been a
contender?’—I’ll tell you why: you worked your fights in too close,
taking blow after unnecessary blow; I knew you were going to end up
punch drunk and need money for a nurse, and you were never a contender,
you were only a referee.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Heidi Vazquez
location: 'Bellevue, NE'
quote: >-
After launching the last brown lump of chewing tobacco from his bulbous
and stained lower lip to its new landing on the Main Street pavement
below, Billy Bob couldn’t believe that what lay before him, was a
spitting image of George Washington.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Terri Daniel (Seattle
location: 'WA) and Craig Rieger (Concord, CA)'
quote: >-
Oneida Revere picked at her meal and stared dully across the table at
the charismatic charlatan who had seduced her with the illusion of love
and tarnished her family’s sterling reputation; she was wise to his bent
mind games and though it felt like a knife through her heart, she knew
it was time to stick a fork in it and call it done – her days of
spooning with Uri Geller were over.
'2011':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Sue Fondrie
location: 'Oshkosh, WI'
quote: >-
Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping
her sparrow like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing
pile of forgotten memories.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Runner Up
author: Rodney Reed
location: 'Ooltewah, TN'
quote: >-
As I stood among the ransacked ruin that had been my home, surveying the
aftermath of the senseless horrors and atrocities that had been
perpetrated on my family and everything I hold dear, I swore to myself
that no matter where I had to go, no matter what I had to do or endure,
I would find the man who did this… and when I did, when I did, oh, there
would bewords.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Jack Barry
location: 'Shelby, NC'
quote: >-
sausage as pudding is hard to understand and it is even more difficult
to divine why a person would knowingly eat something made from dried
blood in the first place—but be that as it may, our tale is of voodoo
and foul murder, not disgusting food.
- category: Adventure
type: Runner Up
author: Mike Mayfield
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
Sensing somehow a scudding lay in the offing, Skipper Bob tallied his
tasks: reef the mains’l, mizzen, and jib, strike and brail the fores’l,
mizzen stays’l and baggywrinkles, bowse the halyards, mainsheets,
jacklines and vangs, turtle and belay fast the small cock, flemish the
taffrail warps, batten the booby hatch, lay by his sou’wester, and find
the bailing bucket.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Mark Wisnewski
location: 'Flanders, NJ'
quote: >-
Wearily approaching the murder scene of Jeannie and Quentin Rose and
needing to determine if this was the handiwork of the Scented
Strangler—who had a twisted affinity for spraying his victims with his
signature raspberry cologne—or that of a copycat, burnt-out insomniac
detective Sonny Kirkland was sure of one thing: he’d have to stop and
smell the Roses.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Andrew Baker
location: 'Highland Park, NJ'
quote: >-
Five minutes before his scheduled execution, Kip found his thoughts
turning to his childhood—all those years ago before he had become a
contract killer whose secret weakness was a severe peanut allergy, even
back before he lost half of a toe in a gardening accident while doing
community service—but especially to Corinne, the pretty girl down the
street whom he might have ended up marrying one day if she had only
shown him a little more damn respect.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Terri Daniel
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
The victim was a short man, with a face full of contradictions: amalgam,
composite, dental porcelain, with both precious and non-precious metals
all competing for space in a mouth that was open, bloody, terrifying,
gaping, exposing a clean set of asymptomatic impacted wisdom teeth, but
clearly the object of some very comprehensive dental care, thought Dirk
Graply, world-famous womanizer, tough guy, detective, and former
dentist.
- category: Fantasy
type: Winner
author: Terri Daniel
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
Within the smoking ruins of Keister Castle, Princess Gwendolyn stared in
horror at the limp form of the loyal Centaur who died defending her very
honor; “You may force me to wed,” she cried at the leering and
victorious Goblin King, “but you’ll never be half the man he was.”
- category: Fantasy
type: Runner Up
author: Andrew Allingham
location: 'Fairfax, VA'
quote: >-
Veronica, two months pregnant and attempting to get her boyfriend to
notice, and Ricky, who wanted to end things with his expansive
girlfriend, sat at a table-for-two around lunchtime at the Olive Garden
in Columbus, Ohio, eying the bottle of house rosé which, unbeknownst to
them, doubled as the portal key to Khrysandelt: The land where
everything glitters slightly more than normal.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: John Doble
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
Napoleon’s ship tossed and turned as the emperor, listening while his
generals squabbled as they always did, splashed the tepid waters in his
bathtub.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Andrea Rossi
location: 'Wilmington, NC'
quote: >-
The executioner sneered as the young queen ascended the stairs to the
guillotine; in the old days, he thought, at least there was some
buildup, a little time on the rack or some disemboweling, but nowadays
everyone wants instant gratification.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Mike Pedersen
location: 'North Berwick, ME'
quote: >-
As his small boat scudded before a brisk breeze under a sapphire sky
dappled with cerulean clouds with indigo bases, through cobalt seas that
deepened to navy nearer the boat and faded to azure at the horizon, Ian
was at a loss as to why he felt blue.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Runner Up
author: Jack Barry
location: 'Shelby, NC'
quote: >-
The Los Angeles morning was heavy with smog, the word being a
portmanteau of smoke and fog, though in LA the pollutants are typically
vehicular emissions as opposed to actual smoke and fog, unlike 19th
century London where the smoke from countless small coal fires often
combined with fog off the Thames to produce true smog, though back then
they were not clever enough to call it that.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sylvi Warshaver-Stein
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
LaTrina—knowing he must live—et her hot, wet tongue slide slowly over
Gladiator’s injured ear, the taste reminding her of the late June flavor
of a snow chain that had been removed from a tire and left to rust on
the garage floor without being rinsed off.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Patty Liverance
location: 'Grand Rapids, MI'
quote: >-
Like a bird gliding over the surface of a Wyoming river rippled by a
gentle Spring breeze, his hand passed over her stretch marks.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Benson
location: 'Carthage, MO'
quote: >-
Deep into that particular wet Saturday night ugly blues screamed out
from the old man’s horn like a hooker being hauled down a flight of
stairs, regular thick loud thumps punctuated by nasty and erratic sharp
barks.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Hearn
location: 'Canterbury, England'
quote: >-
She held my hand as if she were having a swollen barrel of fun which was
off considering that my teeth were sitting on my bathroom cabinet (eight
miles away, no less) and my elbow was peeling like a soggy coconut, the
fine hairs of which were standing on edge in fear, as if the coconut had
been reading “Dracula.”
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Ali Kawashima
location: 'Greensboro, NC'
quote: >-
As the dark and mysterious stranger approached, Angela bit her lip
anxiously, hoping with every nerve, cell, and fiber of her being that
this would be the one man who would understand—who would take her away
from all this—and who would not just squeeze her boob and make a loud
honking noise, as all the others had.
- category: Romance
type: Runner Up
author: Meredith K. Gray
location: 'Ithaca, NY'
quote: >-
ever-so-carefully so as not to pierce the jellied, opaque albumen and
unleash the longing, viscous yolk within—yes, she lay there, oblong and
waiting to be deviled.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lisa Kluber
location: 'San Francisco, CA'
quote: >-
They called her The Cat, because she made love the way she fought,
rolling rapidly across the floor in a big, blurry ball of shrieking
hair, fury, and dander, which usually solicited a “Shut up!” and flung
shoe from one of the neighbors, and left her exhilarated lover with
serious patchy bald spots and the occasional
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: George Coe
location: 'Broad Run, VA'
quote: >-
She gazed smolderingly at the mysterious rider, his body cloaked in
enough shining black leather to outfit an Italian furniture store,
wrapped so tightly each muscle stood out like a flamboyant Mexican
hairdresser at an Alabamian monster truck rally; and he met her gaze
with an intensity that couldn’t have been matched by even a starving
junkyard dog in the meat aisle of a suburban supermarket.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Greg Homer
location: 'Placerville, CA'
quote: >-
Morgan “Bamboo” Barnes, Star Pilot of the Galaxia (flagship of the Solar
Brigade), accepted an hors d’oeuvre from the triangular-shaped platter
offered to him from the Princess Qwillia—lavender-skinned she was and
busty, with two of her four eyes what Barnes called “bedroom eyes”—and
marveled at how on her planet, Chlamydia-5, these snacks were called
“Hi-Dee-Hoes” but on Earth they were simply called Ritz Crackers with
Velveeta.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: Elizabeth Muenster
location: 'Columbia, PA'
quote: >-
Sterben counted calcium bars in the storage chamber, wondering why women
back on Earth paid him little attention, but up here they seem to adore
him, in fact, six fraichemaidens had already shown him their blinka.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Joe Wyatt
location: 'Amarillo, TX'
quote: >-
Detective Kodiak plucked a single hair from the bearskin rug and at once
understood the grisly nature of the crime: it had been a ferocious act,
a real honey, the sort of thing that could polarize a community, so he
padded quietly out the back to avoid a cub reporter waiting in the den.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Wm. "Buddy" Ocheltree
location: 'Snellville, GA'
quote: >-
In preparation for visits by African dignitaries, we had redecorated the
West Wing of the White House in an African motif with numerous
artificial plants and animals, but the President asked that we remove
the papier-mache wildebeests, saying he was "tired of fake gnus."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rodney Reed
location: 'Ooltewah, TN'
quote: >-
Convinced that the fabled Lost Treasure of Eggsbury was concealed within
the statue of the beloved Sister Mary Francis in the village square,
Professor Smithee would steal away in the darkest hour of each night to
try to silently chip away at her impervious granite vestments—a vain and
fruitless nightly exercise, he well knew, but it was a hard habit to
break.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Linda Boatright
location: 'Omaha, NE'
quote: >-
Milton’s quest for the love of Ms. Bradley was a risk but no sorry
trivial pursuit, yet he hadn’t a clue why she had a monopoly on his
heart’s desires—in fact, it boggled his mind and caused him great
aggravation because, in his checkered and troubled careers, he had
always scrabbled hard and it drove him bonkers that she considered life
just a game.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Chuck Gray
location: 'Shreveport, LA'
quote: >-
After three weeks on the trail, John’s jock rash was (in some places)
burning brighter than the West Texas sun—least wise as far as a cowboy
could tell with his chaps and britches down and the little mirror his
mom had given him.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Graham Thomas
location: 'St. Albans, England'
quote: >-
The laser-blue eyes of the lone horseman tracked the slowly lengthening
lariat of a Laredo dawn as it snaked its way through Dead Man’s Pass
into the valley below and snared the still sleeping town’s tiny church
steeple in a noose of light with the oh-so familiar glow of a Dodge City
virgin’s last maiden blush.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Anna Springfield
location: 'Raleigh, NC'
quote: >-
Rosy lips aquiver, Lauren drizzled with tears the wave-tousled sands of
Wampauset Municipal Area Public Access Beach, hearing in every shriek of
shrike and plaint of plover the ancient wai—kreeAHH, kreeAHH!—of good
women widowed by the sea, as well as tonal nuances indicating the
shorebirds’ relative levels of copulative receptiveness, for our
umber-eyed heroine is both lover and ornithologist.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Simon Petrie
location: 'Hawker ACT, Australia'
quote: Business was kinda slow at the “If You Build It” sperm bank.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Holly Kohler
location: 'Concord, MA'
quote: >-
Day broke upon the Baroness von Hestach with the pitiable insistence of
all that she despised—a gray and unattractive intrusion into her
sumptuous bedchamber, much like the Baron.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Bill Hartmann
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
No one walked down Bleak Street at night—not where hobgoblins hobnobbed,
skeletons skulked, vampires vamped, and the dumpster behind the Chinese
buffet smelled like zombies.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Warren Blair
location: 'Ashburn, VA'
quote: >-
Dawn crept up like the panther on the gazelle, except it was light, not
dark like a panther, and a panther, though quiet, could never be as
silent as the light of dawn, so really the analogy doesn’t hold up well,
as cool as it sounds, but it still is a great way to begin a story; just
not necessarily this particular one.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Ian Fishlock
location: 'Harrow, London, England'
quote: >-
As the young officer studied the oak door, he was reminded of his
girlfriend—for she was also slightly unhinged, occasionally sticky, and
responded well to being stripped and given a light oiling.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Donna P. Titus
location: 'Freeland, PA'
quote: 'the tomatoes from squeezing out onto the table or, worse, your lap.'
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Brendan P. Curran
location: 'Manchester, NH'
quote: >-
All the signs, both actual and imagined, made it immensely clear there
was trouble ahead for Marlene and, yet, her childlike sense of hope that
maybe he was “the one” kept her foot on the accelerator pedal of
lifeeven when she came to the “bridge out” warning handwritten in Magic
Marker on Myron’s Polident cup.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Sean Griffin
location: 'Tacoma, WA'
quote: >-
The grisly scene before him was like nothing Detective Smith had ever
seen before, but there were millions and millions of things he had never
seen before, and he couldn’t help but wonder which of them it was.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Betty Jean Murray
location: 'Richland, TX'
quote: >-
Maggie said they were birthmarks and they very well could be, but the
three very small black moles in a horizontal line just above her right
eyebrow looked like an ellipsis to some, but to others who did not know
what an ellipsis was, they looked like three very small black moles in a
horizontal line just above
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Anna Springfield
location: 'Raleigh, NC'
quote: >-
As she downed the last Dixie cup of Listerine and let every drop of its
21.6 percent alcohol content hit her like an icy mint anti-cavity
brickbat, Karen squinted at the breasts dangling like two electrocuted
ospreys from the powerline of her heart and, with a despondency born of
a thousand nights spent gaining a decent skill level at internet
mahjong, wondered how she and they had all three sunk so low.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Lewis Gurran
location: 'Gresford, Wrexham, Wales'
quote: >-
Her flaming red hair whipped in the wind like a campfire, stroking the
embers of passion hidden within the hearth of my heart and I began to
burn with a desire that seared me to my very core—oh the things that I
would do if only I weren’t incarcerated for arson!
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Margie Parker
location: 'Weeki Wachee, FL'
quote: >-
recyclable plastic bottle burst open, spraying droplets of Lite Italian
dressing upon the freshly tossed salad.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Lawrence Person
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
After five years as a freelance writer, Greg finally managed to double
his income, letting him add a processed cheese product slice to the
baloney sandwiches he had for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Darian McGee
location: 'Petal, MS'
quote: >-
The mostly, but not quite, extinguished fire’s dying embers writhed upon
the floor like tiny little wasps which someone has just stuck in the
abdomen with a needle, and they are frantically contracting around the
metal protrusion in their gut in a desperate effort to remove it which,
let’s face it, is hopeless so they are just slowly dying and good
riddance to them too, because unlike bees—which actually have some
purpose in the world—wasps are just mean, ornery wastes of space, and
who can blame someone for spearing them?
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Eric A. Vanderburg
location: 'Cleveland, OH'
quote: >-
and beginning the tirade that resulted in them both being sent to coffin
before the first human had been brought out to feast on.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: D. Drake Daggett
location: 'Omro, WI'
quote: >-
They kissed with the fury and suction of a dart that was shot onto the
back of the bus driver’s fat bald head by the red-headed kid that was
too big for his age (the rumor was he was “held back”) and everyone knew
was going to end up in prison, or perhaps a prop comic if he
straightened out in time.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Ann Hammack
location: 'Pittsboro, NC'
quote: >-
Awakened by a howling wind snapping branches against her new but poorly
installed storm windows, Stella heard another sound she found puzzling
so, grabbing her trusty Colt Python, she snuck stealthily downstairs to
find an oddly-dressed gnome-like man methodically dropping breath mints
onto her freshlywaxed
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Bridget Parmenter
location: 'Katy, TX'
quote: >-
“You’re not in Kansas anymore, people!” the gruff Marine Captain
bellowed as I wheeled myself along the tarmac of Planet Cliché, the only
place in the Galaxy where you could mine Unobtainium, undergo the
powerful Eywa ritual with a blue eight-foot-tall alien Princess, and
discover a hunter-gatherer people who despite decades of human contact
still hadn’t developed the wheel, the composite bow, or toilet paper.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: David S. Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
Urgh the howler monkey was sort of the leader of his troop, though not
old enough to be a silverback and not having fathered more than a couple
of sons, but he did know where the good berries were and how to avoid
the leopards, anacondas, and especially the hairless apes, the ones who
crashed through the forest only to stand behind a tree and breathe
noisily, and watch them and sometimes leave bunches of those disgusting
bananas.
'2012':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Cathy Bryant
location: 'Manchester, England'
quote: >-
As he told her that he loved her she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as
she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny deodicids burrowing
into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying
up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the
eyes are truly the windows of the soul; and, if so, his soul needed
regrouting.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: David Pepper
location: 'Hermosa Beach, CA'
quote: >-
As an ornithologist, George was fascinated by the fact that urine and
feces mix in birds’ rectums to form a unified, homogeneous slurry that
is expelled through defecation, although eying Greta's face, and sensing
the reaction of the congregation, he immediately realized he should have
used a different analogy to describe their relationship in his wedding
vows.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Greg Homer
location: 'Placerville, CA'
quote: >-
The stifling atmosphere inside the Pink Dolphin Bar in the upper Amazon
Basin carried barely enough oxygen for a man to survive—humid and thick
the air was and full of little flying bugs, making the simple act of
breathing like trying to suck hot Campbell’s Bean with Bacon soup
through a paper straw.
- category: Adventure
type: Runner Up
author: Warren Blaine
location: 'Ashburn, PA'
quote: >-
The shallow cave behind the mighty river’s thundering waterfall seemed
more like a damp, cold, misty, poorly lit hallway leading from the
shower room in some cheap-dive gym under the Elevated train where mugs
who couldn’t crack the glass jaw of some washed-up palooka on their best
sober day still deluded themselves that they could be somebody; and yet,
Bill thought, “at least it’s got runnin’ water.”
- category: Children's Literature
type: Winner
author: David S Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
He swaggered into the room (in which he was now the “smartest guy”) with
a certain Wikipedic insouciance, and without skipping a beat made a
beeline towards Dorothy, busting right through her knot of admirers, and
she threw her arms around him and gave him a passionate though slightly
tickly kiss, moaning softly, “Oooohh, Scarecrow!”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Sue Fondrie
location: 'Appleton, WI'
quote: >-
She slinked through my door wearing a dress that looked like it had been
painted on … not with good paint, like Behr or Sherwin-Williams, but
with that watered-down stuff that bubbles up right away if you don’t
prime the surface before you slap it on, and—just like that cheap
paint—he dress needed two more coats to cover her.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Bill Hartmann
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
“Chester and Harry, you don't have the stomach for this, but Dick and I
do,” the leggy blonde said in a throaty voice as she headed back in to
finger—and hopefully nail–the brains and muscle of the strongarm
syndicate, the heel that gutted her niece.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Carl Stich
location: 'Mariemont, OH'
quote: >-
Inspector Murphy stood up when he saw me, then looked down at the
lifeless body, crumpled like a forlorn Snicker’s candy wrapper, and
after a knowing glance at Detective Wilson pointed to the darkening
crimson pool spreading from the stiff’s shattered noggin, and said, “You
settle it, Gibson; does that puddle look more like a duck or a cow?”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Howard Eugene Whitright
location: 'Seal Beach, CA'
quote: >-
The blood seeped out of the body like bad peach juice from a peach that
had been left on one side so long the bottom became rotten while it
still looked fine on the top but had started to attract fruit flies, and
this had the same effect, but with regular flies, that is not say there
weren’t some fruit flies around because, after all, this was Miami.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Kevin Bruemmer
location: 'San Antonio, TX'
quote: >-
The smooth hand I was caressing felt as if it belonged to a Persian monk
that had been rubbing moisturizing body oils on his fellow monks all day
(but not in a gay way, come on, he’s a monk for God’s sake), when in all
actuality the hand belonged to a body that I had just pulled out of the
Potomac for forensic investigation.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Jon Maddalena
location: 'Mesick, MI'
quote: >-
Bishop threw back the shot of bourbon and reflected on his career as a
private dick, a profession he always thought of as perfect for a man
named Richard who kept to himself and was often unkind to others.
- category: Fantasy
type: Winner
author: David Lippmann
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
The brazen walls of the ancient city of Khoresand, situated where the
mighty desert of Sind meets the endless Hyrkanean steppe, are guarded by
day by the four valiant knights Sir Malin the Mighty, Sir Welkin the
Wake, Sir Darien the Doughty, and Sir Yrien the Yare, all clad in armor
of beaten gold, and at night the walls are guarded by Sir Arden the
Ardent, Sir Fier the Fearless, Sir Cyril the Courageous, and Sir Damien
the Dauntless, all clad in armor of burnished argent, but nothing much
ever happens.
- category: Fantasy
type: Runner Up
author: Warren Wol
location: 'Livermore, CA'
quote: >-
Truly, twas Gimoneus the wise, grand sorcerer of Elantorfan, keeper of
the ancient rune of Turgochit, came nearest to slaying the mighty dragon
of Ralmorgantorg; for he was old and sinewy, and the wretched beast near
choked to death on his femur.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Leslie Craven
location: 'Hataitai, New Zealand'
quote: >-
The “clunk” of the guillotine blade’s release reminded Marie Antoinette,
quite briefly, of the sound of the wooden leg of her favorite manservant
as he not-quite-silently crossed the polished floors of Versailles to
bring her another tray of petit fours.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: David Larson
location: 'San Francisco, CA'
quote: >-
Primum non nocere, from the Latin for “first, do no harm,” one of the
principal tenets of the Hippocratic oath taken by physicians, was far
from David’s mind (as he strode, sling in hand, to face Goliath) in part
because Hippocrates was born about 100 years after David, in part
because David wasn’t even a physician,but mainly because David wanted to
kill the sucker.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Guy Foisy
location: 'Orleans, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
William, his senses roused by a warm fetid breeze, hoped it was an early
spring’s equinoxal thaw causing rivers to swell like the blood engorged
gumlines of gingivitis, loosening winter’s plaque, exposing decay, and
allowing the seasonal pot-pouris of Mother Nature’s morning breath to
permeate the surrounding ether, but then he awoke to the unrelenting
waves of his wife’s halitosis.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Runner Up
author: Linda Boatright
location: 'Omaha, NE'
quote: >-
Corinne considered the colors (palest green, gray and lavender) and
texture (downy as the finest velvet) and wondered, “How long have these
cold cuts been in my refrigerator?”
- category: Purple Prose
type: Runner Up
author: Robin Siepel
location: 'Bakersfield, CA'
quote: >-
Haley’s crystal eyes surveyed the vista that stretched in front of her
like a vast comforter tossed over the form of a slumbering giant to the
hills that arose abruptly like the hastily drawn up knees of the giant
when he has to reach down and rub the cramp out of his foot that he
experiences when he’s stretching underneath his vast comforter.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Runner Up
author: Jeff Coleburn
location: 'West Chester, PA'
quote: >-
The drugged parrots pelted the village like a hellish rain of feathered
fanny packs stuffed with claws and porridge, rendering Claudia’s
makeshift rabbit-skin umbrella more symbolic than anything else.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Karen Hamilton
location: 'Seabrook, TX'
quote: >-
“I’ll never get over him,” she said to herself and the truth of that
statement settled into her brain the way glitter settles on to a plastic
landscape in a Christmas snow globe when she accepted the fact that she
was trapped in bed between her half-ton boyfriend and the wall when he
rolled over on to her nightgown and passed out, leaving her no way to
climb out.
- category: Romance
type: Runner Up
author: Dan Leyde
location: 'Edmonds, WA'
quote: >-
“Your eyes are like deep blue pools that I would like to drown in,” he
had told Kimberly when she had asked him what he was thinking; but what
he was actually thinking was that sometimes when he recharges his phone
he forgets to put the little plug back in but he wasn’t going to tell
her that.
- category: Romance
type: Runner Up
author: Mark Wisnewski
location: 'Flanders, NJ'
quote: >-
Tucked in a dim corner of The Ample Bounty Bar & Grille, Alice welcomed
the fervent touch of the mysterious stranger’s experienced hands because
she had not been this close with a man in an achingly long time and,
quivering breathlessly, began to think that this could be the beginning
of something real, something forever, and not just a one-time encounter
with a good Samaritan who was skilled at the Heimlich Maneuver.
- category: Romance
type: Runner Up
author: Emma DeZordi
location: 'Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Quebec, Canada'
quote: >-
Chain-smoking as he stood in the amber glow of the street lamp, he gazed
up at the brownstone wherein resided Bunny Morgan, and thought how like
a bunny Bunny was, though he had read somewhere that rabbits were
coprophages, which meant that they ate their own feces, which was really
disgusting now that he thought about it, and nothing like Bunny, at
least he hoped not, so on second thought Bunny wasn’t like a bunny after
all, but she still was pretty hot.
- category: Romance
type: Runner Up
author: D. M. Dunn
location: 'Bloomington, IN'
quote: >-
Their love began as a tailor, quickly measuring the nooks and crannies
of their personalities, but it soon became the seamstress of subterfuge,
each of them aware of the others lingual haberdashery: Mindy trying to
create a perfectly suited garment to display in public and Stan only
concerned with the inseam.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Mary E. Patrick
location: 'Lake City, SC'
quote: >-
As I gardened, gazing towards the autumnal sky, I longed to run my
finger through the trail of mucus left by a single speckled
slug—innocuously thrusting past my rhododendrons —and in feeling that
warm slime, be swept back to planet Alderon, back into the tentacles of
the alien who loved me.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: Steve Lauducci
location: 'Bethlehem, PA'
quote: >-
The real problem with the “many universes” interpretation of quantum
mechanics is that if it’s true, then somewhere, in some universe,
anything you can possibly imagine has already happened, which means that
somewhere, another version of me has already finished writing the rest
of this science-fiction novel, so I’m not feeling real inspired to do it
myself.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Amy Torchinsky
location: 'Greensboro, NC'
quote: >-
Though they were merely strangers on a train, as she looked North by
Northwest though the rear window, Marnie knew beyond a shadow of a doubt
the trouble with Harry was that he was a psycho—his left and right hand
middle fingers (formerly extended in the birds position) were menacingly
twisting a rope in the form of a noose; certain of her impending death
as surely as she could dial M for Murder, she was overcome by intense
vertigo.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Peter Bjorkman
location: 'Rocklin, CA'
quote: >-
The two power-hungry, 20-something biographers met with me incognito and
settled on penning my memoirs, one on a percentage of future sales and
one on upfront remuneration; so there is one yuppie I pay, one yuppie I
owe, ghostwriters in disguise.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Alan Follett
location: 'Hercules, CA'
quote: >-
Professor Lemieux had anticipated that his latest paper would be
received with skepticism within the small, fractious circle of
professional cosmologists, few of whom were prepared to accept his
hypothesis that our universe had been created in a marijuana-induced
industrial accident by insectoid aliens; nevertheless, he was stung when
Hawking airily dismissed it as the Bug Bong Theory.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Linda Boatright
location: 'Omaha, NE'
quote: >-
Milton’s quest for the love of Ms. Bradley was a risk but no sorry
trivial pursuit yet he hadn’t a clue why she had a monopoly on his
heart’s desires—in fact, it boggled his mind and caused him great
aggravation because, in his checkered and troubled careers, he had
always scrabbled hard and it drove him bonkers that she considered life
just a game.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Lynne Marie Waldron
location: 'Spokane, WA'
quote: >-
“Damn!” cussed Shep as he realized that the cattle had busted down their
corral again and all the bullswere a splittin’.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Ted Downes
location: 'Cardiff, Wales'
quote: >-
They still talk about that fateful afternoon in Abilene, when Dancing
Dan DuPre moonwalked through the doors of Fat Suzy’s saloon, made a
passable reverse-turn, pirouetted twice followed by a double box-step,
somersaulted onto the bar, drew his twin silver-plated Colt-45s and put
twelve bullets through the eyes of the McLuskey sextuplets, on account
of them varmints burning down his ranch and lynching his prize steer.
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Terry L. Johnson
location: 'Tularosa, NM'
quote: >-
He got down from his horse, which seemed strange to him as he had always
believed that you got down from a duck or a goose.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Rebecca Oas
location: 'Atlanta, GA'
quote: >-
Ronald left this world as he entered it: on a frigid winter night, amid
frantic screams and blood-soaked linens, while relatives stood nearby
and muttered furious promises to find and punish the man responsible.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Thor F. Carden
location: 'Madison, TN'
quote: >-
Many years have passed since the events related here, but I remember
them almost as well as if I had really been there, because I think about
them frequently, turning them over and over in my mind, changing the
facts to make me into more of a hero than I actually might have been,
had I been there to do half the things I claim I did.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: James Macdonald
location: 'Vancouver, B.C.'
quote: >-
Her skin was like flocked wallpaper and her eyes had seen better days,
but when her bloodless lips murmured “Hi, Sailor,” my heart melted from
the inside out like one of those chocolate-covered ice cream bars on a
summer day that runs down your arm and gets all over your new shirt.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Leah Sitkoff
location: 'New York, New York'
quote: >-
Her fixed gaze at dinner reminded him so much of an owl that he found
himself wondering when she would regurgitate her meal into a pellet and
told the waitress they didn’t need a dessert menu.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jim Tierney
location: 'Murrieta, CA'
quote: >-
The syncopated sound of the single-cylinder steam motor, designed by
Mier Vander, reminded Mier of the time his father took him to the Mollen
Bros travelling circus to see the “Corpulent Lady” and to sit upon her
lap immediately following her lunch of sauerbraten and ale.
'2013':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Chris Wieloch
location: 'Brookfield, WI'
quote: >-
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.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: Lawrence Person
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
“Don’t know no tunnels hereabout,” said the old-timer, “unless you mean
the abandoned subway line that runs from Hanging Hill, under that weird
ruined church, beneath the Indian burial ground, past the dilapidated
Usher mansion, and out to the old abandoned asylum for the
criminallyinsane where they had all those murders.”
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Oliver Mauser
location: 'Jacksonville, FL'
quote: >-
trees, but it was just the sort of nonsense I was used to from him,
making me wish one or the other of us was hanging dead above us, instead
of Rodney.
- category: Adventure
type: Runner Up
author: Ron D Smith
location: 'Louisville, KY'
quote: >-
herbivores, which calmed everyone in the group, except for Herb, of
course.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Watson
location: 'Raleigh, NC'
quote: >-
It was a tricky situation, given the complex behavioral instincts of the
Lowland Gorilla, and this accidental group encounter with a
silver-backed dominant male was taxing Professor Wiesenheimer’s
knowledge of interspecies primate interaction to the limit, yet
confidently and without hesitation, he turned to his startled pupils and
whispered, “Run like Hell.”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Tonya Lavel
location: 'Barbados, West Indies'
quote: >-
It was such a beautiful night; the bright moonlight illuminated the sky,
the thick clouds floated leisurely by just above the silhouette of tall,
majestic trees, and I was viewing it all from the front row seat of the
bullet hole in my car trunk.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Eric J Hildemen
location: 'Greenfield, WI'
quote: >-
Seeing Mrs. Kohler sink, Detective Moen flushed as he plugged the
burglary as the unmistakable work of Cap Fawcet, the Mad Plumber, for
not only had her pool of assets been drained, but her clogs were now
missing, and the toilet had been removed, leaving them with absolutely
nothing to go on.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Thor F. Carden
location: 'Madison, TN'
quote: >-
This was a very easy mystery for me to solve, so I never considered
putting it in a story until I was telling some friends about it, and I
realized the average person, such as yourself, has trouble figuring it
out, although it is really laughably simple.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Alanna Smith
location: 'Wappingers Falls, NY'
quote: >-
Observing how the corpse’s blood streaked the melting vanilla ice cream,
Frank wanted to snap his pen in half and add drops of blue ink to the
mix, completing the color trio of the American flag – or the French
flag, given that the body had just fallen from the top of the Las Vegas
Eiffel Tower onto a crème glacée cart.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kenneth Bennight
location: 'San Antonio, TX'
quote: >-
The dame was stacked, both conventionally and in that she was the third
of five bodies piled against the wall, the wall’s earth tones reminding
me of Grandmother’s house, which figured since it was her house, she
having stacked the bodies there after poisoning them, so I studied the
bodies as I munched on Grandmother’s ginger snaps and felt a twinge in
my stomach.
- category: Horror
type: Winner
author: Maggie Lyons
location: 'Callao, VA'
quote: >-
Even though Letitia had brushed her teeth, Draco could still smell her
garlicky breath, but assuming her blood would at least be toxin free, if
not particularly appetizing—because of the antibiotic properties of the
garlic’s allicin, an organosulfur compound—he gleefully plunged his
incisors into her throbbing jugular vein.
- category: Horror
type: Runner Up
author: Janine Beacham
location: 'Busselton WA, Australia,'
quote: >-
Count Glandula’s castle flickered with eerie lights, where the immortal
villain slaked his evil thirst in the dungeons with innocent victims—two
moldy old peasants because the virtuous maidens had all been taken by
the hot teenaged vampires down the road whose breath wasn’t so icky.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Jordan Kaderli
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
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.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: John Holmes
location: 'St. Petersburg, FL'
quote: >-
It was a long shot by any measure, good bowman though he was, and he
didn’t want to risk it with his kid, but a lot was on the line, and that
big, red apple was square on his dear boy’s head, and he had to shoot it
off … then everything went still, and William Tell heard the sound of
music, quiet, then gently rising, like an overture.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randal Pilz
location: 'Milton, FL'
quote: >-
General Lee arranged for the dreaded surrender, yet capitalized on his
opponents’ weaknesses to the very end, striking a tiny parting blow for
the Army of Northern Virginia (chuckling to himself) as he remembered
from Academy days how many Union commanders had struggled with spelling
even common words, and so ran his finger along the map and settled on
Appomattox.
- category: Fantasy
type: Winner
author: Janine Beacham
location: 'Busselton, WA, Australia'
quote: >-
The fairies of Minglewood, which is near Dingly Pool, were having a
grand revel with flower-cakes, and butterfly dances, looking ever so
pretty, while Queen Bellaflora swept her wand o’er the waterfall’s foam,
making it pop like the snot-bubbles on your baby sister’s face.
- category: Fantasy
type: Runner Up
author: Rachel Flanigan
location: 'Honolulu, HI'
quote: >-
There once was a nasty, evil troll who lived beneath a bridge and took
pleasure in collecting gold from the unsuspecting users of the
infrastructure; however, no one used the bridge because an evil troll
lived under it so the troll didn’t do much of anything.
- category: Fantasy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Thor F. Carden
location: 'Madison, TN'
quote: >-
This was going to be a science fiction novel until I realized that you
actually have to know some real science for it to work well, so I
changed it to a fantasy novel instead, because that way I can just make
up the rules as I go, unhampered by the laws of physics or chemistry, as
if you knew what they were anyway.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Howie McLennon
location: 'Ottawa, Canada'
quote: >-
Before they met, his heart was a frozen block of ice, scarred by the
skate blades of broken relationships, then she came along and like a
beautiful Zamboni flooded his heart with warmth, scraped away the ugly
slushy bits, and dumped them in the empty parking lot of his soul.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Runner Up
author: Paul Sutcliffe
location: 'Pittsburgh, PA'
quote: >-
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.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Helen Grainge
location: 'Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
Mildred, sitting under the hair dryer at The Curl & Go and thumbing
through a Victoria’s Secret catalogue, felt a shudder and a fleeting
moment of commiseration when she saw those tiny thongs the models were
sporting in the name of underwear because, as it happened, her own butt
cheeks tended to gobble up her Fruit of the Loom For Mature Women white
cotton panties like a pair of starving wolverines fighting over a
flatfish.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ward Willats
location: 'Felton, CA'
quote: >-
There is a special pinkness to the sky as the sun rises on a crisp
January morning, kissing the clouds, warming the fields, and waking the
livestock, who move quietly to their feet and begin to mill about their
pens, like patrons in a crowded theater lobby who, instead of waiting to
see a show, are waiting to be made into steaks or bacon.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jeff Treder Springfield
location: OR
quote: >-
When the slinky redhead slunk into the throbbing, strobe-lit nightclub,
Elwood’s eyes fastened on her the way a toilet plunger will fasten onto
a hard surface if you shove it down just right, but her returning
glance, while smoldering, was actually more caustic and burned his
tender ego the way liquid Drano can burn your hand if you spill some on
it, having disregarded the manufacturer’s warning.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wendi Tibbets
location: 'San Jose, CA'
quote: >-
The sharks circled the leaking life raft like a pack of rabid
personal-injury attorneys at a five-car pileup, and Clarence could just
taste the fear (which tasted like chicken) and wondered morbidly if he
too, might taste like chicken.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Schweizer
location: 'Tryon, NC'
quote: >-
He had a drink in his hand and a hole in his heart, a hole big enough to
drive a Honda Odyssey minivan with satellite linked navigation and a
multi-angle rearview camera down the anterior vena cava, execute a
three-point-turn at the atrioventicular valve (thanks to the rear view
camera), then exit the pulmonary artery without ever once scraping the
Celestial Blue Metallic finish that comes standard on the EX-L.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Jessica Sashihara
location: 'Martinsville, NJ'
quote: >-
On their first date he’d asked how much she thought Edgar Allan Poe’s
toe nails would sell for on eBay, and on their second he paid for subway
fair with nickels he fished out of a fountain, but he was otherwise
charming and she thought that they could have a perfectly tolerable life
together.
- category: Romance
type: Runner Up
author: Krista Holm
location: 'Helsinki, Finland'
quote: >-
The day Anthony and Charlotta met was a special one, not merely because
of the truly magical first encounter of the would-be lovers —they
reached for the same pair of chopsticks at The Lucky Dragon’s
all-you-can-eat Chinese food lunch buffet—but also because it wasthe day
the lizard aliens came to earth and destroyed all of mankind with their
poison gas bombs and acid catapults.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Margaret Stein
location: 'Omaha, NE'
quote: >-
While Dame Goodchild fondly watched Lord Peasebody’s innocent ward gaze
admiringly after Eduardo de Abló, the china-blue eyes moving upwards
from the ancestral sword banging lightly against taut thighs to the
carelessly tied cravat framing a swarthy, cicatrized cheek above which
black eyes half-hidden by untamed raven locks flashed in challenge and
passion, she wondered if Elizabeth knew he got the scar from falling
face-first onto his ostler’s manure rake.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John J. White
location: 'Merritt Island, FL'
quote: >-
Her tepid tongue explored my mouth like a confused gopher, the tip
giving way to the dorsum, its length and breadth tempting my pharyngeal
reflex as no tongue had ever tempted my pharyngeal reflex, our passion
alone holding back a filet of sole, pommes frites, and a superb
Sauvignon Blanc.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kathryn Nelson
location: 'Toledo, OH'
quote: >-
When Big Jim strode into the vertebrate lab, Rebecca’s blood froze, not
exactly like that of the wood frog, Rana sylvatica, whose intercellular
fluid fills with ice crystals, sparing the cells from harm, but now as
she visualized its late winter mating frenzy, she felt both oddly
desirable and unnaturally jumpy.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The patterns of our lives, like the weave of an oriental rug, the tans
and reds, the thin silken threads, the thick woolen yarns, the cross
weaves or the double hooks, and, yes, even the berber loops that are
really out of style these days, sure are hard to figure sometimes.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: David S Nelson
location: Falls Church VA
quote: >-
The Mushroom Men of Knarf were silently advancing on the unsuspecting
earthlings, and their thin milky blood ran colder when they smelled
spores from fungal toenail infections rising from many of the invaders’
feet, for to them it was a wondrous and shocking scent of kinship,
homeland, and asexual reproduction.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: David S Nelson
location: Falls Church VA
quote: >-
digesting; and when finger food maybe meant chocolate, fish or—
ark!—ingers!
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nate Renie
location: 'Alameda, CA'
quote: nervous system that makes complex emotions like love possible.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Aishia Trueman
location: 'Canberra, ACT, Australia'
quote: >-
make scones which I will feed to ducks, and I’ll take their feathers and
make a fantastic feather boa, and it will look stylish, so who’s
laughing now?”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Brian Brandt
location: 'Lansdale, PA'
quote: >-
What the Highway Department’s chief IT guy for the new computerized
roadway hated most was listening to the ‘smart’ components complain
about being mixed with asphalt instead of silicon and made into speed
bumps instead of graceful vases, like the one today from chip J176: “I
coulda had glass; I coulda been a container; I coulda been some bottle,
instead of a bump, which is what I am.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Linda Boatright
location: 'Omaha, NE'
quote: >-
Niles deeply regretted bringing his own equipment to the company’s
annual croquet tournament because those were his fingerprints found on
the “blunt instrument” that had caused the fatal depression in his
boss’s skull and now here he stood in court accused of murder, yes,
murder in the first degree with mallets
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Holmes
location: 'St. Petersburg, FL'
quote: >-
Mrs. Irene Bartlett was so taken with the account of the annihilation of
Sodom and Gomorrah, and the transformational moment when Lot’s wife was
miraculously turned into a pillar of salt, that she became a Shaker.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tom Wallace
location: 'Columbia, SC'
quote: >-
He spotted her as he left the Mudville baseball field, a handsome young
woman sipping tea on the front porch swing of her house, and, though the
boos and catcalls from today’s game still rang in his ears, the Mighty
Casey decided that for the first time in his life he would not at all
mind being associated with a swing and a Miss.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Hynes
location: 'Bromma, Sweden'
quote: >-
Yes, mused Gerald, fine-tuning the layout of his seafood buffet, the
Coquilles Saint-Jacques would look best among the plates of rock cod and
(he had to admit it) the rather overcooked flatfish; yes, right there,
he thought, that’s where the scallops should go: between a rock and a
hard plaice.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Amy Torchinsky
location: 'Greensboro, NC'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night when, in the course of being snoopy, I
happened upon the most extraordinary dog—sitting at an old-school
typewriter upon the roof of his doghouse—who grumbled that he was
working for peanuts.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jim Tweedie
location: 'Long Beach, WA'
quote: >-
Although it was late at night and the snow was gently falling, Martin,
who had gathered the young maidens together in the village church and
was now, at the stroke of midnight, leading them across the town square,
responded to the town constable’s enquiry as to what he was doing by
replying, “I herd the belles on Christmas Day.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Stan McConnell
location: 'Rancho Palos Verdes, CA'
quote: >-
Serena thought bitterly of the ironic juxtaposition of her name and her
life, which had changed irrevocably, and for all eternity, on that
fateful day when her serenity was punctured by the manly lance of that
knight in shiny Armani.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kevin Hogg
location: 'Cranbrook, BC, Canada'
quote: >-
forced to reply to his “Honey, do you?” with a mournful “You know I just
can’t elope.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nancy Hoffman
location: 'Peaks Island, ME'
quote: >-
The veterinarian had suggested the tasty yellow fruit as a way to cure
the undiagnosed lack of appetite that was ebbing away the very life of
his fluffy little friend and Mark was fraught with anguish as he kept
wondering, “Will a chick eat a banana?”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Cavanagh
location: 'Deer Island, OR'
quote: >-
When working-class Rosalind had been turned into a frog herself after
kissing the enchanted Prince, she and her anguished croaking were shown
on countless newsreels worldwide; and even decades after her “15 minutes
of fame” had lapsed the problem of upward mobility for working women is
still commonly demonstrated by invoking Rosie the Ribbitter.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: John Cavanagh
location: 'Deer Island, OR'
quote: >-
“Ahgonagedoo, oosdiggingsuine!!!” screamed Jake Calhoun; but Doc
Holliday, the legendary gunfighter/dentist, replied simply, “Smile when
you say that, pardner, then swirl and spit out.”
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Rick Cheeseman
location: 'Waconia, MN'
quote: >-
Tex sauntered into the saloon, tipped his hat towards Miss Kitty seated
at the bar, and drawled, “I’ve been excogitatin’, and we don’t take
kindly to no loquacious sesquipedalians ‘round these parts, lessin’ they
be indigenous”—and with that, subsequently shot dead the visiting chatty
professor of English standing next
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Sarah Harper
location: 'Silver Spring, MD'
quote: >-
“I have always found character introductions at the beginning of novels
to be a rather clunky literary device,” said Edmond Wordswell of Liston
Street, Cambridge, a 39-year-old tax attorney and sufferer of severe
lactophobia, the tragic result of having been abandoned in an empty milk
bottle carrier as an infant.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Lee Martinson
location: 'Yucaipa, CA'
quote: >-
Dark and stormy was her disposition; her hair cascaded evenly onto her
shoulders in torrents—except at intervening occasions, when it was
checked by a violent gust of air from a huge blower (for it is in
Hollywood that our scene lies), rattling along her blouse top, and
fiercely agitating the scanty fabric that struggled against her
implants.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jackie Fuchs
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
The dame that walked into my office was statuesque and looked like she
ought to be standing on a bed of roses … in other words, she looked
exactly like the garden gnome my ex-wife had stuck in our flower bed,
next to a bird bath that attracted a whole lot of bills, much like my
in-tray, which was lousy with them.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Guy Foisy
location: 'Orleans, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
It was amidst the chaos of the Loma Prieta tectonic plate shift, while
sipping sassafras floats at opposite ends of a busy ice cream bar when,
in a serendipitous happenstance of synchronicity, the cranial plates of
Laura and Earl also shifted, sending their ocular prosthetics tumbling
to the floor where they rolled and rolled until their eyes met across
the crowded room.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: John Glenn
location: 'Tyler, TX'
quote: >-
Todd didn’t think he would ever be able to love another woman the way he
had loved Lily, but he was really eager to try.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
To Juliet’s mind, he was just a small town Romeo, and—bummer—a Capulet
to boot, but the men pickings in Verona were slim, so even though her
daddy would have a cat, she decided, “What’s the worst that could
happen?”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Warren Blair
location: 'Ashburn, VA'
quote: >-
Tony was unsure if the voice had said, “Sven” or “Ten,” but, as no one
had ever called him Sven, and the ceiling lights were shining directly
into his eyes, and, recognizing the familiar sad, yet concerned, look on
the referee’s face—he was gonna go with “Ten.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Shethra Jones-Hoopes
location: 'Conestoga, PA'
quote: >-
The dark, drafty old house was lopsided and decrepit, leaning in on
itself, the way an aging possum carrying a very heavy, overcooked
drumstick in his mouth might list to one side if he were also favoring a
torn Achilles tendon, assuming possums have them.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Clay Wach
location: 'Winnipeg, Canada'
quote: >-
Daphne had thoroughly researched the subject and concluded that, by all
accounts, the medical procedure for reducing the size of her ample
derriere was relatively safe but—and it is a big ’but’ —she understood
there is always an inherent risk involving any surgery.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jordan Kaderli
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Betty had eyes that said come here, lips that said kiss me, arms and
torso that said hold me all night long, but the rest of her body said,
“Fillet me, cover me in cornmeal, and fry me in peanut oil”; romance
wasn’t easy for a mermaid.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Max Walker
location: 'Bryn Mawr, PA'
quote: >-
Derek squeezed through the narrow entrance past irate piles at the bar
and pushed deeper into the tight, dark saloon, and brushing aside a
stool and settling between ornaments that hung like polyps from the
ceiling, he examined the texture of the walls with his fingertips while
trying to avoid the gaze of the owner; the perfect bar, he mused, for
the socially awkward proctologist.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: John O’Byrne
location: 'Dublin, Ireland'
quote: >-
The sunset was like a golden pouring of honey that you find in those
breakfast jars in good class hotels, some of which ends up on the linen
table cloth, the colour of cirrostratus clouds before they have been
sunset-soaked.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Mark Donnelly
location: 'Co. Wicklow, Ireland'
quote: >-
Our tale begins with the encounter of two gentlemen; I’m going to
describe the second gentleman first.
'2014':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Elizabeth (Betsy) Dorfman
location: 'Bainbridge Island, WA'
quote: >-
When the dead moose floated into view the famished crew cheered—this had
to mean land!—but Captain Walgrove, flinty-eyed and clear headed thanks
to the starvation cleanse in progress, gave fateful orders to remain on
the original course and await the appearance of a second and confirming
moose.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: Stan Hunter Kranc
location: 'State College, PA'
quote: >-
As he girded himself against the noxious, sulfurous fumes that belched
from the chasm in preparation for descent into the bowels of the
mountain where mighty pressure and unimaginable heat made rock run in
syrupy rivers, Bob paused to consider the unlikely series of events that
had led him to become the Great God Vulcan’s proctologist.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Dawson
location: 'Vancouver, Canada'
quote: >-
As the foeman’s axe descended, Ragnar Thorvaldsson thought—quickly, but
with uncannily prescient anachronism—that his paltry contribution to
this raid would not be recorded in the great sagas, or even a minor
tale, but at best he might be remembered centuries hence only as “third
oarsman” in the Boys’ Own Book of Viking Adventure Stories.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Phillip Davies
location: 'Cardiff, UK.'
quote: >-
Finally after ninety-seven long days adrift Captain Pertwee was rescued,
mercifully ending his miserable diet of rainwater and strips of sun
dried Haddock which was actually far ghastlier than it sounded what with
George Haddock being his former first mate.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Winner
author: Mike Mayfield
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
Justin was happy, like a clam at high tide, but abruptly ending his
musings he recalled that he had every reason to be happy (in his own
small way) because he was a quahog and it was the highest of tides, and
he squirted with delight.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Carl Turney
location: 'Bayswater, Victoria, Australia'
quote: >-
Hard-boiled private dick Harrison Bogart couldn’t tell if it was the
third big glass of cheap whiskey he’d just finished, or the way the
rain-moistened blouse clung so tightly to the perfect figure of the dame
who just appeared panting in his office doorway, but he was certain of
one thing … he had the hottest mother-in-law in the world.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joshua Long
location: 'Harrison, OH'
quote: >-
Hard-boiled private eye Smith Calloway had a sinking feeling as he
walked into the chaotic crime scene, for there, as expected, was the
body dressed in a monk’s habit; there was the stuffed cream-colored pony
next to the crisp apple strudel; there was the doorbell, the set of
sleigh bells, and even the schnitzel with noodles – all proclaiming that
the Von Trappist Killer had struck again.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jorge Stolfi
location: 'Campinas, SP, Brazil'
quote: >-
“One cannot easily shake off old habits,” was all that retired Detective
Tim O’Hara could say when, after rifling through the dead old man’s
pockets (which, as he expected, were all empty), inspecting his throat,
and forcing open his cold, stiff hand to get his fingerprints, he was
gently but firmly pulled away from the coffin by his brother Harry and
piloted out of the parlor under the perplexed stares of uncle Mel’s
friends
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Damian Alabakoff
location: 'Vancouver, WA'
quote: >-
He was waiting for the call seated behind his desk, his right knee
bouncing up and down like the piston of a one-cylinder steam engine—the
kind old guys restore and stand proudly next to at the county fair
hoping someone will stop and ask about it but they never do as the
engine thumps and sputters in rhythm like an anxious guy seated behind
his desk bouncing his knee up and down.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brian Brandt
location: 'Lansdale, PA'
quote: >-
When the CSI investigator lifted the sheet revealing the mutilated body
with the Ginsu Knife still protruding from the bloody chest, Detective
Miller wondered why anybody would ever need two of them, even if he only
had to pay extra shipping and handling.
- category: Fantasy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kevin Hogg
location: 'Cranbrook, BC, Canada'
quote: >-
After years of Dame Gothel’s tyrrany, Rapunzel was only seconds from
freedom, until, with an agonized scream, the prince plunged to his death
in the thorns below, grasping a handful of detached blond strands—the
golden stair having been irreparably weakened by the deficiency of
Vitamins B3, B6, and B7 in his love’s new celiac-friendly diet.
- category: Fantasy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Thor F. Carden
location: 'Madison, TN'
quote: >-
The Swan Queen spread her wings with all the quick grace of a
businessman hailing a taxi in NYC and leapt high into the air like said
businessman swearing and jumping back from the curb as the taxi he was
hailing speeds past and splatters him with sludgy city puddle water, but
in a more graceful way than the second bit.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: John Holmes
location: 'St. Petersburg, FL'
quote: >-
In the late 1480’s, one of Henry VII’s spies in Milan picked up on what
Columbus was up to, caught a gypsy caravan to Barcelona, a strawberry
wagon to Lisbon, a crazy noble’s carriage to Marseilles, a worn
stagecoach to Paris (which broke down), a hike to Calais, a rowboat to
Southampton, arriving in London a year after Columbus landed in America,
the imminent sailing for which the next year the spy, by now headless,
had come to report.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Frank McWilliams
location: 'Telford, PA'
quote: >-
With her interest in dime-store cowboy novels finally fading and
Christmas just days away, little Lizzy Borden sat quietly in the corner
and crossed “tomahawk” off her Christmas list, writing instead the word
AXE, carefully in her best penmanship, which made her mother and father
so proud.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Clark Snodgrass
location: 'Huntington Beach, CA'
quote: >-
2nd Lt. Buck Johnson peered down from his perch high above the
battlefield in his aerial reconnaissance balloon and watched the Union
infantry lines march out of the tree line and across the crown of the
barren field, their dark Union uniforms occasionally interspersed with
grey Confederate prisoners forming a mass of precision strands of
soldiers slowly covering the once bald field like an ever-growing “dark
with touch of grey” comb-over.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Carl Turney
location: 'Bayswater, Victoria, Australia'
quote: >-
It was a bright and cloudless day, as young Lizzie hummed a cheerful
tune to herself, whilst drying and replacing the last knife on its hook,
and reminiscing how Mother and Father Borden (lying bleeding in their
respective pools of blood upstairs) had been so inappropriately cross
with her, such a short while ago.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Stephen Sanford
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
He was a stolid man, prone to excessive and extended bursts of
emotionlessness; but when Maurice loved, he loved with the passion of a
dog itching its face against the grain of a firm pile
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Terri Meeker
location: 'Nixa, MO'
quote: >-
Cole kissed Anastasia, not in a lingering manner as a connoisseur might
sip a glass of ‘82 La Pin, but open-mouthed and desperate, like a hobo
wrapping his mouth around a bottle of Strawberry Ripple in the alley
behind the 7-11.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The Contessa’s heart was pounding hard and fast, like an out-of-balance
clothes washer, which can get that way if you mix jeans with a lot of
light things, though the new ones have some sensor thing to counteract
that or shut off, but the Contessa’s heart didn’t have anything like
that, so she had to sit down and tell Don Rolando to keep his hands to
himself for a while.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter S. Bjorkman
location: 'Rocklin, CA'
quote: >-
The young lovers’ lips latched to each other not unlike the way in which
two coital snails would, with much slime and suction, frothing as if
someone had just poured salt on them.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Shalom Chung
location: Hong Kong
quote: >-
His ex-wife’s personality was like chocolate—not the smoky, tangy,
exquisitely rich and full-bodied type, but the over-sweet,
tooth-cracking, factory-processed, made-with vegetable-oil kind that
leaves one with diabetes and an aneurysm the size of a grape.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Eva Niessner
location: 'Cockeysville, MD'
quote: >-
It seemed fair to say that her werewolfism was putting a strain on their
relationship, the way she had earned the ire of the neighbors by
devouring their pets and howling far past the bedtimes of their
children, but bring it up to her, and she’d just snarl, “Why do you keep
harping on this?” around a mouthful of the Smiths’ cat.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wendy White Lees
location: 'Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ'
quote: >-
Raoul’s deep slate eyes sucked Natalie in, and there she remained lodged
like the wadded knee-hi clogging the tube of her Hoover Electrosuction
Model 612 that once belonged to her grandmother, or some other dead
relative, its vacuum bag so overstuffed with gunk, shed skin cells, and
insect exoskeletons it nearly exploded like Natalie’s heart bursting
with love for Raoul.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Amelia Kynaston
location: 'Las Vegas, NV'
quote: >-
Over KFC, Raul broke up with Sheila a second time (the first time
shrinking her heart until it was only fit for a tiny doll), tearing what
was left of her heart to shreds, like the shreds of coleslaw now
clinging to Raul’s beard; a fitting analogy since the aforementioned
doll Sheila was thinking of was a Cabbage Patch doll.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michael Shaw
location: 'Rockville, MD'
quote: >-
The tears of her loneliness rolled from her cheeks and fell upon the
steaming pavement outside a secondrate shopping center in Torrance,
California, those tears quickly evaporating in the heat and turning into
molecularized water vapor that was gradually pulled into the upper
atmosphere and slowly dispersed across the planet until, many years
later, a few of the molecules descended upon Riomaggiore, Italy, where
they were inhaled by her soul-mate, Giorgio Abatangelo whom she would
never, ever, meet.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Suzy Levinson
location: 'Sunnyside, NY'
quote: >-
The spaceship hovered like a saucer, only rounder, deeper, the product
of an unholy union between dessert plate and finger bowl, as any of the
villagers familiar with traditional service à la russe dining could
plainly see.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Matthew Hannum
location: 'Glen Burnie, MD'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, as it would be for the next 23 years on
the world of Lo’soun, a lop-sided planet that rolls around its axis like
one of those spinning tops kids have, and for the next 23 years the
brave space colonists would have to live without light, warmth, or the
screaming, car-sized cicadas that only come out in the summer.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Howie McLennon
location: 'Ottawa, ON, Canada'
quote: >-
Pet detective Drake Leghorn ducked reporters at the entrance to the
small hobby farm and headed down to the tiny pond where a lone goose was
frantically calling for her mate and he wondered why—when so many come
to look upon the graceful mating pair—why would someone want to take a
gander?
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kirsten Wilson
location: 'Superior, CO'
quote: >-
Six months old, and already their love had picked up memories like lint,
which, now that Maddie thought about it, was appropriate, since she and
Brian met at the laundromat, when Maddie found herself hampered by a
stubborn washing machine coin slot, but then snickered at the thought of
being “hampered” while doing laundry, and then found herself explaining
her snicker to the nearest laundromat patron, whoturned out to be Brian
and who, better yet, turned out to have a sense of humor even, well,
dryer than her own.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jim Biggie
location: 'Melrose, MA'
quote: >-
Six months old, and already their love had picked up memories like lint,
which, now that Maddie thought about it, was appropriate, since she and
Brian met at the laundromat, when Maddie found herself hampered by a
stubborn washing machine coin slot, but then snickered at the thought of
being “hampered” while doing laundry, and then found herself explaining
her snicker to the nearest laundromat patron, who turned out to be Brian
and who, better yet, turned out to have a sense of humor even, well,
dryer than her own.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Chris Lovegren
location: 'Lynden, WA'
quote: >-
When the call came in for grammar expert Professor Leland Saige to
analyze the President’s latest speech just five minutes after Saige’s
indispensable assistant, Mary Anne Detwiler had gone to bed (Mary Anne
was notoriously impossible to awaken fifteen minutes after she retired),
the Professor’s receptionist hurriedly burst into his office and
breathlessly announced, “If you’re going to parse, Lee Saige, rouse Mary
in time!”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Holmes
location: 'St. Petersburg, FL'
quote: >-
The Cisco Kid, Pancho, Hopalong Cassidy, and Roy Rogers had all gone on
to Tombstone to meet up with Wyatt Earp, leaving me on my lonesome in
this one-horse town with not one cent in my britches, and my old nag
Buster damn near puckered out, so I had to hook up with the loan
arranger and pronto.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Ted Downes
location: 'Cardiff, UK.'
quote: >-
“I guess you ain’t from around these here parts, Mistuh”, drawled
Sheriff Cole McCabe, suspiciously eying the mysterious one-armed,
scar-faced stranger with no name who had just stepped off the Deadwood
stage and was now standing at the bar of the Last Chance saloon dressed
only in a tutu, high-heeled shoes, holding a pink parasol and reciting
passages from Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past to Mad Dog
Kincaid and the Coltrane boys outta the Lazy K Ranch just south o’
Tucson.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
I brought the stagecoach to a halt when I saw the robbers approach and
of course they were quite riled when they found out not only was I not
transporting anything valuable but there were also no passengers (such
as a banker or pretty girl) aboard, and then they threatened to shoot me
for no good reason but finally said the hell with it and rode off, but I
think shooting me for no loot, no suit, and no beaut would have been a
good reason.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Betty Brown
location: 'New Bern, NC'
quote: >-
Grey and foreboding, the turbulent sea—our faithful companion for the
previous 24 days—brought our little boat at last to the soft pastel
tranquility of a tropical island paradise where pristine beaches nuzzled
the feet of craggy volcanic peaks, and the tiny harbor’s pungent odor
betrayed the local cab drivers who habitually urinated on the sea wall.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Tyler Miles
location: 'Waterbury, VT'
quote: >-
Every once in a while Cletus would feel the inconceivable,
unintelligible force of loneliness come down from the far reaches of the
cold, dark universe and crush him in a manner that left him pondering
the significance of his sad, meandering existence in the face of this
meaningless mass of nothing we call life, but not today, because today
is Taco Tuesday.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Cat Clerkin
location: 'Greensboro, NC'
quote: >-
Tomorrow was Cindy’s favorite day; not tomorrow-as-in-May-Eighteenth,
but tomorrow as in the concept, like freedom— the idea of a time that
has not yet come to pass, like the zombie apocalypse or the rapture—and
which, therefore, her mother-in-law had not yet ruined.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Shanon Conner
location: 'San Angelo, TX'
quote: >-
As Farmer Brown’s train pulled out of the station at 10:00am traveling
east at 50 mph, he had no idea that at that very same moment Farmer
Green was 100 miles away on a west-bound train heading straight for him
at 60mph and that because of a tragic track-switching mistake he was
going to die in a fiery head-on train crash at exactly … uhm … well …
err … sometime later that day.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Talha bin Hamid
location: 'Karachi, Pakistan'
quote: >-
This is a tale of love, pain, loss, and redemption—and of a baboon,
Amelia.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Anthony Newman
location: 'Collinsville, CT'
quote: >-
There it stood regally atop the marble counter, the clear, sensuously
curvaceous container, with its golden cargo, crowned with a spherical
stopper, with its tapered base in intimate contact with the neck of the
vessel, a vitreous phallus waiting to deprive the oleaginous content of
its extra-virginity.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Lucina Mendez
location: 'Blaine, MN'
quote: >-
There is litter on the highway and there are grey skies and naked trees;
the sky so slate of grey that it cuts the sky like a knife, obscuring
all horizons; the wind feels like human breath on my neck, heaving over
me like it paid for the right, and is like a Dali with a sky-like awning
that protects from the truncated blisters of the socket-like cistern of
the sun.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Karen Arutunoff
location: 'Tulsa, OK'
quote: >-
As I passed the sweating plate glass windows and my own reflection as
well as that of the occasional headlight off the interstate of the exit
49 Waffle House pondering whether I would have the late night
steak-and-egg breakfast or the covered, smothered, scattered triple hash
browns with Tabasco, I caught a glimpse of what looked like the entire
cast of Fargo at the counter sending a vague wave of fear over me and
the thought that if Armageddon were to be tonight, this would be the
epicenter.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Aiko Baker
location: 'Murfeesboro, TN'
quote: >-
My name is Caroline and if you’re reading this I’m either dead or I’ve
gotten lost in some alternate dimension where Liverpool has exploded and
been replaced with a fancy water park … though it’s probably the first
one.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Paul Bayley
location: 'Walnut Creek, CA'
quote: >-
Pine trees stretched as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t very far
in Gerald’s case, since he was overdue for cataract surgery with the
only ophthalmologist in town who still took Medicare patients, and their
needles whispered gently in the breeze.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Paul Bayley
location: 'Walnut Creek, CA'
quote: >-
In the bleak world of Detective Clive Pinch the sight of dead bodies was
no big whoop, but lots of little pieces of a whole bunch of different
ones crammed into crude papier mache raccoons welded inside a rusty
steel drum washed up on a moonlit Port Hueneme beach most certainly was
a big one.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Zachary Bezemek
location: 'West Bloomfield, MI'
quote: >-
Long, sleek legs protruded from her tantalizingly round abdomen; thick,
bristly hairs clung to his skin, communicating “I need you” in her
innocent, nymphean way; wide, multifaceted eyes stared lustrously into
him—yes, the little maggot he’d taken in but weeks before had blossomed
into a voluptuous young housefly, and he feared he could no longer
resist her beauty.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Elizabeth Blair
location: 'Portland, MI'
quote: >-
I fell into my Swedish lover Sven’s strong grip like a prime piece of
organic mahogany held in the iron grasp of a log clamp on a wet November
afternoon.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Dave Roberts
location: 'Oatley, NSW, Australia'
quote: >-
Perhaps it was the unnatural angle of her neck that bothered Clint, or
perhaps it was the fact that she was beautiful—far too beautiful to be
having a body bag zipped up over her, but he knew one thing for certain:
the untouched chocolate mud cake on the counter was looking more
appetizing by the minute.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: J. Andrew Cleland
location: Gray TN
quote: >-
I will not repeat what she said when she came home and found out I’d
been spraying Endust on her dog and throwing treats under the bed to get
him to harvest the dust bunnies, but you wouldn’t think a young lady
would even know any words like that.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Brent Sheppard
location: 'Morganton, NC'
quote: >-
The fluffy white clouds draped over the top of the mountain like a
dollop of cream cheese icing melting down the sides of a hot cinnamon
roll except without that alluring cinnamon roll aroma you get at the
mall because, after all, this was a secluded mountain and erecting a
mall in such a remote location would not be economically feasible.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: John Tracy
location: 'Shoreline, WA'
quote: >-
The full moon over distant hill bathed the lovers in joyful radiance,
glowworms merrily winked and glimmered, swamp gas emanated an ethereal
shimmer, and fireflies twinkled, flickered and fluttered—pinging their
pinprick flashes like optical exclamation points, the whole light show
engendering a veritable cornucopian cacophony of Kinkadesque
scintillation.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Vina Prasad
location: Singapore
quote: >-
The cheesemonger’s wares reminded me of the days of my feckless
youth—the soft white clouds of paneer encapsulated my leisurely summer
in Gujarat, the block of sweet, caramel-brown Brunost made my autumn
sojourn in Oslo float to mind, and the pungent scent of Stilton, its
yellowish-white wedges embellished with veins of blue-green mould,
brought back memories of discovering the Staffordshire Strangler’s first
five corpses.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Kelben Graf
location: 'Milwaukie, OR'
quote: >-
It was cool but muggy—I was schvitzing like a mohel at his first
bris—and one thing was for certain: that Rosetta Stone course in Yiddish
was worth the gelt.
'2015':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Joel Phillips
location: 'West Trenton, NJ'
quote: >-
Seeing how the victim's body, or what remained of it, was wedged between
the grill of the Peterbilt 389 and the bumper of the 2008 Cadillac
Escalade EXT, officer "Dirk" Dirksen wondered why reporters always used
the phrase "sandwiched" to describe such a scene since there was nothing
appetizing about it, but still, he thought, they might have a point
because some of this would probably end up on the front of his shirt.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Runner Up
author: Grey Harlowe
location: 'Salem, OR'
quote: >-
We can’t let the dastards win,” said Piper Bogdonovich to her fellow
gardener, Mr. Sidney Beckworth Hammerstein, as she clenched her gloved
hands into gnarly, fuzzed fists, “because if I have to endure another
year after which my Royal Puffin buttercups come in second place to
Marsha Engelstrom’s Fainting Dove Tear Drop peonies, I will find a
machine gun and leave my humanity card in the Volvo.”
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: Neil T Godden
location: 'Nouméa, New Caledonia'
quote: >-
After his seventh shot of Jack Daniels, Billy reflected that only a
certain kind of man, a Roman Catholic priest, born under the sign of
Gemini, whose loved one had been run down by a bus full of inebriated
Lazio supporters on a glorious Sunday morning in early April outside a
provincial church whose bells were ringing Bach’s Tocatta and Fugue in B
minor, would truly be able to understand the abyss of despair in which
he was drowning.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: David Laatsch
location: 'Baton Rouge, LA'
quote: >-
After weeks at sea, Captain Fetherstonhaugh and his hardy crew had at
last crossed the halfway point, and he mused that the closest dry land
now lay in the Americas, assuming of course that it was not raining
there.
- category: Adventure
type: Runner Up
author: Charlie Hill
location: 'Auckland, New Zealand'
quote: >-
Certainly most people in Morris’ place would have had certain misgivings
about being stranded aboard a life raft, facing the unrelenting hunger
and the possibility of having to eat the weaker members of the crew just
to eke out the chance of survival for a few more days, but as Morris was
an Asiatic black bear he had absolutely no qualms about it whatsoever.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dave Hurt
location: 'Leicester, UK'
quote: >-
A thousand miles from the coast a cheer went up from the burned, ragged
survivors of the Cortez party as they descended upon the hapless prairie
dog devouring skin, fur, blood, everything in their ravenous quest for
sustenance since their expulsion, two months previously, from the Reno
Holiday Inn without the concomitant expulsion from the safe of their
wallets and passports
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Ross
location: 'Santa Fe, NM'
quote: >-
If old Elijah’s warning about the North Korean cruise ship of Liberian
registry, crewed by Thai slaves wasn’t enough, dinner at the Somali
Captain’s table in a lifeboat near confirmed it.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Myriam Nys
location: 'Mechelen, Belgium'
quote: >-
Walking through the northernmost souk of Marrakech, that storied and
cosmopolitan city so beloved of voyagers wishing to shake the desert
dust off their feet, Peter bought a French-language newspaper and
realized, with dizzying dismay, that “Camille” can be a man’s name.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Winner
author: E. David Moulton
location: 'Summerville, SC'
quote: >-
The doctors all agreed the inside of Charlie’s intestinal tract looked
like some dark, dank subway system in a decaying inner city, blackened
polyps hanging from every corner like tiny ticking terrorist time bombs,
waiting to burst forth in cancerous activity; however, to Timmy the
Tapeworm this was home.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Runner Up
author: Hwei Oh
location: 'Sydney, Australia'
quote: >-
Shortly after that interfering do-gooder Snow White had introduced
Sneezy to non-drowsy antihistamines, he had to change his name to Brian,
where he then left the mines with Ray (formerly Sleepy) who was now a
caffeine addict and Bob (formerly Grumpy) who was on 100 milligrams of
Prozac a day, and Doc whom Snow pointed out had never actually graduated
from medical school and was being sued for malpractice—oh how he
despised that high and mighty ho.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Linda Gorman
location: 'Albuquerque, NM'
quote: >-
The three little pandas followed Nanny Wei Wong down the grassy path
towards the lotus pool, bathing suits, rubber duckies, and favorite
bamboo sandwiches safely in their panda packs—how they loved their
school break —but they had no idea what was waiting for them this
summer, just over the Big Bear Bridge!
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rahul Kak
location: 'Ann Arbor, MI'
quote: >-
As Granny sewed the bloody wolf pelt onto the stained red cape, Little
Red downed another shot, reminding herself that even alcohol has a
better taste than the gastric acid of a wolf.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Eric Lorenz
location: 'Phoenix, AZ'
quote: >-
Jacob and Elisa had been warned by their parents on numerous occasions
never to venture into the Amber Woods after dark or risk some vague and
unspoken fate once within the trees, so they didn’t and just played in
their front yards instead.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Tom Billings
location: 'Minneapolis, MN'
quote: >-
John thought of Kate and smiled—with any luck the tide would carry her
body out to deeper water by nightfall.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Runner Up
author: Laura Ruth Loomis
location: 'Pittsburg, CA'
quote: >-
When the corpse showed up in the swimming pool, her dead bosoms bobbing
up and down like twin poached eggs in hollandaise sauce, Randy decided
to call the police as soon as he finished taking pictures of his
breakfast and posting them to his Facebook wall.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tom Billings
location: 'Minneapolis, MN'
quote: >-
I knew that dame was damaged goods when she first sauntered in, and I
don't mean lightly scratched and dented goods that a reputable merchant
like Home Depot might offer in a clearly marked end display sale; no,
she was more like the kind of flashy trashy plastic knockoff that always
carries a child-choking hazard that no self-respecting 11-year-old
Chinese sweat shop kids would ever call theirs.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: E. David Moulton
location: 'Summerville, SC'
quote: >-
The janitor's body lay just inside the door, a small puncture wound
below his right ear made with a long thin screwdriver, the kind
electricians use and can often be found in the bargain bin at the
hardware store and come with a pair of cheap wire cutters that you never
use because they won’t cut wire worth a damn and at best will only put a
small indent in the wire so you can at least bend it back and forth
until it breaks.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James M. Vanes
location: 'La Porte, IN'
quote: >-
When private detective Flip Merlot spotted the statuesque brunette
seated at the bar of his favorite watering hole, he was drawn to her
like a yellow cat to navy blue pants, and when he sidled up next to her
he felt fuzzy all over, kind of like dark blue corduroys get when
they're matted with yellow cat hair.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Marsha Engelbrecht
location: 'Lafayette, LA'
quote: >-
And it came to pass that, in those days when the young and powerful
Alexander, called The Great, boldly ventured forth on his mighty steed
Bucephalus, leading a vast army to conquer, claim, and generally visit
the more tourist-y areas outside his empire, there remained at home his
lesser-known brother Demetrius the Mediocre, who kept the fires burning
and, to everyone's surprise, produced a pretty decent BBQ.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Dan Leyde
location: 'Shoreline, WA'
quote: >-
With his lamp giving off a dull yellow glow General Washington sat up
late into the night contemplating his problems: Not enough food, not
enough clothing, not enough men, and that idiot Private Doodle who kept
putting feathers in his cap and calling it macaroni.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: Steve Lerner
location: Northri
quote: >-
Attila sat alone on the crest of a hill overlooking the bucolic village
he would next pillage, envying the simple lives of its denizens, but
comforting himself with the knowledge that they would soon all be
murdered.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Arch Robison
location: 'Champaign,'
quote: >-
The year was 1792, and the French Royal family was like a well-watered
topiary: lush, widespread, and in need of a good pruning.
- category: Fantasy
type: Winner
author: David S Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The three Black Forest Elves, Twinklemann, Sparklemann, and Von
Dazzleberg, were sitting at their merry campfire, frying their wursts
and hamhocks, slathering their rich black bread with the grease,
drinking the icy magical Rhine-water, and one of them at least puffing
away on a pudgy little elven-pipe, when who should show up but the OTHER
famous elves Oberon, Titania, Galadriel, Elrond, Tinkerbell, the
Munchkin lollipop dude, and that thing on the airplane wing in “Twilight
Zone.”
- category: Fantasy
type: Runner Up
author: Yap Tee Giut
location: 'Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia'
quote: >-
That was magic alright, though she belatedly realized that she should
have known because everybody else was wearing robes while holding staffs
with knobs on one end and screaming nonsense like "Merlin's beard!" when
she unceremoniously dropped in their midst and it really shouldn't have
taken her being changed into a creature of the amphibian persuasion to
comprehend that.
- category: Fantasy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Austin Stollhaus
location: 'Louisville, KY'
quote: >-
“My name is Vangir," the stout dwarf announced, "son of Valdir, son of
Tolfdir, son of Torsson, heir to the dwarf kingdom of Darag-Vur, King of
the Under-Folk, ring-giver, dragon-slayer, M.D., DDS.
- category: Fantasy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Terence Mulholland
location: 'Santa Monica, CA'
quote: >-
An evil darkness strode across the forsaken lands of Marmon, casting a
shadow like a superhero whose cape’s special power is to turn day into
night, that was how the darkness strode (not like the superhero who was
otherwise a very nice man).
- category: Fantasy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nad Razvi
location: 'Essex, UK'
quote: >-
In the forest of Thrangul, Dobo Snabeley stared at his quest companions,
Bolto Dwaven, Eagle Thepnis, Night Hunter, and Lythan Elva, looking to a
map of Husker-Du, Dobo knew they would traverse this entire world to
burn the Wand of Shazna in the firepit of Mound Hapla, so Dobo chucked
it in the camp fire instead, and went home.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Dan Leyde
location: 'Shoreline, WA'
quote: >-
With his lamp giving off a dull yellow General Washington sat up late
into the night contemplating his problems: not enough food, not enough
clothing, not enough men, and that idiot Private Doodle who kept putting
feathers in his cap and calling it macaroni.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: Steve Lerner
location: 'Northridge, CA'
quote: >-
Attila sat alone on the crest of a hill overlooking the bucolic village
he would next pillage, envying the simple lives of its denizens, but
comforting himself with the knoweldge that they would soon all be
murdered.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Arch Robison
location: 'Champaign, IL'
quote: >-
The year was 1792 and the French Royal family was like a well-watered
topiary: lush, widespread, and in need of a good pruning.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Marsha Engelbrecht
location: 'Lafayette, LA'
quote: >-
on his mighty steed Bucaphalus, leading a vast army to conquer, claim,
and generally visit the more tourist-y areas outside his empire, there
remained at home his lesser-known brother Demetrius the Medicore, who
kept the fires burning and, to everyone's surprise, produced a pretty
decent BBQ.
- category: Horror
type: Winner
author: Margo Coffman
location: 'Corinth, MS'
quote: >-
If Vicky Walters had known that ordering an extra shot of espresso in
her grande non-fat sugar free one pump raspberry syrup two pumps vanilla
syrup soy latte that Wednesday would lead to her death and subsequent
rebirth as a vampire, she probably would have at least gotten whipped
cream.
- category: Horror
type: Runner Up
author: Stephanie Leanne Myers
location: 'Baton Rouge, LA'
quote: >-
Duane made a very unfortunate zombie; the coroner had removed his
dentures and all of his clothes before he reanimated—thus he was
destined to stagger naked through the woods, attempting to gum small
animals to death.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Marlin Back
location: 'Columbus, IN'
quote: >-
Carlos stared in lust and amazement as she walked away, her
spandex-covered body giving the impression of two well-oiled sumo
wrestlers on stilts furiously going for the win.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Runner Up
author: Ron Johnstone
location: 'Burlingame, CA'
quote: >-
It was the age of the expected, it was the age of surprises, it was the
season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of
hope, it was the fall of despair, we had everything before us, we had
nothing before us—in short, the period was so different from past
periods that some of us didn't know what else to do but go to Las Vegas
and drink smoothies.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ed Buhrer
location: 'Louisa, VA'
quote: >-
Long overdue for a tune-up, the ancient and dilapidated 1956
Oldsmobile—with PowerGlide transmission and power steering—wheezed
slowly into the gas station, the long, blue plumes of exhaust looking
like a crop duster full of illegal DDT spraying a field of asphalt.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Alex Dering
location: 'Brooklyn, NY'
quote: >-
He typed like a ninja with no arms, and the text flowed like a drop of
blood down a katana blade sharpened with one of those automatic kitchen
things you can buy on late-night television when you're drunk but not
too drunk to read off your 16-digit credit card number and security
code.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joseph E. Fountain
location: 'Fredericksburg, VA'
quote: >-
The night was dark; which is a bit redundant, since night is by
definition dark, unless it's a stormy night when lightning causes
moments of brilliant light, or except in places like Norway or Alaska
where summer nights can be pretty light, but still, most of the time
when you say “night,” people are going to think “dark.”
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Anthony Hahn
location: 'Astoria, OR'
quote: >-
Portly, abrupt Bart Simeon plodded through the citadel with a bearing of
tension and anger that was like a tinderbox lying by a roadside waiting
for a careless motorist to toss his or her cigarette butt out the
window, most likely the passenger if the container lay on the right side
of the road, or perhaps the driver with a brusque flick to the left,
unless of course if they were in England, in which case it would be the
opposite.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Howard Vogl
location: 'San Luis Obispo, CA'
quote: >-
She looked like a great pizza, you know the kind that relies more on the
quality of the sauce than the amount of cheese, standing there powdering
her nose, which was a bit large for her face, reminding him of a slice
of pizza whose point curled up after a night in the refrigerator.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ted Wise
location: 'Hanover, PA'
quote: >-
I never did see the last thing I saw, the truck and the red light, the
last thing I saw was a plus-size girl in a petite ensemble, giving her
the appearance of a marshmallow tightly wrapped in dental floss.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: John Holmes
location: 'St. Petersburg, FL'
quote: >-
The gravitational pull up here on Mars is much less than it is back at
home base, of course, so your tongue sticks to the roof of our mouth and
everyone sounds like Eleanor Roosevelt.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Runner Up
author: David S Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
Entering the Forbidden Zone on Planet Q38 Minor meant death, either
quickly by mushroom poisoning or terribly by The Shiny Golden Hook; but
Captain Zirek didn't care, he was in love with three-legged Zora, and
that's where she was stabled.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joseph E. Fountain
location: 'Fredericksburg, VA'
quote: >-
Turk strained at the controls of the Pulsar-Phased Adenoid Five Galactic
Cruiser, trying desperately to pull up from an uncontrolled dive, until
he suddenly remembered he was in space, and there is no up or down.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Luce
location: 'Los Altos, CA'
quote: >-
The mighty roar of the awesome atomic engines (louder than a thousand
MGM lions, more powerful than lust on a warm summer’s day) erotically
thrust the metallic monster into the heavens like some demonic angel
escaping from Hell and made the intrepid astronaut swallow his gum.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wayne Carmichael
location: 'Tyler, TX'
quote: >-
The Phylognites made love by intertwining their eyeball stalks, a most
erotic sensation except occasionally when, due to inexperience or
excessive ardor, their stalks became inextricably bound in what
(unbeknownst to them) a species of obnoxious, quarrelsome little bipeds
on an obscure planet circling a small star in the Milky Way might call a
"bird's nest."
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: James Pokines
location: 'Boston, MA'
quote: >-
Claire had more daddy issues than Boy’s Life magazine published in the
late 1970s, but she was a perfect match for Donald, whose personality
was vaguely sticky, like the outside of a squeezable honey container or
anything handled by a three-year-old.
- category: Romance
type: Runner Up
author: David S Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
She was a mermaid equally at home on land and water because of her
dual-membrane lungs, and she had everything I needed tucked under one
beautiful big scale, and her glistening, wriggling, flopping body and
melodious Siren's voice had me in love from day one when I hauled her up
along with 600 pounds of Point Judith #3 calamari.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Pepper
location: 'Torrance, CA'
quote: >-
Wilbur's passionate kisses sent a warm shiver down Eugenia's tender
spine and made the coarse hair on her knuckles erect.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lynda Clark
location: 'Nottingham, England'
quote: >-
As he caressed her hair, cheek, forehead, chin, collarbone, shoulder,
upper arm, and stomach, she knew that her decision to take Octoman as a
lover was the correct one.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kathy Minicozzi
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
Caitlin was a Pop Tart kind of girl, but Kyle always ate four Aunt
Jemima pancakes with Land o' Lakes unsalted butter and Mrs.
Butterworth's maple syrup, so they knew they would never marry because
of their differences, but they could still fool around.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Anna Sagstetter
location: 'Fort Wayne, IN'
quote: >-
This is a story about love, but not just any kind of love like how you
love the feeling of trading in a pair of soggy, old socks for fresh
ones, or the taste of salty French fries dipped in a chocolate
milkshake, I’m talking about the other kind of love.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Allison Sloto
location: 'Pottstown, PA'
quote: >-
Their love had come upon her completely by surprise, thought Amelia—like
when you’re looking into your rearview and side mirrors to decide
whether it’s feasible to switch into the passing lane and you think
you’re in the clear, but then you find yourself utterly sideswiped.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
It was debatable what Felicity enjoyed most about the night— the
delicious dinner, the marvelous movie, or the satisfying sex—but one
thing was clear and that was that she hoped she wouldn’t be doing it
alone again next time.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Alex Main
location: 'Springboro, OH'
quote: >-
Well . . ." began the mother as she attempted to answer her daughter's
question, amid fuzzy memories of a balmy night in Cuba, several empty
bottles of pineapple rum lying around the bed she had shared with the
Captain accompanied by the worst headache she could remember, "I
wouldn't use the word ‘accident.’"
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Laura Ruth Loomis
location: 'Pittsburg, CA'
quote: >-
Camilla was a strong, confident woman who ran a Fortune 500 company and
made her own yogurt, but what she really longed for was a control-freak
guy who would tap her phone, lock her in her room, and force her to
listen to Gilbert Gottfried singing the national anthem.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Runner Up
author: Scott Britton
location: 'Boston, MA'
quote: >-
Having eaten her fill of the town’s fils et filles, the French witch
inspected her candy-encrusted house and decided she needed a grander
lure to attract grander prey—perhaps she should build a homme depot.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark McGivern
location: 'Albert Lea, MN'
quote: >-
As James King, detective in the Queens branch of the NYPD stared at the
rooks pecking at the disheveled corpse of Bishop Robert Knight in the
alley behind the pawn shop, he checked for his mates.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Matthew Pfeifer
location: 'Beaman, IA'
quote: >-
Old Man Dracula forgot to put his teeth in one night, and so had to come
home hungry, with a sort of “nothing dentured, nothing veined” look on
his face.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Owen Roberts
location: 'Edina, MN'
quote: >-
Sherlock Holmes brusquely dismissed his companion’s theory that the
victim had died from an allergic reaction to either seasoning or
seafood, saying “Watson, although the problem is alimentary, it is
neither the Thyme nor the Plaice.”
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Joel Phillips
location: 'West Trenton, NJ'
quote: >-
Spurs a-jangling, Black Bert sauntered to the bar and cried "this town
ain't big enough!"—then gulped a whisky, fingered his six-shooter, and
belched—"so I say we annex Dry Gulch, thus increasing our tax base while
simultaneously reducing fixed costs through economies of scale."
- category: Western
type: Runner Up
author: Joseph Pramuk
location: 'Napa, CA'
quote: >-
"Pecos Mac" McCarthy index-fingered back the brim of his battered
Stetson, squatted at the edge of the waterhole, cupped a handful of
brackish water, squinted out over the shimmering alkali flats of the
Badlands, and decided then and there that he had prit' near had it with
overwrought, hackneyed western imagery.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
He tried to drown out her pleas for help by holding her head under the
water, but it just wasn’t working —her head continuing to bob out of the
water like a plastic duck or anything else that’s plastic.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jeff Coleburn
location: 'West Chester, PA'
quote: >-
Barnaby asked the counter girl for a pastrami sandwich on rye with
heartbreak, onions, and ennui on it, wrapped to go in the soul of a
sheep, to which she turned wearily and yelled, "Another number six!"
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Ted Downes
location: 'Cardiff, Wales'
quote: >-
"You’re a dead man, O’ Flanagan,” said the mortuary supervisor to the
corpse laid out before him, chuckling to himself at how comical that
remark was, a sentiment not shared with the rest of the night shift who
all secretly yearned for the day he retired, having heard the same joke
on innumerable occasions with just the surname of the deceased changed.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Susie Gawriluk
location: 'Presque Isle, WI'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, and right there in front of me, she
stood, dripping with rainwater beside the white chickens and the red
wheelbarrow, her dress ripped and soggy.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Doc Martian
location: 'Indio, CA'
quote: >-
The perspiration left a gentle sheen on his forehead but this was to his
disadvantage because it usually encouraged his McDonald's visor to
bellyflop into the fry oil and the resultant siphoning, scouring, and
replacement of the melted visor goo-fouled fryer oil could really throw
off the lunch rush and once again set back his long-overdue corporate
mcbump from shift supervisor to assistant manager.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Daniel Ryan
location: 'New York City, NY'
quote: >-
It had been a quite a week for Marvin Sturgis; he’d finally accepted a
six-figure salary at his dream company, Mattel, the American
toy-manufacturer, and was now treating himself to a beautiful dinner,
pouring imaginary tea into tiny toy teacups, talking aloud to the five
life-size Barbie dolls he’d positioned around his kitchen table, and
cursing the shipping company for its inability to transport all six
figures at once.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Leigh Ward-Smith
location: 'New Douglas, IL'
quote: >-
It was a windy day, the kind where men’s greasy ballcaps blew off like
so many meth cookers exploding on makeshift stoves, or so I’ve heard
(but I don’t even drink alcohol, so what do I really know about it?
though I have been known to let it all hang out and occasionally
harrumph loudly at the stamp counter if someone breaks the queue).
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Clark Snodgrass
location: 'Huntington Beach, CA'
quote: >-
The assassin paired his weapon and victim like the master sommelier he
had longed to be since growing up in the still, up-and-coming but not
yet fully respected vineyards of the Columbia River Gorge, the
afternoon’s choice a Glock 38 that bridged the gap between concealment
and power providing the smooth finish and light retort appropriate to
the crowded open air café, while this evening’s mark in the vacant
industrial park meriting the full-bodied Magnum with its robust finish
and exemplary cordite bouquet.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: William Telford
location: UK
quote: >-
My mother died when I was nine, my father when I was twelve, which left
me somewhat cold, and hardened and unable to love, though I was partial
to Nando’s Portuguese style prawns.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Edward Vincent Tennant
location: 'Edgemead, South Africa'
quote: >-
impossible and he couldn't take any more; so today all ten Rotweilers
would be in for a feast and he hoped the forensic investigation wouldn't
find any traces of DNA in the back yard.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Mal Walker
location: 'Mount Barker, South Australia'
quote: >-
As the giant gorilla swept her up in his hand and started to climb the
skyscraper a swarm of fighter biplanes roared overhead and although
frightened out of her wits Marjory had a tremendous feeling of deja-vu.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Tom Wallace Columbia
location: SC
quote: >-
"I'm nothing without you," Steele Harrison told Mavis Prescott, which
was true on many levels, but primarily because he was her imaginary
friend.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jim Wollak
location: 'San Francisco, CA'
quote: >-
Beppe Rococo, owner of the largest open-air farmer’s market in North
Africa, after lovingly filling the arms of the beautiful vegan Taffy,
who hailed from a Barcelona bistro, with bunches of fresh kale and
organic carrots, breathed in her ear, “Come with me to the quinoa.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Patrick Yamada
location: 'Orange, CA'
quote: >-
His parents having just sent him from their Crown Heights neighborhood
to keep him out of the Jewish gangs, Schmuley eyed his seemingly shy
classmates on his new working-class elementary school playground in
Cedar Rapids and considered taunting them, but he decided it best not
yet to toy with the coy goy boy hoi polloi.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Doug Purdy
location: 'Roseville, CA'
quote: >-
Stephanie did not intend to become an animal coroner when she went to
veterinary school, but the workload was manageable and, for cats, she
usually just had to check the “curiosity” box under “cause of death.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Ray Clarke
location: Concord CA
quote: >-
He was an old man who fished alone on a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he
had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish, but in the meantime
had perfected his killer mojito and opened a beachside bar where patrons
now stood three deep waiting to taste his magic at four U.S. bucks a
pop.
'2016':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: William (Barry) Brockett
location: 'Tallahassee, FL'
quote: >-
Even from the hall, the overpowering stench told me the dingy caramel
glow in his office would be from a ten-thousand-cigarette layer of
nicotine baked on a naked bulb hanging from a frayed wire in the center
of a likely cracked and water-stained ceiling, but I was broke, he was
cheap, and I had to find her.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Runner Up
author: David S. Nelson
location: 'Falls Creek, VA'
quote: >-
Her grandmother had mopped her brow with the same antique kerchief for
twenty years whilst working in the barley fields, and now Anastasia was
to wear it on her wedding night knotted into a baggy loose panty; while
her lover Anatoly would wear his father's ancient gray and tattered
undershorts tied around his neck to honor the old village custom of
marital odor-blending.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: Neil T Godden
location: 'Nouméa, New Caledonia'
quote: >-
After his seventh shot of Jack Daniels, Billy reflected that only a
certain kind of man, a Roman Catholic priest, born under the sign of
Gemini, whose loved one had been run down by a bus full of inebriated
Lazio supporters on a glorious Sunday morning in early April outside a
provincial church whose bells were ringing Bach’s Tocatta and Fugue in B
minor, would truly be able to understand the abyss of despair in which
he was drowning.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Peter S. Bjorkman
location: 'Rocklin, CA'
quote: >-
Knowing well the hand signals of his platoon leader, Private James
Dawson silently dropped to the dirt, concealed and motionless for what
seemed an eternity, a move that he had learned, coincidentally, from his
parents whenever the Watchtower ladies would ring the doorbell.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Stephen Lewis Davis
location: 'Sacramento, CA'
quote: >-
“Penguins, damnable penguins,” Cooperman muttered bitterly, staring hard
into the maelstrom of cheap gin and bargain-basement vermouth swirling
hopelessly in the low ball glass he held in his pale, doughy hand, the
shards of rapidly melting ice crystals cruelly reminding him of those
endless winter nights in the Antarctic weather station, and of Kwakina,
with her lithe, lubricious figure, and tuxedo-feathered form.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Alex Bosworth
location: 'Ketchikan, AK'
quote: >-
The sea roiled like water in a pasta pot about to boil, an apt simile
thought Captain Samuel Turner, because if they didn't fix their engine
soon he and his crew would be floating face down like overcooked
manicotti—bloated, white, limp and about to be consumed by something
that wished it were eating ahi tuna instead.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The life of a mountain man like Jedediah Buckman is a simple one, a
campfire to warm the person as well as the soul, a full moon to
illuminate the forest as well as the mind, and game to nourish the body
as well as the spirit, though one wonders how he could stomach beaver
without mint jelly and a bold, young pinot noir.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Andy Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
As Swordfish and the ever-loyal Ling Cod Boy surveyed the scene of
rampant destruction spread out before them—swamped trawlers, shredded
nets, the still-smoldering floating cannery—two things were crystal
clear: Avenging Tuna was back, and Turner Bay needed some superheroes.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Phillip Davies
location: 'Cardiff, Wales'
quote: >-
Captain Blackheart well knew the penalties for piracy, but out here in
international waters there was no one to stop him, so he scanned the
horizon with his brass telescope before heading below decks to check on
his high speed DVD copying machines.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Winner
author: Anna McDougald
location: 'Winnipeg, Canada'
quote: >-
When your home smells like a three-week-old buffalo carcass, your Mom is
constantly being mistaken for a guy, and your sisters keep using your
ears as their personal chew toys, life is no laughing matter—at least
that's how it seemed to Hubert, the baby Hyena.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David S Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
Tinkerbell the Fairy and Amy the Elf were BFFFs (best fairyland friends
forever), and they loved having adventures in Big-People Land, like
eating marshmallows for dinner, galloping fast on the backs of tiny
lizards, and taking naps on the pillows of very important people like
Judges, Mayors, and Millionaires.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Russ Wren
location: 'Amsterdam, The Netherlands'
quote: >-
Little Billy Wonka spent his days running through the Gumdrop Forest,
dashing through the greenery of Marzipan Valley, hopping along the banks
of Honey River and racing to and fro between the Chocolate Factory to
his Gingerbread Abode . . . which is not surprising considering his
colossal daily sugar intake.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Charles Caldwell
location: 'Leesville, LA'
quote: >-
She walked toward me with her high heels clacking like an out-of-balance
ceiling fan set on low, smiling as though about to spit pus from a
dental abscess, and I knew right away that she was going to leave me
feeling like I had used a wood rasp to cure my hemorrhoids.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: William Lattanzio
location: 'Boyertown, PA'
quote: >-
“We got a stiff on the sidewalk all bled out; a stiff on a tugboat tied
up with enough cement to build the Hoover Dam; Louie Miller empties out
his bank account and falls off the face of the planet; Jenny Diver,
Sukey Tawdry, Lotte Lenya, and Lucy Brown all get death threats . . . I
got no goddamned proof, but five’ll get ya ten that Macky’s back in
town.”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jacob Smith
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Detective Hammer Logan III woke with a start, images of the bizarre
bayou murder still fresh in his mind’s eye—a dame in trouble, body
covered with bloody toothprints and saliva—but as sleep lifted, the
grizzled detective remembered that he was a dog and the dame a coyote,
so he spun on the bed three times and slept the rest of the day.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Andrew Caruso
location: 'Akron, OH'
quote: >-
As he gazed at Ming's lifeless body draped over the sushi bar,
chopsticks protruding from his back, Det. Herc Lue Perrot came to the
sobering realization that tonight, there had been a murder at the Orient
Express.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ted Downes
location: 'Cardiff, Wales'
quote: >-
It was almost teatime, late June, with no likelihood of rain any time
soon and I was wearing my olive-green anorak, Snoopy Dog T-shirt, beige
slacks and navy blue sneakers, odd socks with holes in them, hadn't
shaved, had a stinking hangover and felt like crap; I was everything a
penniless down and out ought to be—I was calling on the Salvation Army
for soup.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Mark Schweizer
location: Tryon NC
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night: the wind whistled like an old man with
drugstore teeth trying to teach his grandkids to say, "She sells sea
shells by the sea shore," causing the little shavers to wonder why
Peepaw was suddenly talking like Daffy Duck, whether he'd just had a
stroke, and if any of them was in the will.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter Seakat
location: 'Rochester, NY'
quote: >-
"It was either a dark or a stormy night, depending, of course, on if one
was comparing globally or locally, as the midnight sun would be
considered quite bright to the rest of the world, and by Alaskan
standards, the negative fifty-degree wind chill would be considered
balmy," thought Janet as she wrestled yet another sled dog out of the
alien's tractor beam.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Shea Charkowsky
location: 'Santa Clara, CA'
quote: >-
Sufficiently numerous airborne water droplets struck various grounded
objects at appreciable velocities, illuminated by ambient light from a
sub-horizon sun such that fewer photons were absorbed by the retina of
our protagonist’s eyes within a given interval of time than the number
at which he would struggle to decide whether the amount of light he
perceives should be considered “bright” or “dark”; in other words, it
was a dark and stormy night.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Barbara L. Pawley
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, and that translated into unchecked
pandemonium among Los Angeles residents who hadn’t worn anything but
open-toed shoes for five years, but tourist Alwyn Brewster was thankful
for the scant traffic on Sunset Boulevard as he desperately accelerated
his rental car through the tony neighborhoods, too preoccupied with the
raging rivers of high-end, plastic patio-ware, which were making a break
for the ocean, to notice the black Land Rover with diplomatic plates hot
on his trail.
- category: Fantasy
type: Winner
author: Domingo Pestano
location: 'Caracas, Venezuela'
quote: >-
The handsome man bent down to kiss the pale lips of the catatonic maid
just as the first small bubble appeared in the corner of her mouth,
followed, in slow motion, by a stream of popping translucent spheres,
and Prince Jarris, heir to the throne of the Kingdom of the
Seven-and-a-Half Mountains straightened up, climbed upon his horse and
rode away to search for another sleeping beauty.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Michael D Hill
location: 'Burton, Dorset, England'
quote: >-
It was the worst of times, although I suppose if I were really pressed I
could come up with a time in history even worse than the French
Revolution, such as the Black Death, to name but one, but on the other
hand it has to be said that it was also the best of times, particularly
for those of us that were rich and living in England rather than France.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Leslie Craven
location: 'Wellington, New Zealand'
quote: >-
Lieutenant-Commander Keith ‘Rusty’ Brooke-Hamilton of the Royal Navy,
serving on Her Majesty’s ship Refulgent (48 guns), which had sailed from
Portsmouth early on a Tuesday morning with but a few light, high clouds
and a fine, brisk sou-westerly wind blowing across the mouth of the
Solent, was terribly fond of bananas.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gwen Dallas
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
On March 5, 1836, Lieutenant Colonel William Travis stood before his
rag-tag revolutionary army, unsheathed his sword, and drew a line in the
sand, followed by a smiley face, some crude stick-figure men, and a few
choice words about Mexicans that the State Board of Education has deemed
unfit for publication in this 7th Grade Texas History Textbook.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Holmes
location: 'St. Petersburg, FL'
quote: >-
Eleanor had doubts, as well she should have had, and in truth no one
knew the repercussions which might result, yet she felt proud in her way
to have been selected to be the first person ever to turn on an
"electric light" switch, the woman who would be celebrated forever in
history, or fried, which in fact she was, though the inventors combined
to hush it up.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joshua Long
location: 'Harrison, OH'
quote: >-
Trevor didn’t care what they thought—yes, they would sigh and roll their
eyes at him as they always did, and yes, they were in a bad way, on
their way to have their heads separated from their necks by Mme. La
Guillotine—but dang it, it did put him in mind of that one really snappy
tune from “Les Miserables,” and so, with a song rising up in his heart,
he stood up in that filthy French cart and began to sing.
- category: Horror
type: Winner
author: Domingo Pestano
location: 'Caracas, Venezuela'
quote: >-
A cold wind arose from the moss-covered tomb with a haunting asthmatic
whistle and horned its way around the ornate marble monuments,
increasing speed and raising its menacing sound as it set course towards
five-year-old Samantha Wainberry, who forgot to wear a sweater.
- category: Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Meech
location: 'Auckland, New Zealand'
quote: >-
As the shambling throng of zombies edged closer Leopold raised his
quivering axe to shoulder height, pausing only to consider that the
phrase 'living dead' is contradictory; that staggering about implied a
fully functioning nervous system supplemented by an intake of oxygen;
and that if they were really dead, then why persist in stumbling about
in this vastly paradoxical manner?
- category: Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Heather Fougere
location: 'Center Conway, NH'
quote: >-
The girl screamed, the wind rustled, something moved in the night closer
and closer; the moon hung heavily over the night, white as a pearl,
blood dripped from Vlad's mouth, the girl’s pale body hung in his hands,
sparkling in the moonlight—he was a vampire, after all.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Rachel Nirenberg
location: 'Toronto, Canada'
quote: >-
She was like my ex-girlfriend Ashley, who'd stolen my car, broken my
heart, murdered my father, robbed a bank, and set off a pipe bomb in
Central Park—tall.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Thomas Frohlich
location: 'Miami, FL'
quote: >-
As its newly-incentivized next-gen thought leader, Li-Kwan Patel saw the
handwriting on the wall: there was no kicking the can down the road
because the paradigm shift at Synergex, Inc. necessitated him to hit the
ground running, avoid low-hanging fruit like the plague, and strategize
scalable core competencies to close the loop on feedback redundancy, for
at the end of the day it all boiled down to boldly going where none had
gone before.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Franks
location: 'Greenland, AR'
quote: >-
When Glenn left the house, the sky was a satin Spinnaker Blue with White
Feather clouds, the still-moist lawn and street were glossy Sunlit Glade
and Bastion Grey, and, contemplating the to-do list jotted on Ivory
Cream notepaper as he started the Sundance Yellow hatchback, Glenn knew
he would go flat Condition Red berserk if his wife didn't hurry up and
select a color for the dining room.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dorothy Harbeck
location: 'Fair Haven, NJ'
quote: >-
When Margie told me we were going to rob the jewelry store instead of
going for a pedicures, my mind bent under the weight of it all like a
cheap paper plate at a family barbecue when it is filled with all the
wet heavy stuff like baked beans and sauerkraut.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Anna McDougald
location: 'Winnipeg, Canada'
quote: >-
As Night fell with the finality of a Sycamore toppled in a windstorm,
the neon-clogged Arteries of the great Metropolis came alive with the
banshee shriek of asphalt-tortured tires, the ululation of yammering
sirens, and the bellow of brazen-lunged air horns, Predator Calls of the
insomnolent Urban Jungle.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: April Olion
location: 'Gainesville, FL'
quote: >-
She was uncertain how or when it had happened, but over the years her
svelte figure-8 frame had gone lopsided and become a wretched parody of
the symmetrical numeral—indeed, the bottom oval was as lumpy and
pear-shaped as the carelessly-thrown-aside velour sack of the average
mall Santa.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Marlon McAvoy
location: 'Oakridge, TN'
quote: >-
The jar was oozing, and the ooze was jarring: a dank fetid oleaginous
slime that slapped and slithered across the bourgeoisie marble
countertop like loathsome Gerber's Lovecraftian puree.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lisa Liscoumb
location: 'Oshawa, Canada'
quote: >-
As she reclined, naked, on the chaise longue, Constance's breasts looked
like two mounds of creamy coleslaw served up on a fine porcelain
plate—but the good kind of coleslaw, not the violent, neon-green stuff
you get at KFC.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: L.A. Jackson
location: 'Apex, NC'
quote: >-
Upon hearing he was to appear immediately before the Seturia Nebula's
Supreme Council, where, in high ceremony, he would be unclothed, bathed
in the sacred Waters of Torg Jas, and presented the uniform of a Qadon
Shuu Guardian as reward for his courageous defense of the TH-174 Diijoss
Collective against Gnar-al troops from the Xinon-Thur Horde, space
adventurer Sunspot Carson could only think, "I picked a helluva
Baldorian day to wear ladies panties."
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Phillip Davies
location: 'Cardiff, Wales'
quote: >-
Following my successful career as chief medical officer of the Horus 7
on its extended mission to explore the Galaxy, I returned to Earth—what
follows chronicles the first seven years of the orthodontics practice I
opened in Michigan.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Louise Grieco
location: 'Albany, NY'
quote: >-
“I’m going to be late for work again,” Xyzyx muttered to the Galactic
Positioning System on the dashboard of his shuttlecraft, as traffic
slowed to a crawl in the fuliginous murk of Wormhole Alpha Beta Supra.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David S Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The Halkan prediction of galactic revolt did indeed come true when Han
Solo seized the throne of Gandolf, was overthrown by Captain Jim Kirk,
all the Wookies were slaughtered by a ragtag band of renegade Hobbits,
Tribbles were ground up and made the sixth flavor of Skittles, and
Saurian brandy was sold as a premixed chocolate-flavored cocktail by the
Martian partners of Nestle.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Justin Goudey
location: 'Newton, NJ'
quote: >-
“Science fiction is the lowest of all possible literary genres,” said
ICE-500 into the hover-mic, as he slowly rolled past the vast hordes of
mutant alien book critics.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Marie Gaither
location: 'Asheville, NC'
quote: >-
Osgood knew he wasn’t popular, well-liked, or even very good looking,
and could suck the life out of a room like a fat kid sucking the filling
out of a Twinkie, but surely a date with the beautiful blonde in the
corner wasn’t out of the question, he thought as he licked the cream
from his fingers.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Heather Armstrong
location: 'Williamsburg, VA'
quote: >-
She wanted—no—she needed Robert, oh, what she would give if he knew that
he was the first thing on her mind at the start of each day, if he knew
that she yearned, yearned to be happily by his side at the spring dance,
yes, she needed Robert—unless Brian dumped that bleach blond snob Leah
in time, in which case she'd need Brian.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: L.A. Jackson
location: 'Apex, NC'
quote: >-
Watching Emily sleep in exhausted, naked bliss while bathed by the soft
shower of lucid moonlight that titillatingly teased glimpses of her
supple features he had come to know, Sebastian tried to remember the
last time he had seen a woman's body so beautiful, but after the
collision of his '02 Pontiac Aztek with a Bug-X exterminator truck on
East Hermosa Vista Drive in Mesa, Arizona, two months ago left him with
long-term memory loss, he couldn't.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Denker
location: 'Tallahassee, FL'
quote: >-
Francine was intrigued by the idea of a threesome with a unicyle-riding
circus clown, a zither-playing contortionist, and a milkman because she
didn’t know that the latter still even existed.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Henry Biggs
location: 'Sydney, Australia'
quote: >-
“See, Horse,” said Detective Sam Ohn, “the sting Ray pulled off has you
dab in the place with a barb in your hand and the piano tuner filleted
on the floor so don’t you carp on all coy like thinking to leave us to
flounder in the dark; mull it over or you’ll be frying on a 20,000 volt
perch and may God have mercy on your soul.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter S. Bjorkman
location: 'Rocklin, CA'
quote: >-
The evidence at Evan’s Seaside Bird Sanctuary was mounting: the
scattered precocial plumage, the tidal pond encircling a quartet of
lifeless birds, the brine-soaked ascot, the cane —could it be that
Maurice Chevalier sank Evan’s four little gulls?
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gwen Dallas
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
Patrice—the most-feared henchman of the global terrorist mastermind Ivan
Terrible—staggered back to his car, wiped the dead cocktail waiter's
blood from his hands, picked up his smartphone, and texted a terse
status update to his employer's personal assistant: "Tell IT that our
server is down."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Robert Greer
location: 'Queen Creek, AZ'
quote: >-
Legendary U of Arizona basketball coach Lute Olsen needed someone to
take the charge, someone who was willing to be mercilessly flattened,
someone to sacrifice his body for the team, and that someone stood up at
the end of the bench and announced, “Lute, I am your fodder.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kimberly Baer
location: 'Woodbridge, VA'
quote: >-
As the new babysitter, Lindsey quickly learned that in the Hesterburg
family, "tow-headed" referred to Billy Jr.'s penchant for dragging his
little sister around by the hair.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kimberly Baer
location: 'Woodbridge, VA'
quote: >-
"Nurse, I need more blankets, and my water pitcher is empty, and also my
bedside lamp isn't working," Tom said coldly, dryly, and darkly, yet at
the same time patiently.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kathryn El-Assal
location: 'Middleton, WI'
quote: >-
A murder of crows, ravenous with hunger, alighted on the skeletal limbs
of a desiccated oak tree, their cacophonous scolding admonishing the
solitary figure, cloaked in black, who had entered the gloomy graveyard
to pay tribute to Poe’s tombstone, just as a tintinnabulation of church
bells began chiming a counterpoint to the avians’ caws-stick chorus.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Glenn Neel
location: 'Maitland, FL'
quote: >-
I could've waited, he could've waited, but we didn't and now the entire
town of Sop-Bottom, Mizzou (pop. 894, in the heart of the heartland,
widely considered the tuning fork capital of the world), would pay for
our unspeakable act of passion there on the statue of town founder,
staff sergeant Ebenezer Winthrop Sop-Bottom, the unsung hero of the
Great Bethel Skirmish.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: James Pokines
location: 'Boston, MA'
quote: >-
“Hey, ho! they make the beast with two backs,” Captain Jean Chartraine
shouted lustily over the din of the rollicking seaside inn, The Wayward
Mariner but all I could think, preoccupied with the cargo manifest,
dueling pistol, and tankard of ale before me, was why anyone would want
to be a Bactrian camel.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Tim Petteys
location: 'Malden on Hudson, NY'
quote: >-
Quiet mornings, long lazy afternoons, and spectacular sunsets were de
rigueur for Elbert and Ethel Salipit since their early retirement and
internment at the Happy Valley Cemetery for Eternal Rest and Relaxation.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jonathan Nathan
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
The chrysanthemum Sarah had received from Edmund was exquisite, no
doubt, but she had other things on her mind the moment that our story
begins, like how Edmund had got out of his cage and how a hedgehog could
have pulled up a chrysanthemum with his teeth.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Bradlee R. Frazer
location: 'Boise, ID'
quote: >-
Petulantly, William dunked his socks into the basin and scrubbed
futilely to remove the last vestiges of succotash that clung there, and
absentmindedly slipped into a reverie—not quite a fugue state—in which
he thought of Saturday morning cartoons and pondered the nature of
sufferin' as part of the human condition and whether Nietzsche was
correct, but his reverie was interrupted by Mabel's clarion bellow from
the other room, "Springer's on!"
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Julie Crowley
location: 'Ballyphilibeen, Ireland'
quote: >-
Little Jenny would stop at nothing in her ambition to become an
astronaut—that way she wouldn't end up as an unfulfilled cashier married
to a dweeb like Colin Snodgrass, with a sizeable mortgage and four lazy
kids who couldn't even be bothered to pick up a book like this, never
mind become astronauts.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Michael Moon
location: 'Mountain View, CA'
quote: >-
When the storage tanks backed up and the extraction mechanisms proved
non-functional, with pressure rising rapidly and a critical failure
imminent, Harve was compelled to take emergency action: an immediate,
explosive evacuation of the American Bottoms Regional Wastewater
Treatment Facility in Sauget, IL.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Raluca Murg
location: 'Paris, France'
quote: >-
'Oh Mon Dieu, she thought to herself while searching for that Fatboy
Slim song she liked, I know this is Paris and I should be making heaven
of what I have, right here, right now, but eating this stupid baguette
for breakfast every morning is a gum-hurting, head-aching, and
anything-but-satisfying process.'
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Steve Lynch
location: 'Oro Valley, AZ'
quote: >-
Just after dawn on the morning of the last day of his life, Anthony
Scanzio looked out his window and again saw the two men parked down the
street in a Gloss Black 2016 Chrysler 300C, and coincidentally you can
buy one just like it from the author's uncle at Lyndhurst Chrysler and
get a great deal, ask for Eddie!
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: David Bailey
location: 'Tillamook, OR'
quote: >-
At the bottom of a steep path, beneath the trunk of a slumping oak, I
lowered myself into a hole, descended a staircase and crawled to the
bottom of a tunnel that led to a dangling rope that dropped me into a
shoot from which I slid into an elevator lobby where I pushed the button
marked “Down.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Rob Rachlin
location: 'Greensboro, NC'
quote: >-
As the first shovelful of earth fell on her father’s coffin, Emily
kneeled at the graveside sobbing, overwrought by the sudden realization
that, not only had she lost her only living relative, but she had
somehow forgotten to set her DVR to record this week’s episode of “House
of Cards,” an episode she had particularly wanted to see because of a
rumored and breathlessly anticipated guest appearance by a nephew of Don
Ho.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: James Siragusa
location: 'Lewiston, ME'
quote: >-
Every where he went, in his mind, 24/7, he thought of nothing but her:
her silky white dress, her robin’s egg blue eyes, her flavescent locks,
her wildflower scent, her mellifluous voice, her velvety flesh, and her
buxom sister.
'2017':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Kat Russo
location: 'Loveland, CO'
quote: >-
The elven city of Losstii faced towering sea cliffs and abutted rolling
hills that in the summer were covered with blankets of flowers and in
the winter were covered with blankets, because the elves wanted to keep
the flowers warm and didn't know much at all about gardening.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Runner Up
author: Tony Buccella. Allegany
location: NY
quote: >-
Although in the rusty tackle-box of his mind he yearned to be a #3
buck-tail spinner, Bob knew deep down he must accept his cruel fate as a
bottom bouncer rig, forever destined to scrape the muddy bottom of the
river of life.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: John Holmes
location: 'St. Petersburg, FL'
quote: >-
Francisco Franco's wife, seen smiling in all those photos with the same
big hat on, was actually the brains behind the dictatorship, the
concentration camps, torture, the brutal suppression, and so forth, but
she was a shy lady, except when she dressed up in the binding closet for
Franco, who listened a-quiver to hear what a very bad boy he'd been.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
The familiar cleaning ritual now complete, Lieutenant (Junior Grade)
Christopher P. “Hondo” Holdsworth carefully reassembled his Brűgger &
Thomet APR308 7.62x51mm sniper rifle, mounting the matte-black Leupold 8
3.5-25x56mm optic with the splined 5mm Allen wrench that ensured it
would stay put and retracting the Harris S-BRM 6-9 Notched Bipod, the
way a character in a Tom Clancy novel would.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jason Chandler
location: 'Saratoga Springs, UT'
quote: >-
As Lewiston Creol plummeted down the sheer icy cliff he pondered on the
word plummet, which quickly lost its meaning if you said it too much
(plummet plummet plummet), but his pondering was interrupted by the
surface of the water, at which point he ceased to plummet and began to
plunge.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Anna McDougal
location: 'Winnepeg, Canada'
quote: >-
There'd been six of us at the outset, but after Smythe took a poisoned
dart to the chest, Buddlestone fell from the top of a cliff, Stevens and
Mayhew were swallowed by quicksand, and Tait-Harris was eaten by ants,
only I remained to bring you our amazing tale.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lewis Gurran
location: 'Wrexham, Wales'
quote: >-
Mack Bolan levelled his customised M-16 assault rifle and used the
underslung launcher to fire an enraged salmon at the nearest Mexican
kamikaze unicyclist, or whatever—let’s face it, it’s book #947 and
you’re probably not paying close attention by this point.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dennis Doty
location: 'Corbin, KY'
quote: >-
Our protagonist, whom we shall properly introduce in due course, Dear
Reader, leaned far into the maelstrom, his body horribly assailed by
wind and rain, as was his mind by his predicament (more of which anon),
but suffice it to understand, that the current tempest was of such
catastrophic proportion as to place it beyond the ken of the most
ancient denizens.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mike Christensen
location: 'Washington, DC'
quote: >-
As he lay dying on the smoke-wreathed battlefield, General Winthrop
finally realized the terrible toll the war had taken, and he wondered if
the bloodshed had all been for naught as he exhaled his last breath in a
sort of "meoooooh," actually very similar to the sound his cat Mister
Jingles made when he wanted some food or was doing that thing with the
drapes.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Anna MacDougald
location: 'Winnepeg, Canada'
quote: >-
On the third day the M'hree charged out of the xota'ani, the shrill
fluting of wattambos and the clatter of ingpas on khotzi-hide vamscaps
leading me to curse this primitive planet, the shuttle crew that had
marooned me, and the skinflint Publisher who didn't believe in
Glossaries.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Winner
author: Jacob Smith
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Our tale begins in the Arctic, a boy and his dog riding out the blizzard
in a windswept cabin, hackles rising as they face down the fearsome bear
clawing at the door, courage their spear, fierce loyalty their shield;
yes, this is the tale of Hazku, proud chieftain of the northern bears,
who makes quick work of these two and spends a pleasant afternoon
napping in the cabin.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Altman
location: 'Las Vegas, NV'
quote: >-
The strange sounds, and unpleasant smells, emanating from outside made
him yearn to stay, but he knew he must leave home, make his elders
proud, and set a good example for his younger siblings; so with one last
determined push, Scotchy the tapeworm emerged into the wider world.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Douglas A. Bass
location: 'Farmington, NY'
quote: >-
The choreography was perfect, the lyrics whimsical, leading me to
believe that this trip down the Yellow Brick Road was planned from the
start, and if that is true, the death by house of the Witch of the East
was no accident.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Sutcliffe
location: 'Pittsburgh, PA'
quote: >-
In the predawn mist nothing was quite so satisfying as dawdling across
someone else’s morning paper, so thought Sally B. Slug on her early
morning glide.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Doug Self
location: 'Brunswick, ME'
quote: >-
Detective Sam Steel stood at the crime scene staring puzzled at the
chalk outline of Ms. Mulgrave's body which was really just a stick
figure with a dress, curly hair, boobs, and a smiley face because the
police chalk guy had the day off.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Steve Lynch
location: 'Tucson, AZ'
quote: >-
She walked into my office and brayed, “I want you to put a tail on my
husband.”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Doug Purdy
location: 'Roseville, CA'
quote: >-
The warehouse was completely empty except for the mutilated corpse
wearing a tuxedo covered with bloodstains, and a Mortimer Snerd dummy
lying nearby on the floor, and Detective McIntosh knew Snerd wouldn’t
talk.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Maureen Donohue
location: 'Paso Robles, CA'
quote: >-
“Not cucumber sandwiches again,” Earl “The Embezzler” DeWitt’s thoughts
turned dark as he trudged through the chow line at Hummingbird State
Correctional Institute, lamenting his culinary fate for the thousandth
time and dreaming of the greasy sloppy joe he might be enjoying instead,
if he’d only committed a manly felony, like murder, and ended up at
Riker’s instead of this ersatz country club for white-collar wimps.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Schweizer
location: 'Tryon, NC'
quote: >-
The church was deathly quiet: suddenly a shot rang out, a woman
screamed, and somewhere in the back, a baby cried because that baby
hadn't been taken to the nursery, even though the sign on the door
clearly states that babies should be taken to the nursery.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Pam Tallman
location: 'Huntington Beach, CA'
quote: >-
As hard-boiled detective Max Baxter ate his soft-boiled egg, he thought
about the gorgeous dame he'd found last night lying in a pool of her own
blood—it being inconvenient to lie in a pool of someone else's blood—and
wondered how she liked her eggs.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Doug Purdy
location: 'Roseville, CA'
quote: >-
Detective Robertson knew he had Joyce Winters dead to rights for the
murder—at the crime scene he had found Winters’ fingerprints, shell
casings matching the gun registered to her, and, most damning of all, a
Starbucks cup with the name “Josie” scrawled on it.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ted Downes
location: 'Cardiff, Wales'
quote: >-
Nobody messed with Rocky “The Anvil' Roselli, the toughest, badass mob
enforcer that ever walked the mean streets of downtown LA, but for some
time now he had been considering an alternative career in interior
design, a secret kept well hidden from his felonious contemporaries;
like a strawberry jam sandwich lying buried at the bottom of a sack of
brussels sprouts.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Beth Armogida
location: 'Sierra Madre, CA'
quote: >-
“It’s a classic,” she muttered, as she flicked the hair from the old fur
coat purchased from eBay for sixty-eight dollars plus overnight shipping
for the purpose of this very moment when she stuck out her hip, pulled
the trigger, and shot him in that stupid face of his.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Samantha Bates
location: 'Columbia, TN'
quote: >-
So many questions raced through the heiress's mind: Who had killed the
maid and which guests were lying to her and who the hell was going to
clean up all this goddamned blood because it sure as hell wasn't going
to be her, she could tell you that much.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter S. Bjorkman
location: 'Rocklin, CA'
quote: >-
The horizontal array of rectangular golden sunshafts that filtered
through my shutters was interrupted by a statuesque silhouette appearing
at my office door, her widow’s pillbox with netted veil only slightly
obscuring her opalescent eyes, her alabaster décolletage accented by a
sizeable amethyst pendant, and a silky floor-length ebony gown that
revealed a muffin-top that clearly lacked of any kind of abdominal
exercise regimen.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rich Zaleski
location: 'Stevenson, CT'
quote: >-
Captain Duke Ellsworth of the Poughkeepsie Police Department wondered,
as he stood in the brightly lit room and stared at the gun lying on the
floor, if its barrel were still warm, and what his wife was making for
dinner that evening, which he would no doubt have to eat cold when he
finally finished up here, especially if he paid his mistress in Fishkill
a visit on the way home.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Gregory Payne Norwalk
location: CT
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, the wind at the windows demanded
admittance, the rain beat upon the towers as if it would topple them,
and the very starry ceiling seemed as if it would collapse upon us from
the sheer weight of the gloom; while from behind the bedchamber doors as
well came frightful shrieks, but since my mother was in there with her
boyfriend, I didn’t want to interrupt them just then.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gregory Payne
location: 'Norwalk, CT'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy apocalypse, as zombie eruptions went, and now
Misty Backbone found herself leading a confused band of survivors in a
quest to reach humanity’s last bastion of intelligent thought, located
in a pale mansion set back discreetly from Pennsylvania Avenue.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michael J Henderson
location: 'Chaska, MN'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night; yet not a single cloud floated in the
moonless sky—a velvety canvas painted with stars twinkling like the
rhinestones on a Vegas showman's ill-fitting trousers— for the storm
that raged was a thousand miles overhead where solar winds roared with
unimaginable power for Old Sol had belched plasma in a fit of
heliomagnetic fury sufficient to encircle Earth's poles in ghostly
dancing light.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Martin Barrett
location: 'Arrowtown, New Zealand'
quote: >-
Regrettably it was neither a dark nor stormy night, and as Jennifer
Perkins tried to bury her husband's bleeding body she was only too aware
that the full moon and listless night air was making her clandestine
movements very visible from both the A303 highway and the chicken farm
less than 200m away.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Alexandra Hess
location: 'Lebanon, NH'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, the gray moon bouncing beams off of the
clockfaces, making them look aged and weathered— and down on the street
a one young Winston S. Havilshropkington IV took note of this ironical
occurrence, making a note in his faded moleskine journal, the same one
he had taken care to spill tea onto for the proper aesthetic.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rami Jackson
location: 'West Orange, NJ'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night and because of this nothing interesting
will happen until the next page when the weather permits human
interaction.
- category: Fantasy
type: Winner
author: Dan White
location: 'Clarendon Hills, IL'
quote: >-
Replacing the Human Torch’s fireproof colostomy bag, teaching Iron Man
how to use the TV remote, listening to Iceman complain that it’s too
cold, searching in vain for the Invisible Woman after she’s wandered
away yet again—life isn’t comical as a Marvel Universe hospice nurse.
- category: Fantasy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John E. Robinson
location: 'Saint Paul, MN'
quote: >-
"Release the Netherhounds," sneezed the Dark Commander of Castle
Direkill, though there were no interlopers but his allergy to dogs (and
cats, though this is not a story about cats, but about dogs that take
care of intruders) was intolerable, and it was expected he would have
Netherhounds, being a Dark Commander and all.
- category: Fantasy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ann Wood
location: 'Corrales, NM'
quote: >-
Vadblad the Bad had known for centuries that impaling his victims before
draining their blood was extremely wasteful but somehow he could not
stop himself reaching for his spear as he rose from his coffin; bad
habits never die.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Lewis Gurran
location: 'Wrexham, Wales'
quote: >-
It was said among the Khalid of the western deserts that a woman should
be a hyena in the kitchen, a giraffe in the garden, and a pelican in the
bathroom, although nobody now knew what this was supposed to mean.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kevin M. Kinzer
location: 'Spokane, WA'
quote: >-
Pharaoh Ramesses II hadn’t blown his nose in such a long time that when
it was finally done for him, what came out was a long string of crusty
carbon-colored mucus that could be dated, and so it was, back to the
time of Moses, which was evident by the locust that popped out at the
end.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jonathan Paul Wingard
location: 'Wivenhoe, England'
quote: >-
Somewhere across a rolling sea of grass was the Khanate, although those
who lived there wouldn't say they lived in “the Khanate,” since the
distances of the grassland defied classifications, and the people who
lived and traveled across it like ants on a slightly rumpled tablecloth
called themselves whatever they wanted, taking refuge in the valley's
folds so that if the Khan wanted anything of his people, he had to find
them first.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gary Pomeroy
location: 'St. Louis, MO'
quote: >-
Major Thomas Von Steele, WW I flying ace and teen heart throb leaned
into his control stick and dove past his rival, Capitain Pierre Longue,
grateful for his twin synchronized Vickers, which in this case were not
the machine guns pulsing through his twirling propeller like a
Cuisinart, but Sasha and Susan Vickers, with whom he had a date later
behind the Officer’s Club.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Myra Vanderpool Gormley
location: 'University Place, WA'
quote: >-
Eleanor often thought when recalling the first Thanksgiving that it
would all be so different today if that naked Indian, Squanto, and his
friends had not showed up with a pigskin and talked the Pilgrim men into
playing that silly game—before the women even had a chance to clear the
tables and wash the dishes.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: William C. Cooksey
location: 'Covington, LA'
quote: >-
"This town ain't big enough for the two of us," Princip stated as he
drew the FN Model 1910 from his pocket and emptied two shots into
Archduke Franz and Duchess Sophie, unwittingly instigating the First
World War.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Herbert Krimmel
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
“Punishing you hurts us more than it does you,” said Mr. and Mrs. Borden
who were scolding Lizzie for not taking proper care of her gardening
tools (she had again left the lovely new axe she had gotten for her
birthday outside on a dark and stormy night), and Lizzie thought: “Yes .
. . yes, I think it probably shall.”
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Amelia Mellor
location: 'Melbourne, Australia'
quote: >-
Deep in the wild forests of Matracha, atop a mountain made entirely of
crystal, lies a glade where rare birds frolic, and the trees bear
delectable fruit and wondrous flowers all year round . . . it has
nothing to do with the rest of this story, but, hey, pretty cool, huh?
- category: Horror
type: Winner
author: Michael Newton
location: 'Vancouver, WA'
quote: >-
I looked up at her breathless “hello,” and knew I could never unsee her
Bride of Frankenstein makeup, or the way she filled her clothes; which
must have looked good form-fitting a younger, svelter her, but now
resembled a sausage skin strained to its limits by a failure of the
emergency stop on the filling machine; perhaps a developing grub, whose
skin failed to molt, or a Michelin Woman, as imagined by Salvador Dali
on acid.
- category: Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michael Leshnower
location: 'Encinitas, CA'
quote: >-
A darkness passed through the marsh mist, two baleful lights peering out
from the deeper shadow of a heavy black cowl, a faded specter of some
ancient hero doomed to walk the earth for eternity, driving before it
all living things in a terror unimaginable—all except, of course, for
our hero, who gazed past the evil without concern, for Captain Frog had
seen many strange wonders in his swampy home and was intent on a
particularly large and tasty blowfly.
- category: Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lauren Cutler
location: 'Willow Street, PA'
quote: >-
It is my duty, I am afraid to inform you, that I must—well, inform
you—of a certain dire fact that is unknown to the general population,
but is of the utmost importance, especially to you, dearest reader, and
that is that the mitochondria is (I hope you’re sitting down) the
powerhouse of the cell—now do keep this in mind, for it shall be
important later.
- category: Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
Meeting his fiancé’s parents for the first time, Damon felt no fear
because she had accepted his marriage proposal, but he still hoped for
the parents’ approval, so it felt good that Mr. Dracula shook hands with
one hand while his other hand squeezed Damon’s neck and then Mrs.
Dracula proceeded to place a gentle kiss on his neck that intensified so
much that it probably left a hickey.
- category: Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Glen Donaldson
location: 'Brisbane, Australia'
quote: >-
Two of the heads of the ghastly mutant creature known as Son of
Triceratops had stayed up all night debating whether their dentist
really did deserve the plaque awarded to him that day by the Royal
Association for the Prevention of Monster Cavities, whilst the third
head, having already made up its mind on the subject and recognizing the
importance of a good night’s sleep, nodded off early.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Tyson Canale
location: 'Rochester, MN'
quote: >-
A sweaty Hector threw off his shirt, passion burning, skin glistening,
his deodorant congealed to little chunks ensnared among the matted
jungle of his armpits like so many crumbles of pungent blue cheese over
a bed of sprouts, moistened with a dressing of perspiration, and lustily
asked, "Are you as hungry as I am?" to the confused busboy.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Benjamin Matthes
location: 'Founex, Switzerland'
quote: >-
One day—though this was no average day, it was gloomy;
uncharacteristically forecast for mid-July, yet not extraordinary
considering the geographic location, on the northern coast of Germany,
where drastic changes in weather are indeed quite common although not so
common that they were expected yet common enough to leave no one shocked
by the small gathering of clouds above their heads—Linda went on a walk
down the street.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jennie Mayfield
location: 'St. Louis, MI'
quote: >-
The Fall leaf, resplendent in red, gold, and purple, fluttered gently to
the ground in front of her; and she knew that Winter was on Fall's
heels: soup simmering gently in the crock pot, the snowy night sky
reflecting city lights in a color vaguely reminiscent of Donald Trump's
hair, while gently falling snow muffled city sounds like a gag on a
narcissist.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: William Keegan
location: 'Pine Bush, NY'
quote: >-
Like the smoke from a cheap corn cob pipe, the tragic events of the past
week descended into Lloyd Mounser's brain and stubbornly clung to his
memory the way those little white styrofoam peanuts get stuck to your
hands you when you're opening a box of soft-white light bulbs that you
got online with free shipping.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lee Martinson
location: 'Yucaipa, CA'
quote: >-
Like a pilonidal cyst on the butt crack of the sands of time, Alfred
"Freddy" Malblench was irritating and sometimes painful to bear, but not
too significant a factor in the overall scheme of things, but all that
was about to change, although it wasn't his doing that accounted for the
change, but rather his undoing.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Christine Hamilton
location: 'Atlanta, GA'
quote: >-
She was the most desired object in the room, not unlike the last deviled
egg at an Easter Day potluck.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Julie Gautreau
location: 'Knoxville, TN'
quote: >-
Fifteen mute commuters, jammed together in anxious anticipation of
release, like expectant spermatozoa suddenly thwarted by an elevator
suspended in its shaft, its cables soot-slicked, tense, and tired, yet
no one stirred until Fern realized the last sound she might ever know
was the Muzak thrum of Manilow’s greatest hits, and she snapped.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Richard Lozano
location: 'Clayton, MI'
quote: >-
She carried her breasts like two dirty diaper pails, the inertia
carrying the three of them through one sexless day after another, until
fate, blind ass luck, and a common interest in rehabilitating
three-legged Peruvian turtles, put them on a collision course for love.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter M.
location: 'Tianjin, China'
quote: >-
Legs apart and hands on hips, Winston stood triumphant as the gel-bonded
strands of a thinning comb-over danced in the wind like an arachnid
doing the Hokey Pokey.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brian Reinke
location: 'Milwaukee, WI'
quote: >-
A faint breeze wafted through the forest trees like a soft whisper;
leaves rustled, the sun above glancing off their trembling sides; waves
lapped lithely at the sabulous beach; a loon sang its somber song as the
morning fog lifted from the lake, dissipating into the early morning
air— God, how Evan hated nature.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
His glance, followed by the ever-so-subtle smile, across the crowded
room, set her heart racing like the engine of a 40-year-old Kenworth,
overloaded with frozen Butterballs, screaming down a 14% grade in third
gear, until an even more handsome man, at the front of the room,
diverted her attention by calling out, in a commanding baritone, “G-54!”
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Clark Snodgrass
location: 'Huntington Beach, CA'
quote: >-
13-year-old Bobby Mitchell expertly applied his baseball card collecting
prowess to strategically select which of the Simpson sisters to court,
passing on the clearly mint condition Jennifer, to select Mindy, a lower
grade indeed, her features not as fully centered or printed boldly to
the edges, and with an undesired crease plus a corner ding, but Bobby
knew that Mindy would be the longer lasting member of his collection,
unlike Jennifer, the trophy card that would be constantly sought and
surely stolen.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Eric Knight
location: 'Minneapolis, MI'
quote: >-
She reached out to touch my face, her fingers smooth and cool to the
touch like the barrel of a hunting rifle in the woods in early October,
unless you live below the Mason-Dixon line when it would probably need
to be around early December to have similar average outdoor air
temperatures.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Edward Covolo
location: 'Menlo Park, CA'
quote: >-
Having just celebrated the union of nuptial bliss with my dearest Viola
not six hours before in the lush, green, verdant gardens at Saint
Benedict's Cathedral, I watched the rise and swell of her white,
wedding-dress-clad chest as she lay inert—still looking like an
unconscious angel descended from the heavenly firmament, even while
clutching an empty bottle of Thunderbird, and passed out behind the
trash bin of our local liquor store, where our story begins.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gwen Inman
location: 'Annapolis, MD'
quote: >-
Gertrude knew that she would have to find the love of her life someday,
but she didn't think she would find it eating a plantain peel out of her
garbage can.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gregory T. Snider
location: 'Lexington, KY'
quote: >-
Maurice had come to the grim realization that, whatever he had done,
unknowably, to offend Penelope —nknowable by virtue of racking his
brains once, twice, then thrice and then giving up because he didn’t
know the proper word for having done something four times, especially in
such futile fashion, even if it had been potentially fruitful for the
sake of romance —it was going to cost him sex.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Edward Buhrer
location: 'Camden, NJ'
quote: >-
Rock Hanson, his huge fists bunched and ready for action, stared
balefully at the Good Humor man who had let his girlfriend Jannette
board the van to ring his bells.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sarah Cannavo
location: 'Maple Shade, NJ'
quote: >-
Dean had everything she’d dreamed the perfect boy would have: hair as
soft as a baby bunny’s, dimples like the marks you could make pressing
your thumb into unbaked cookie dough, eyes as beautiful as a thousand
Thomas Kinkade paintings, and the smile of the male lead in an early
Olsen-twins comedy, plus he smelled pretty good, too.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Although the public’s initial concerns about artificial intelligence and
the “internet of things” had been troubling, its eventual ability to
embrace those advances only underscored the greatness of America, mused
Hoover Upright LXI as he took the oath of office to become the first
cordless vacuum cleaner elected to Congress.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Evan J. McKinley
location: 'West Linn, OR'
quote: >-
I waved my purple-banded fedora at the eight-foot-tall android, firing
the flare gun with every step as I sprinted towards him, shouting,
“WAIT! The stars haven’t aligned for the proper resurrection of Arnold
Schwarzenegger, you have to stop!” and I threw my best boomerang, the
one given to me by the reincarnation of Plato after that fateful
cocktail party; but allow me to back up a little and explain.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David S. Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The swarming alien spaceships were tiny and very small, maybe the size
of a blue-spotted hummingbird, but the beings inside, about 40 of them,
were quite huge, about the size of oak trees, the secret being their
micro-induction force field which caused a reverse polarity in
geospatial relativity, based upon the precise degree of spin in
left-handed neutrinos; but none of this helped in getting their rental
wedding tuxedoes to fit properly or be comfortable.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Phillip Davies
location: 'Cardiff, Wales'
quote: >-
His pincer strategy had quickly crushed the peace loving Pistachion
people of Rigel 7 and had also made short work of the neighbouring
Cashewnians of Rigel 8, but something told Space Admiral Rodgers that
the dreaded Macadamians were going to be a far harder nut to crack.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Richard Bos
location: 'Emmeloord, The Netherlands'
quote: >-
There was not a ship in the asteroid zone which space-pirate king Burt
Ibn Chang hadn't plundered at least once, but he, refusing to be
deterred, set a gleeful grav-sail for the Kuiper Belt in search of new,
extra-planetary booty.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jackie Fuchs
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
The portal had delivered Kyla right to the tent of Genghis Khan with her
army of Tatar dwarves (since Khan had sworn to kill every Tatar more
than three feet tall) but she wondered not for the last time whether her
Tatar tots, as she fondly called them, truly understood that they
couldn’t kill Khan, since one in two hundred men of their time were
descended from Khan and they’d likely be killing themselves right out of
existence.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Edward Mulholland
location: 'Atchison, KS'
quote: >-
As he was carried from the triclinium past the vomitorium to the privy
and stared down the abyss rank with fumes from the legendary Cloaca
Maxima, Sponge Bob instantly regretted his wish to time travel to
Ancient Rome, for the collective sponge was to them what a used Sears
catalogue would become for our more recent forebears.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Peter S. Bjorkman
location: 'Rocklin, CA'
quote: >-
Pablo wrapped his arms around his dying hermano—the drone strike
intended for cartel kingpin Miguel “El Jefe” Guzman had landed
off-course, disintegrating Pablo’s casa—and as his fraternal soulmate’s
life ebbed in his clutches, Pablo wailed heavenward, “He ain’t Jefe . .
. he’s my brother!”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jeff Green
location: 'Celina, TX'
quote: >-
Sven, who rode his unicycle while training for the biathlon, thought the
triceratops was the most regal of dinosaurs, exercised in the quad of
his apartment complex down the street from the Pentagon, sang in a
sextet (he is a baritone), had a deviated septum, fought for fun in the
octagon, seemed to have nine lives and spent a decade living with the
aborigines, was the kind of man you could count on.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Willard Green
location: 'Saginaw, MI'
quote: >-
She continued to work in the sandpaper factory, which was in a gritty
part of town, even though her abrasive boss was wearing her down because
she needed to take off the rough edges of her life and she needed the
money for finishing school.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Anita Bowden
location: 'Manchester, England'
quote: >-
Lois was essentially a tragic case, with her penchant for duck-hunting
gamekeepers who inevitably departed with a feather in their cap, whilst
she was left feeling down and picking up the bill.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sarita Hough
location: 'Blacksburg, VA'
quote: >-
The complex, nefarious plan hatched by the MacDougall family of Pine
Woods (family motto: Auld Lang Pine), was best summed up by Jones as, "A
cunning plan hatched by a punning clan."
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Tom McGowan
location: 'Zephyr Cove, NV'
quote: >-
All the signs were there beginning with the long black dresses, the
shoulder-length straight hair, the ridiculously tall pointed hat, and
the sixty-three-hundred- dollar plastic surgery bill for lengthening her
nose and adding a wart, but, until she sold the Mercedes and placed a
broom on the floor on her side of the garage, Daren just hadn’t put it
together.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Dorothy Harbeck
location: 'Fair Haven, NJ'
quote: >-
Margie's disappointment was acute Tuesday morning when she read the sign
scotch-taped to the window that said the taxidermist was closed for the
month of August because she had a cooler full of squirrel carcasses in
the back of the Mercedes and she was running out of ice.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
During sex, Carl, the adult son of a funeral home director, always
insisted that his wife lie motionless with eyes closed, and while this
always brought back memories of his teenage years, Carl still wished
that Yankee Candles made a scent that smelled like embalming fluid.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: John Holmes
location: 'St. Petersburg, FL'
quote: >-
Ringling Brothers folds its tents on the circus, leaving me hungover,
covered in yesterday's greasepaint, trepidatious at being last graduate
of clown school, and wondering which nose to wear to the ceremony.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Phillip Davies
location: 'Cardiff, Wales'
quote: >-
Living atop mount Olympus for millennia, with nothing to amuse
themselves but watching the fates of men unfold like the world’s longest
running soap opera, had made the gods decadent and boorish—kind of like
a Jerry Springer audience but with more robes and fewer mullets.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
Whether I shall emerge from this tale as the hero of my own life, or
whether that station be the lot of another, these pages must show, and
the path for you, dear reader, will be, as it was for me, long and
tortuous, though pages 247-252 will clear up a lot.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Peter Hochstein
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
From his bare feet and the wooden club he carried everywhere, to the
bear skin that he wore over his stooped body even while the opposition
donned pinstriped suits. criminal defense attorney Alonzo Cloodwick,
bearded and sorely in need of barbering, seemed like something of a
throwback to an earlier generation.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Herbert Krimmel
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Phoebe, age 15, very much regretted not having a little sister or
brother, but reflecting on the embarrassing moment of earlier that
morning when she had walked into her parent’s bedroom at a most
inopportune time, she thought Ben Franklin’s list woefully incomplete,
for there most certainly were things, besides laws and sausages, that
you might like, but you definitely did not want to see being made.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Joshua Long
location: 'Harrison, OH'
quote: >-
Trevor looked out the window and immediately felt like he was in the
middle of the movie "Doctor Zhivago" . . . only without the Bolsheviks .
. . or the balalaika music . . . or all the adultery . . . basically, it
was just a cold and snowy day.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Timothy David Petteys
location: 'Malden on Hudson, NY'
quote: >-
Over the rainbow, through the looking glass, and a convenient rend in
the local space-time continuum were all available–but what I really
wanted was the F-train to take me back to my dark, dinghy, and damp
basement apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, at four in the morning.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Dwayne Roberts
location: 'Mesa, AZ'
quote: >-
Statisticians say that the most common first word of an autobiography is
"I"; I, however, not being egocentric, have not begun this autobiography
with that pronoun, although I am a statistician.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: James Macdonald
location: 'Vancouver, Canada'
quote: >-
“What,” she said in perfect English, ignoring my pathetic shivering
while carefully folding her borscht-stained napkin into a perfect
equilateral triangle, “brings you to Minsk?”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Craig Marshall Smith
location: 'Highlands Ranch, CO'
quote: >-
Jennifer Danford’s eye-popping body was known all over Hermann, the
“sausage-making capitol of Missouri,” the county seat of Gasconade
County, and one-time home of St. Louis Cardinals manager Ken Boyer
(1932-82), who did not live long enough to see Jennifer’s body.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: William Telford
location: 'Plymouth, England'
quote: >-
Mother was a, proud, hardworking, Presbyterian who insisted it was God’s
love that made a house a home, though I was pretty sure He wouldn’t have
put up with not having a working boiler, some decent furniture, and a
toilet that flushed without having to pump the handle until your biceps
got all crampy.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Barbara Myers
location: 'Toledo, OH'
quote: >-
In the cramped, dingy dressing room that hinted of elephant sweat,
Poppy's whiteface itched, the skull cap produced a nagging headache and
the large floppy shoes, ironically, pinched his toes, as he frowned
behind his perpetual red smile, lamenting the words of his parents: "Go
to clown college first; then if the lawyer thing doesn't work out,
you'll have something to fall back on."
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: R. D. Fish
location: 'Jr., Versailles, MO'
quote: >-
"Penile implant recipient negotiates trade deal with China," roared the
headline, as President Clovis Harding sighed, reminded for the fortieth
time in less than a week that trusting the lowest bidder to shred his
medical records had been a tremendous boner.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Bill White
location: 'Allentown, PN'
quote: >-
Baking under the blazing New Mexico sun as he stood in the dusty street
outside the saloon, Old West certified public accountant Arthur W.
Fetterman Jr. hovered his sweaty hand over the butt of his borrowed
six-gun, advanced another reluctant step toward famed gunfighter John
Wesley Hardin and wondered for the hundredth time what had possessed him
to correct the man's use of "supposably" during their poker game.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jack Coladarci
location: 'Chicago, IL'
quote: >-
The dark horse and blond rider trudged slowly up the rocky path, sweat
leaking off them like juice from an over-ripe peach that’s been sitting
on the edge of baby’s bassinet too long, when suddenly a shot rang out,
sounding like a gut string snapping on an old guitar after an overly
passionate and enthusiastic flamenco rendering of Pachelbel’s Canon in
D, which, as Marie jumped and reared, Andressen reminded himself was
more properly known as “Kanon und Gigue für 3 Violinen mit Generalbaß.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kat Russo
location: 'Loveland, CO'
quote: >-
Tex Strongman gazed into the gleaming golden-red sunset, all fire and
unrestrained bursts of light, and as he tipped his Stetson against the
glare and settled into his weather-worn saddle astride his trusty roping
horse, the rest of the book turned into a giant metaphor about the
perils of anti-agrarian capitalism.
'2018':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Tanya Menezes
location: 'San Jose, CA'
quote: >-
Cassie smiled as she clenched John's hand on the edge of an abandoned
pier while the sun set gracefully over the water, and as the final rays
of light disappeared into a star-filled sky she knew that there was only
one thing left to do to finish off this wonderful evening, which was to
throw his severed appendage into the ocean's depths so it could never be
found again—and maybe get some custard after.
- category: Grand Prize
type: Runner Up
author: Shelley Siddall
location: 'West Kelowna, BC, Canada'
quote: >-
Dreaded Pirate Larry was somewhat worried, as he looked down at his
boot, where his first mate was stretched out, making whooshing sounds,
attempting to blow him over, that despite having the fastest ship, the
most eye patches, and the prettiest parrots, his crew may need a few
lessons on the difference between literal and figurative, as evidenced
by the rest of the crew applying ice to the timbers.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: Bridget Parmenter
location: 'Katy, TX'
quote: >-
I knew that dame was trouble as soon as I set eyes on her, see: there
was a stain on her clingy dress, wine, difficult to get out (you notice
these things when you’ve been in the business as long as I have); there
was a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her high heel, cherry, that
would leave a gristly pink trail following her every step (you pick up
on these things when you are as experienced as I); and when she coolly
asked me directions to the detective’s office, I pointed her down the
hall and went back to mopping the floor.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
Eli Jacob Crowley, the famed pioneer figure who spearheaded America's
westward expansion by blazing the Crowley Trail in 1838, was an
awe-inspiring figure of a man, as stout as a four-century-old oak, as
intellectually complex as the fronds of a Florida palm, as singularly
focused as the trunk of a Giant Sequoia, though in all other respects,
not like a tree at all.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
Commander of the Bengal Lancers Lord Reginald Buckman, KCIE, was a
strong, strong man, not “strong” like some onions, though he ate them
often, and particularly enjoyed them sautéed in lard, a generous amount,
but lightened with a bit of white wine, not too dry, alongside fresh
calves kidneys, though goat would do in a pinch.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dr. Joel Phillips
location: 'West Trenton, NJ'
quote: >-
Nothing looked familiar to Travis, who, recalling a favorite line from
Tolkien—“Not all those who wander are lost”—reckoned the “not all” part
implied that most who wander, like himself, are in fact lost, yet
buzzards would pick his bones before he would think to ask for
directions.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Chris Jordan
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
Dave’s fear surged in his chest, like those bombs they put in ski slopes
to trigger avalanches, but this one didn’t explode and instead came down
in a natural avalanche that covered the ski-resort parking lot and
poured into the open window of Dave’s car, which is why he was so
scared, sitting in his snow-filled car with a live bomb in his lap.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Wisnewski
location: 'Flanders, NJ'
quote: >-
He blended with the bleak city storefronts as people fled the cold, hard
rain that sounded like a funeral dirge on an unforgiving sidewalk, seen
yet unseen, someone yet no one, and like a lion stalking a weakened
wildebeest from the tall grass of the Serengeti, he sprang toward a
beautiful woman struggling to find purchase in her high heels and handed
out another coupon for twenty percent off at Sneaker Jungle.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kevin M. Kinzer
location: 'Spokane, WA'
quote: >-
My escape from heavily-guarded Cochon Island, a Hungarian penal colony
founded by the Gabor sisters, would have to be well-planned and
faultlessly executed, I thought to myself, "and I'm just not the right
man for it," so I stayed and lived out my days there, because having a
Gabor slap you around wasn't that bad, especially when they said
"dahling" afterwards.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Winner
author: Rachel Koch
location: 'Blackstone, MA'
quote: >-
Hi, my name is Neptune Galapagos Cooper, I'm 13, I live in the suburbs
with my middle-class white family (my SUPER ANNOYING little brother, my
parents, who are sooooo lame, and my dog Bailey, the only one who really
gets me) and there's one thing you should know about me: I'm not like
other girls.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Aasha Sankpal
location: 'Monroe, CT'
quote: >-
MAs Penelope sprinted breathlessly across a field of wildflowers, over a
rickety bridge, through a dense copse, and across seven more fields,
trying to outrun the ogre, she wished desperately that she had a horse –
a fancy, prancy one with tufts of fur by its hoofs, a shimmering mane,
and a white diamond on its forehead, preferably named Stardust.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tim Metz
location: 'Kokomo, IN'
quote: >-
"Pooh," said Piglet inquisitively, "I don't believe the quantum
interplay of dark energy and black holes allows for the anti-matter
superposition of a Higgs-Boson vector that you are postulating
transported you thru an n-dimensional carbon lattice and got you stuck
in the hunny tree . . . just sayin'."
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Dave Agans
location: 'Wilton, NH'
quote: >-
He glanced at his unsuspecting guests, his slight smile hiding his
hateful mood, his calm eyes hiding his evil intentions, and his smooth
skin hiding his tensed muscles, skeletal structure, and internal organs.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Arlen Feldman
location: 'Colorado Springs, CO'
quote: >-
Jimmy-The-Bull lay sprawled in a puddle of his own blood, which spread
out like a bright-red Rorschach test, in which Detective Williams had so
far identified a butterfly, a puppy and the Eiffel tower, but was
vaguely disappointed that there was nothing resembling Jimmy’s trademark
bull, although the coroner had seen a giraffe, which he claimed was
close enough, since it was also a ruminant.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Thomas Purdy
location: 'Roseville, CA'
quote: >-
For rookie detective Lara Stinson, the hardest aspect of her most recent
case was not discovering that the adolescent victim had been thrown from
the tenth story of the apartment building by his own grandmother, but
rather trying to spell “defenestration by octogenarian” in her
subsequent report.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ralph Cutting
location: 'Kingston Upon Thames, England'
quote: >-
Inspecteur Rollin of the Paris murder squad lit a cigarette as he stood
over the body of la prostituée engorgée (to those readers who don’t know
French, a prostitute with her throat cut and, indeed, how else would one
describe her—la pute, la fille de joie, la vendeuse de sexe, la
travailliste de la rue?) which lay on the Voie Georges Pompidou under
the arches of le Pont Neuf on the rive droite of la Seine which flows
through the most beautiful city in the world.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jay Dardenne
location: 'Baton Rouge, LA'
quote: >-
Who knew what answers the elongated, odd-shaped gray trunk would reveal,
but there was no doubt that in solving the mysterious homicide at the
zoo the great weight of evidence pointed to the elephant in the room.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Talha bin Hamid
location: 'Karachi, Pakistan'
quote: >-
It was a routine day for Detective Maxwell, who did not yet know that
instead of solving a case today, he would become one, with three lined
chambers and genuine leather piping.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Holmes
location: 'St. Petersburg, FL'
quote: >-
The good always wins out when you observe matters from a distance,
gasped Detective Inspector Fred Pickle, dangling from a meathook in a
disused Balham slaughterhouse, but it didn't, really, not for him, nor
yet for the guy on clean-up.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Mark Schweizer
location: Tryon NC
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night: the wind whistled like an old man with
drugstore teeth trying to teach his grandkids to say, "She sells sea
shells by the sea shore," causing the little shavers to wonder why
Peepaw was suddenly talking like Daffy Duck, whether he'd just had a
stroke, and if any of them was in the will.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter Seakat
location: 'Rochester, NY'
quote: >-
"It was either a dark or a stormy night, depending, of course, on if one
was comparing globally or locally, as the midnight sun would be
considered quite bright to the rest of the world, and by Alaskan
standards, the negative fifty-degree wind chill would be considered
balmy," thought Janet as she wrestled yet another sled dog out of the
alien's tractor beam.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Shea Charkowsky
location: 'Santa Clara, CA'
quote: >-
Sufficiently numerous airborne water droplets struck various grounded
objects at appreciable velocities, illuminated by ambient light from a
sub-horizon sun such that fewer photons were absorbed by the retina of
our protagonist’s eyes within a given interval of time than the number
at which he would struggle to decide whether the amount of light he
perceives should be considered “bright” or “dark”; in other words, it
was a dark and stormy night.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Greg Carlson
location: 'Minneapolis, MN'
quote: >-
His steel sang as Dothrak, mighty thews febrile with barely-checked
power, drew Aelthmor (the blade forged in eldritch shadows by the
Zdrahali adepts) and declared, “All who have sworn allegiance to the
False Duke will feel my wrath!” yet he was summarily admonished to
silence, for it is at the Reference Desk of the Skokie Public Library
that our story takes place.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bridget Parmenter
location: 'Katy, TX'
quote: >-
Talila Norpiros, heir to the elven throne and commander of her people’s
armed forces, chose a slightly more risqué outfit that morning than she
would normally wear to battle, theorizing that if she were presented as
a sex symbol as well as a dynamic protagonist, the series might attract
a few more male readers and finally make the New York Times bestseller
list.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brad Taylor
location: 'Iowa City, IA'
quote: >-
Kravik the Helm-Cleaver gripped his Damarrian battle-axe and stepped
into the inky blackness of the cave, wishing he had thought to bring a
torch to illuminate the stalagmites or stalactites—whichever were the
ones that hang down from cave-roofs to crack the cranium of a man who
stands two meters tall—as he searched for Dwarf Kobolds, the vile
creatures who, at less than half the barbarian’s stature, never had to
worry about conking their scaly heads on stal--, stalac . . . pointy
ceiling rocks.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brian Brus
location: 'Oklahoma City, OK'
quote: >-
Under a lurid dawn sun, the Usher Property was less baleful than it had
been during the past evening’s abode-splitting weather event, and my
practiced realtor’s eye—have I not mentioned my profession
already?—recognized development potential once the tarn was drained and
fissure remediated, perhaps to build an outlet of shopping at which
consumers would dawdle, aghast at the scale of discount savings.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ralph Cutting
location: 'Kingston Upon Thames, England'
quote: >-
The wars between the Aarbollethi and the Deffalecci was now in its
seventh haelon, and it is difficult to imagine they began when the
Aarbollethian Ambassador to Deffalecci, when addressing the Deffaleccian
Secretary of State, pronounced their nation’s common greeting, achdazar
u zynthio as ashadar y thynzio, which, in the Deffaleccian tongue is an
insulting reference to a hero from their classical mythology named
Ashadarythyn, who was supposed to have murdered his Vareto and lain with
his Amunna.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Drew Herman
location: 'Port Angeles, WA'
quote: >-
Although widely despised by his own kind, Kazimir Kilcescu was a hero to
a few uninhibited vampires who adopted his “baby talk and Ugg boots”
method of victim selection which, when applied correctly, largely
eliminated the blood-curdling screams that otherwise left them the
choice between letting their swooning prey go scot-free or choking down
two liters of curdled O-pos.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Hwei Oh
location: 'North Balgowlah, Sydney, Australia'
quote: >-
The witches cackled in glee, an eye of newt emanating a very satisfying
‘pop’, the ear of a pixie providing a heady scent, and the chest hair
from a burly princeling for some zing, as they tipped them into a dark
cast iron cauldron, only for Millicent the youngest of witches to wonder
whether they sold more contemporary cauldrons in Williams Sonoma and if
they had a free delivery option.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Marsha Engelbrecht
location: 'Lafayette, LA'
quote: >-
And it came to pass that, in those days when the young and powerful
Alexander, called The Great, boldly ventured forth on his mighty steed
Bucephalus, leading a vast army to conquer, claim, and generally visit
the more tourist-y areas outside his empire, there remained at home his
lesser-known brother Demetrius the Mediocre, who kept the fires burning
and, to everyone's surprise, produced a pretty decent BBQ.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Bruce Baber
location: 'Brentwood, TN'
quote: >-
“Big Bertha” was a giant artillery piece used by the Germans that could
hurl shells as big as a horse and cart causing horrific death and
destruction over a distance of six miles which is why General
Blithering, a brilliant English tactician, established his HQ some seven
miles from the front as he preferred not to risk damage to his antique
Spode china tea set with the hand-painted blue willow pattern.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Don Hansbrough
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
The summer afternoon was so fierce, Italy pulled off its boot, to wiggle
toes in the cool blue sea, as hot Contessa Ravioli slid off her
pantyhose.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sarita Hough
location: 'Blacksburg, VA'
quote: >-
He was a bold man, thought Arial Calibri, the typesetter’s daughter, but
he wouldn’t recognize a superscript if it was underlined, believed that
“strikethrough” was a baseball term, thought italics were people from
Italy, and that sans serif was a Caribbean island.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sylvi Warshaver-Stein
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
Even in the noisy gloom of the Oyster's Pearl, the most frequented bar
in town, Sergeant Pete Harrison spotted her the moment she walked
in--the young, tall blonde in a tight red dress that clung to her the
way those stringy bits stick to a banana after you peel it.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Raymond Lockley
location: 'San Jose, CA'
quote: >-
He walked in wearing a red checked shirt that was impossible to avoid
seeing no matter how desperately one might wish otherwise, looking like
a table at a cheap Italian restaurant that had eaten all the pasta on it
and then figured out how to come upright on two legs and walk.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ava Zaleski
location: 'Lisle, IL'
quote: >-
Elodie was like a beautiful newborn fawn, with sylphlike legs and owlish
eyes that seemed frightened of everything, and a soft voice that one
could imagine floating through a misty lea like a dryad's (except that
cervids make horrible noises and Harold had already compared her to a
deer, not a dryad, and who knew if dryads talked, anyway).
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Unlike the effete bun-coiffed duennas back at the English Department,
she was just the kind of unassuming dame you liked to find holding down
a stool and nursing a smoke at the end of the bar—no more likely to
decline a drink than a noun, casual when it came to conjugation, and
disposed to end a sentence with a proposition.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Thomas S. Maple
location: 'Auburn, AL'
quote: >-
“I do,” Jennifer repeated over and over in her mind, but even though she
had rehearsed that sentence countless times, she could not bring herself
to say it now before Barry, before the minister, before these people,
before God; instead she could only make a low, churning sound, like a
refrigerator’s when refilling the freezer’s ice maker.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Linda J. Ashmore
location: 'Lynnwood, WA'
quote: >-
Priscilla was a persnickety, perspicacious, and petulant old prude, with
a parsimonious purse brought on by pernicious poverty, prone to
pettiness, and with an air of pusillanimous if not precarious ways, all
proving that the worst things in life are pure pride of place and a
pretense of presumptuousness brought on by pouting at the people who
preferred prune juice over pilsner.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ann Rutledge
location: 'Nova Scotia, Canada'
quote: >-
Rowena barely made it to her destination before the sky opened,
unleashing a torrent of pea-sized hailstones spreading across the
windshield and joining together, looking like a large flat dish of
albino caviar, and she was reminded that she likely hadn't been getting
enough Vitamin B12 lately, since she had been eating mostly salads after
the Christmas weight gain.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joe Wyatt
location: 'Amarillo, TX'
quote: >-
Ivory clouds parted above the approaching mahogany frigate to reveal not
the cerulean skies of literary convention, but a utopian kaleidoscope of
mulberry, periwinkle, taffy, juniper, chartreuse, bubblegum and mauve,
and Captain Alexander Smollett silently exalted the poetic license of
Robert Louis Stevenson for its vibrant insinuation that this nautical
interloper indeed was sailing under false colors.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Amber Burns
location: 'Calhoun, GA'
quote: >-
Phoebe sighed happily as she read the text from Mark asking her to be
"friends with benefits," as she thought maybe, just maybe, she would
finally get that 401k and dental insurance.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Watching Liz Platskis’s lithe form undulate across the room left Bob
shaken, but not unpleasantly—kind of like the time he heard that Caltech
seismologist lady describing a magnitude 6.9 earthquake along the
Verdugo Hills fault underlying his subdivision only a few minutes after
it had happened.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sarita Hough
location: 'Blacksburg, VA'
quote: >-
My doomed love affair with Katrina was the old, old story: boy meets
girl, girl gains control of killer robot, girl uses killer robot to take
over the world, boy tries to persuade girl to give up power, girl orders
killer robot to throw boy out window.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: George Coe
location: 'Broad Run, VA'
quote: >-
She pursed her lips in disapproval as she considered the divisive and
hateful words her lover used to describe the shredded broccoli she had
prepared for their honeymoon feast, and woe, too late, she realized that
perhaps Col. Sanders was not her destined soul-mate, but, oh God, that
pointy little beard sure did tickle her fancy.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joy Diamond
location: 'Astoria, OR'
quote: >-
Their eyes meet . . . his, one green and one brown, hers, one brown and
one green; angels sing, little lambs prance around, red plastic hearts
float down, it is love, it is lust, it is happily ever after in a little
stone cottage with white picket fence and a puppy with huge eyes, and
lying on the beach at sunrise entwined in each other and a bunch of
seaweed, as the waves wash over their pulsating bodies, it is . . .
”Hey, ya want fries with that?” she asks, popping her gum.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: SJ Baldock
location: 'Quitman, TX'
quote: >-
This date is going horribly wrong she thought staring in vegan disgust
at the charred remains sizzling in his fajita skillet—her large,
luminous, sectoral heterochromic eyes that had a limbal ring of deepest
grey flickering angrily in the flame of a beeswax candle filtering the
air around them.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Payton Gregge
location: 'Christopher, IL'
quote: >-
I moaned through my last moments of ecstasy as I pawed my fingers
through his hair, feeling like a crock-pot that had just been turned
off, when he turned to stare at me with that same cocky smirk he always
had whenever we were finished, and asked in a slightly hoarse voice
"How's that for extra credit, Mrs. Thomas?"
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Phillip Davies
location: 'Cardiff, Wales'
quote: >-
The professor had constantly warned his protégé about the time travel
related risks of meeting a past version of yourself or killing your
grandfather, but unfortunately he'd never mentioned the worst time
machine risk of all—sticking your head out of the window.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Watson
location: 'Chapel Hill, NC'
quote: >-
Terellian Shapeshifters often blew their cover by taking subtly
inappropriate forms—a squirrel that swims perhaps, or a chair with five
legs —but Officer Max Throckmorton spotted this one immediately; every
Human knows that bidets are NOT purple, and they usually aren't
installed next to a McDonald's drink dispenser.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tim Petteys
location: 'Malden on Hudson, NY'
quote: >-
She stood out like a fifth appendage on the prehensile glandular dorsal
fin of a love-sick marmoset from the twin-mooned planet of Hades VII in
the Alpha-Centauri star system, but I thought she looked damned cute
anyway because of the sailor cap she wore so jauntily.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Steve Lauducci
location: 'Bethlehem, PA'
quote: >-
Captain Calamari loosed a plasma bolt from his crossbow, but the
charging cyborg knight hefted his magna-shield and deflected the
sizzling violet flare into the dust, forcing the square-jawed hero to
coolly reload his cumbersome, anachronistic weapon and wonder as he did
why he couldn't have a blaster pistol like Han Solo instead of being
stuck in this weird hybrid cyber-medieval universe.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Peter Bjorkman
location: 'Rocklin, CA'
quote: >-
As Sheriff (and choral conductor) Patrick “Pitch-Perfect” McHenry
assessed his perfectly mediocre chorus upon the saloon stage (sopranos
that could only sing melody, serviceable altos, screechy tenors, and
basses dropping the pitch by more than a quarter step), a wrinkled scowl
protruded from under his pristine Stetson and he growled, “I don’t like
your tone” at his “okay” chorale.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wm. "Buddy" Ocheltree
location: 'Snellville, GA'
quote: >-
In preparation for visits by African dignitaries, we had redecorated the
West Wing of the White House in an African motif with numerous
artificial plants and animals, but the President asked that we remove
the papier-mache wildebeests, saying he was "tired of fake gnus."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brent Guernsey
location: 'Springfield, VA'
quote: >-
As Lakshmi bestrode her vanquished foe in the Dombivli garment store,
she clutched the coveted outfit and with a smug, haughty voice demanded,
"Whose sari now?"
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: William Lindley
location: 'Glenview, IL'
quote: >-
As the prosecution wrapped its case, Reynolds listened and knew he'd
been foiled again.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Hynes
location: 'Bromma, Sweden'
quote: >-
“A bad pun is like an emetic,” said Fritz, downing the contents of his
one-litre stein and chomping on a sausage—“It brings out the wurst in
me.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Amy Torchinsky
location: 'Chapel Hill, NC'
quote: >-
Wending his way through the streets of Amsterdam only moments after his
arrival, Basil-Brett Benedict—passionate fan of the theater and
life-long member of the Baker Street Irregulars—could not contain his
joy upon seeing a Stadsschouwburg posting advertising its dramatization
of A STUDY IN SCARLET, THE SIGN OF THE FOUR, and THE HOUND OF THE
BASKERVILLES, enthusiastically proclaiming his intention of seeing them
with, “There’s no plays like Holmes for the Holland days!"
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Chuck Gray
location: 'Shreveport, LA'
quote: >-
After three weeks on the trail, John’s jock rash was (in some places)
burning brighter than the West Texas sun—least wise as far as a cowboy
could tell with his chaps and britches down and the little mirror his
mom had given him.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rob Greer
location: 'Queen Creek, AZ'
quote: >-
We start at the end, with a town full of shot freegrazers and rangemen,
with me the only survivor of that terrible, bloody day, the worst part
being we never had the traditional pre-shootout accusation and insult
trade-off mandated by western cowboy law.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rachel Koch
location: 'Blackstone, MA'
quote: >-
Sarah knew a man like Walter "Wild Walt" Sumner could never be tamed;
with his brash, unruly manners and fiery temper, and his fast-talking,
hard-drinking, gun-slinging, lying, gambling, and cheating ways, and
that's why she was marrying Larry, the village idiot.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Clifford Nishi
location: 'Mitsuke, Niigata, Japan'
quote: >-
When Earl flopped down from his sick horse, he (the horse) knew that
Earl might become sick too but doubted it because they ate different
foods.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Douglas A. Bass
location: 'Farmington, NY'
quote: >-
He told her that his love for her was bigger than a spoon because the
effects of the anesthesia had not fully worn off and he didn’t know what
the hell he was saying; nonetheless, this is where our story begins.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Douglas A. Bass
location: 'Farmington, NY'
quote: >-
Once in a great while a story is so magnificent, so grand, so great that
it begs to be told and while this is not one of those stories, it's nice
to know that they're out there.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Palak Bhatia
location: 'New Delhi, India'
quote: >-
He had always associated the beauty of a woman with an exotic and
sublime face, but there was something about her silky tresses and
corkscrew curls that held his attention prisoner, typed the author,
scratching his bald head absently.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Peter Bjorkman
location: 'Rocklin, CA'
quote: >-
“He’s got a good head on his shoulders” overheard Preston the Praying
Mantis of his fiancée chatting with her mother, though he may not have
understood the full implications thereof.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Allison Bryski
location: 'Danville, CA'
quote: >-
It wasn't fair to call Michael a scum-sucking monster from the deep, the
miserable, fetid descendant of some unnamed demon who, after centuries
at the very depths of the ocean, had somehow surfaced and found his way
to Wall Street—it was accurate, of course, but he preferred Michael.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Wayne Carmichael
location: 'Tyler, TX'
quote: >-
Maxine, past her prime (such as it was) and well into early middle age,
had an epiphany and resolved to end her addiction to soap operas and
switch to a mix of talk and reality shows (with the occasional game show
for balance), not knowing the tempest to come, which, although about as
exciting as an orthodontists' convention, does illustrate the potential
pitfalls of blindly following epiphanies.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Paul Culp
location: 'Stephens City, VA'
quote: >-
"Prevaricator! Burning trousers!" hissed eleventh-grade exchange student
Jean-Claude Dubois at the now-trembling girl who had falsely accused him
of cheating on his physiology lab reports, and although his words
betrayed the shakiness of his English idioms, the boa constrictor he
brandished at Kayla Stevens proclaimed the steadiness of his purpose.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Brendan P. Curran
location: 'Manchester, NH'
quote: >-
The snow was of the fluffy white variety as it began to fall in Alert, a
small, remote, quiet, Northern Canadian town, with a population of sixty
five residents and situated within the Canadian Artic Archipelago on the
island of Ellesmere and closer to Greenland than mainland Canada.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jeremy Das
location: 'Loughborough, England'
quote: >-
Lisa cried inconsolably after handing in her report on her parents’
climate denialism, but she cheered up no end when her teacher gave her
report a gold star, with silver stars for using grown up phrases such as
‘ignorant conspiracy theorists’ and ‘secret cabal of well funded front
organizations for Big Oil’.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Phillip Davies
location: 'Cardiff, Wales'
quote: >-
It didn't sound like a particularly glamorous profession but to get the
post of 'senior equine theriogenologist specialising in artificial
insemination' in the Royal stables Edward had had to beat off some
really stiff competition.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Aloma Davis
location: 'Melbourne, Australia'
quote: >-
"As the birds scattered across the sunset vista like so many pimples
over a nose, I mused on why it was I had never not enjoyed my time when
I wasn't a dermatologist."
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Lewis Gurran
location: 'Gresford, Wrexham, Wales'
quote: >-
The following is a work of fiction and resemblances between a character
in it and any person, living or dead, are purely coincidental apart from
the one based on my bitch of an ex-wife.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Ben Handy
location: 'Philadelphia, PA'
quote: >-
I first met Charles, for in those days he went by Charles and not yet by
Charlene, as he was still he and not yet she as the infamous operation
made so famous by the Swiss had not yet been performed and he not yet
been perforated, in a Quaker Meeting House where he proselytized to the
homeless as they would prostrate themselves before a man who they did
not know would soon be without a prostate.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Greg Homer
location: 'San Vito de Coto Brus, Costa Rica'
quote: >-
Cardinal Gugliotti’s blessing comforted young Father Hartoonian like
nothing short of macaroni and cheese with bits of bacon and a hot
buttered biscuit on a cold night.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Steve Lauducci
location: 'Bethlehem, PA'
quote: >-
Walking home, picking crushed bouquet bits from his hair and lapel, it
occurred to Stan that perhaps "spotless" was the wrong compliment for
Evelyn's home so soon after the incident between the Mazda and her
beloved Dalmatian.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Nathan Lazarus
location: 'Bethesda, MD'
quote: >-
For the more squeamish, I recommend you skip ahead to page 427, allowing
you to miss the more difficult portions of my story of murder, mayhem
and more than one marine mammal in an industrial scale blender, but for
those up to the task, lean closer and today you shall hear the sordid
tale of the Love Ballad of the Accordion Player.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Joshua Long
location: 'Harrison, OH'
quote: >-
Though she had just been laughed out of the forty-second delicatessen
that week, Epicurean philosopher Florence Smoot was determined that she
would find the answer to that age-old question of which came first—the
chicken salad sandwich or the egg salad sandwich?
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
As Tiffany Wonder ended her shift at The G Spot Gentleman’s Club,
swapping out her spangled thong and pasties for the dowdy barista’s
uniform sporting its more accurate “Jane Wilson” nametag and readying
herself for another day of pulling espresso shots for tips at the
Groundskeeper Coffee House, she couldn't help but remark the fact that
somehow, her financial fate had become almost entirely a function of cup
size.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Bridget Parmenter
location: 'Katy, TX'
quote: >-
Grace Delgado, pointedly of average attractiveness so as to be relatable
to the masses of pitiful girls wasting their time reading erotic novels
to make up for their lack of romantic lives, stared at herself in the
mirror for a few minutes that morning, for no other reason than the
author needed a chance to describe her physical appearance.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Mark Schweizer
location: 'Tryon, NC'
quote: >-
"Eel keel jou," Calliope spat in her Gypsy accent, an accent I shall now
discard for sake of the narrative because it's too hard to keep track of
the phonetics and anyway, you'd never be able to figure out what she's
saying but I'm sort of used to it.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: John Wallace
location: South Australia
quote: >-
Once upon a time, there was a place where things happened; allow me to
be more specific.
'2019':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Maxwell Archer
location: 'Mt Pleasant, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
Space Fleet Commander Brad Brad sat in silence, surrounded by a slowly
dissipating cloud of smoke, maintaining the same forlorn frown that had
been fixed upon his face since he’d accidentally destroyed the
phenomenon known as time, thirteen inches ago.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: Robert R Moore
location: 'North Falmouth, MA'
quote: >-
Emile Zola wandered the dank and soggy streets of a gloomy Parisian
night, the injustice of the Dreyfus affair weighing on him like a
thousand baguettes, dreaming of some massage or therapy to relieve the
tension and pain in his aching shoulders and back, and then suddenly he
thought of his Italian friends and their newly invented warm water bath
with air jets and he rapturously exclaimed that oft misquoted
declaration — "Jacuzzi!"
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Dropping his now-empty Remington .30-06 and tearing across the tundra
after two weeks of hunting in the Alaskan wilderness in the company of
none other than three-time Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt—the rustic outing
being the spoils of his winning bid at the Sun Valley Country Day School
live-auction fundraiser—Bart Michaelman realized with dismay that, in
this particular instance, he did in fact have to outrun the bear.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gwyneth Kozma
location: 'Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany'
quote: >-
As they sprinted together down the echoing, looping ramp of the deserted
Guggenheim Museum, closely pursued by three swarthy members of the
resolutely vicious Cannelloni gang, square-jawed British Royal Marine
art historian/world's deadliest sniper John Savage and his voluptuous
young modern art critic/Navajo linguist Samantha Silver cursed
architect/interior designer/writer/educator Frank Lloyd Wright for
designing such a circuitous route out of the building.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ron Pizarie
location: 'Bath, PA'
quote: >-
Three days without food or water, archeologist Phil Thompson with his
leg hopelessly trapped in a wilderness rock-fall, and with hungry
buzzards circling overhead, saw his entire life pass before him and he
once again experienced, as a child, his mother’s comforting words and
tender touch, as she gently awakened him from his recurring nightmare of
being eaten by birds.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Doug Purdy
location: 'Roseville, CA'
quote: >-
Anthropologist Roland Weatherby stumbled upon the detritus of the
cannibal camp, including the smoldering remains of his faithful guide
Davey, and raged in disbelief at the thought that, even in this digital
information age, primitive tribes feasted on the red meat of human flesh
paired with a subpar 2016 Chardonnay.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Winner
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
Old man Buckman had been murdering and dismembering teenagers in our
town for years, and getting away with it, and it's important to
emphasize this right up front, because young readers like you have
painfully short attention spans, and unless a story grabs you right off
the bat, you'll be back on your video games or phones or skateboards in
the blink of an eye.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Olivia Burkett
location: 'Springboro, OH'
quote: >-
There were two goats, drooling over the scrumptious olive-colored grass,
but eternally separated from it by paralyzing fear of the gargantuan
goat-munching ogre under the bridge, and there was Tom, the socially
awkward ogre who bit his fingernails so noisily that the sound resembled
the crunching of bones.
- category: Children's Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bridget Parmenter
location: 'Norman, OK'
quote: >-
If I wanted to fulfill my lifelong dream of being a dystopian YA’s
protagonist, I needed several things: missing or deceased parents
(check), a complicated romantic life involving multiple partners and
predictable behavior (check), a tough exterior that protected my
sensitive inner workings (check), and finally, a life of danger,
uncertainty, and constant struggle to survive (check); it turns out,
turtles are well-equipped to star in YA adventures!
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Jeremy Das
location: 'Loughborough, England'
quote: >-
Realising that his symptoms indicated a virtually undetectable, fast
acting neurotoxin, CIA coroner Quinn Abner frantically wrote up the
details, lay on the floor and, as a professional courtesy, did his best
to draw a chalk outline of himself.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Will Dennehy
location: 'Cambridge, MD'
quote: >-
Olivia followed her breasts into my office where I was studying the dead
flies on the window sill and dropped a large brown envelope on my desk,
which rearranged the dust as it came to rest next to my right elbow,
causing me to lose interest in the flies as I watched her walk away,
watched carefully while wondering if the motion of her hips could bring
a dead man back to life, which led to wondering what she could do to a
man who was still alive.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Arlen Feldman
location: 'Colorado Springs, CO'
quote: >-
As he pounded on the door, Billy ‘Four-Toes’ Capalone, wondered, not for
the first time, if he wouldn’t have been better off in the joint, or
even taking a concrete nap, but instead, he straightened his tie and
gripped his bible, determined not to blow his cover in the Jehovah’s
Witness Protection Program.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Eyes bleary from yet another night of fruitlessly staking out the Ritz
Motel in West Hollywood’s seedier quarter, hoping to get some usable
dirt on Mrs. Hennigan’s wayward hubby Bill, Niles Cranworth, P.I.,
pushed the start button, cranked the wheel over, and pointed his
well-traveled Chrysler 300 southward on La Cienega Boulevard (“La
Cienega,” he noted with irony, being Spanish for “the cienega”).
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Cody Hanna
location: 'Lancaster, PA'
quote: >-
Detective Wilhelm Schmidt’s raspy voice poured through the telephone
receiver like a dump truck of gravel unburdening its load—much like the
trucks that worked around the clock at Rohrer’s Quarry off of 1-81,
transporting payloads of lime, sandstone, crushed rock, and
gypsum—though with Detective Schmidt’s heavy German accent, excavation
on its own would not suffice, and a second, albeit entirely different
industry would need to be invoked to really paint a crystal clear
picture of his voice.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Greg Homer
location: 'Diamond Springs, CA'
quote: >-
Prisoner #4420991 selected two large snow cones for his pre-execution
last meal, much to everyone’s surprise, but #4420991 knew that death by
lethal injection would come as sweet relief when balanced against the
snow cone headache he expected to have.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
“I remember the moon had a face like Hannibal Lecter and that the wind
blowing through the trees reminded me of the music from Psycho,” stated
Effie Laudermilk as she sat in the courtroom stand on trial for the
murder (which she vehemently denied) of her boyfriend whose partially
eaten body was found in his car at the bottom of a pond.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, and since this was Miami in July and
everyone had left their convertible tops down, the rain fell in
Cadillacs.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Coby J. Scott
location: 'Hollywood, CA'
quote: >-
It was a Dark & Stormy Night; the rain fell in torrents outside the
Breast Western—the country-themed strip club where the exotic dance duo
of Stormy and Dark rattled the house (for it was a Tuesday), and
fiercely agitated the lustful flames of the patrons who struggled in the
darkness to rearrange their Wranglers.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Saraswathy Ashok
location: 'Trivandrum, India'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night; the suburb was devoid of most life and
color, and all you could see was the dull gaslights, dark clouds, and
deep indigo sky; but to Jade, it was almost the same, because, you know,
according to modern studies, dogs can see only blue, yellow, and grey.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Change
location: 'Crafers, Australia'
quote: >-
He was a dark and stormy knight; his blows fell in torrents— except at
occasional intervals, when they were checked by a violent gust of wind
to which he fiercely agitated a scanty flame in his struggle to light
it, for there was jesting in his jousting.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kevin Anderson
location: 'Kiel, Germany'
quote: >-
It was a bright and shiny day, the sun scorched the pavement—except
under a spreading chestnut tree, where it flattened the shadows and
starkly enhanced the contrasts (for it is in Hollywood that the script
begins), illuminating the story line, and manifestly motivating the
florid actors who fussed and fumed about their lines.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Winner
author: Arlen Feldman
location: 'Colorado Springs, CO'
quote: >-
Driven from the sea by pollution, Aglaope the Siren found an economy
apartment in New York City with the hope of luring the big city buses to
their doom, but to her dismay she found that her song was drowned out by
police cars, fire trucks and jackhammers, except for one joyous day when
she was fairly sure that she caused a skateboarder to crash into a light
pole.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Harrison Glaze
location: 'Acworth, GA'
quote: >-
The High Gondonderil gazed on with horror as the Elgaborian legions
marched at a single, pitiless pace into the once peaceful streets of
Sar-Andrada, the capital city of the kingdom of Xanthil, located in a
fantasy universe which might seem extremely confusing at present but
which will doubtless make perfect sense to you, dear reader, once you
realize that, like most fantasy universes, it’s basically just Tolkien’s
Middle-earth with different names for things.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bridget Parmenter
location: 'Norman, OK'
quote: >-
Archt’vi Lor’d’nn of the clan Elbr’sh, president of the Elvish
Grammatical Counc’l, knew that Midrì’ll D’rung’ír was doomed to failure;
she would be presenting an (entirely preposterous, in his opinion) case
for reducing the number of arbitrary apostrophes in Elvish words.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bill White
location: 'Allentown, PA'
quote: >-
Thunder crashed and the wind howled in a driving rain as the ancient
witch raised her hands toward the moon and with increasing desperation
chanted the words of a spell that her recently unearthed Book of Charms
had assured her would restore her to youth and beauty but so far was
just riling up the weather and getting her wet.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Robert Fields
location: 'Richmond, KY'
quote: >-
So you're probably wondering how I got here, in this dimly lit green
room, tied up like a hog, covered in a strange phlegm that smells like
the innards of a wild griffin, and blood caked on my body . . . well I'd
have to ask you before you ask me: have you ever tried to kill a dragon
and have it capture you and turn you into a slave for its pleasure.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Dave Beck
location: 'El Cerrito, CA'
quote: >-
Contrary to popular opinion, Jehoshaphat—the 9th-century (BCE) king of
Judah who reigned for twenty-five mostly peaceful years yet is best
known for his defeat of the Moabites at Elin Gedi in 849 BCE—rarely
jumped.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rob Greer
location: 'Queen Creek, AZ'
quote: >-
Stephen Douglas, that's the "Little Giant" to you, had tried everything
he could think of to stop Mr. Lincoln from arriving at their senatorial
debates: giving him the wrong time and place, sleeping pills disguised
as Republican muffins, kidnapping, and even some light arson but the man
always turned up, like a bad penny.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Amy Torchinsky
location: 'Chapel Hill, NC'
quote: >-
Dr. Gachet, who had arrived in Fall River only two years after being a
supportive, albeit ultimately unsuccessful, ear for his patient Vincent,
was now sitting at his desk recording his first impressions of his new
patient—“Lizzie exhibits a nervous hacking cough whenever she is asked
about her parents.”
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Olivia Burkett
location: 'Springboro, OH'
quote: >-
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America, sat
down at the theatre with his wife, the first lady of the United States
of America, turned and asked her, ¨Do you think the fella behind us can
see over my hat?¨
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Randall Card
location: 'Bellingham, WA'
quote: >-
When the tall dark, handsome, buff, and wealthy cowboy moseyed into my
"Blazin' Six-guns" novelty shop, I felt a wave of heat flood through me,
as if I had accidentally swallowed my sub-lingual nicotinic acid
lozenge, causing the niacin to be released instantaneously, rather than
in a more controlled, extended, low-potency dose, for which means the
prescription had been written.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Greg Homer
location: 'Diamond Springs, CA'
quote: >-
The Eyelash Palm Viper of Central America, only about the size of a
bungee cord—the kind of bungee cord you use to secure your bike on the
back of the car or to keep your patio furniture chairs together or to
make sure that raccoons are unable to remove your plastic trash can
lids—was both deadly and beautiful.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tzipporah Harker
location: 'Baltimore, MD'
quote: >-
The snow scattered like fair parmesan from God's own shaker, drifting
down lightly to cling to our squirming spaghetti skin beneath robes of
tomato puree, making no distinction between the whole wheat and white or
tagliatelle and bucatini among us.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Shawn Evans
location: 'Auburn, CA'
quote: >-
Curly Endive was at the ranch dressing feeling cool as a cucumber when
he caught his friend Buck Wheat ogling his favorite tomato and told him
he would need a beefsteak if he didn't knock it off lest he kick him in
the garbanzos.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Eric Mellinger
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
Despite being a German, vegan book-cataloger from rural and upscale
Connecticut, Marion was quite ignorant and overly opinionated about
almost everything, except for Atlas Shrugged and atheism, which made her
the embodiment of an Arian, vegetarian, ultracrepidarian-contrarian,
non-sectarian, libertarian, librarian agrarian from Darien.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jeff Phelps
location: 'Waterford, MI'
quote: >-
Today is Friday, and Ernest was hemmed in a way, back in a clean and
well lighted place, a tolling bell sounded and the old man could see the
through snows as he killed a man, Jaro, himself, now a participant of
the natural study of the dead, as strains of God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman
echoed from the street to the killer’s ears and thoughts of the fifty
grand he’d just earned made his brain dance like ten Indians, and after
the storm my old man made a simple inquiry to the mother of the queen
and left for the Big Two-Hearted river, undefeated.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The villa in Tuscany is abandoned now, and nature, in the form of
invasive vegetation, is reclaiming the small vineyard where Rodolfo and
Susannah made love each afternoon, beginning with the creeping Coccinia
virginiana, followed by the woody Polemonium gloriosa, and ending, of
course, with the drooping Glandularia vulgaris.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bob Pellicone
location: 'Lincroft, NJ'
quote: >-
Rosemary was crushed, and no amount of time or sage advice could assuage
her agony or, at the very least, reduce the swelling.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kelley Farmer
location: 'Dripping Springs, TX'
quote: >-
He loved the sound of her name—Sandrine—as it reminded him of two of his
favorite things in life: sandwiches and tambourines.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Carol Hobart
location: 'Edina, MN'
quote: >-
She had a captivating smile and eyes the color of a poisonous frog he'd
seen on a trip to Costa Rica.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Andrew Kim
location: 'San Jose, CA'
quote: >-
I knew that my husband was cheating on me, because I tasted his breath
on the new maid's lips.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Riley Kwortnik
location: 'Ithaca, NY'
quote: >-
"God, would you please get your tentacles off of my stomach," I uttered
as Forrest groaned and slithered away from my bed; I swear, if anyone
ever finds out I am dating an octopus, it will be social suicide.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Steve Lynch
location: 'Tucson, AZ'
quote: >-
Gregory was falling in love with the doe-eyed Nora, not knowing that she
could be an infuriating, complicated woman at times, like one of those
self-service checkout machines at the grocery store where you can never
figure out where to insert the money or get your change, plus the
scanner never recognizes your jar of Vlasic sweet pickles so you have to
call the attendant.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Greg Homer
location: 'Diamond Springs, CA'
quote: >-
The frequent and robust bouts of coupling that young Liam shared with
his robot girlfriend Esther-4.0, while satisfying, often reminded him of
eating chocolate covered cherries without removing the foil wrapper.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jeremy Das
location: 'Loughborough, England'
quote: >-
Zajaxian Planetary Law required that war, if it must be fought, be
fought not with bombs, bullets and blood, as on our own primitive Earth,
but with serried banks of immensely powerful mainframe computers, even
though they were bulky to carry and unwieldy to throw.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kevin Kinzer
location: 'Spokane, WA'
quote: >-
As Capt. Kirk and his away team materialized on the planet’s surface and
began to walk through town, their sudden, uncontrollable twitching and
out-of-control hands, feet, and hips immediately led Kirk to suspect
that the king of the Holodeck Disco, Mr. Spock, had intentionally
transported them to Funkytown.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Stephen Dourson
location: 'Preble County, OH'
quote: >-
A blast from the cosmic storm front on the frontier of interstellar
space, the Oort Meteor Storm sleeted silently through the eternal night,
slicing invisible self-healing lacerations through the dark void as it
bore down on Sedna Station where shortly it would slice through the
intrepid Planetary Survey Team, lacerations neither invisible nor
self-healing that would reduce them to vacuum-desiccated strawberry
preserves floating in a titanium colander.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Robert K Walters
location: 'Asheville, NC'
quote: >-
Sven wondered, staring into Opal's trusting eyes, if he could truly
marry her knowing that, in just three weeks, the stock market would
crash, her father would jump out of a 10th story window, and he, the
intrepid adventurer and time traveler, would return to the 21st century
with millions of dollars worth of her old man's Coca Cola stock.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Bart King
location: 'Portland, OR'
quote: >-
After purchasing an oval Chinese frying pan at the diminutive British
aristocrat’s yard sale, Nigel realized that he’d just taken a long wok
off a short Peer.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dave Beck
location: 'El Cerrito, CA'
quote: >-
Fed up with Parisian hipsters using fancy foreign words to describe
French food, Pierre decided un oeuf was un oeuf.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Josh Wright
location: 'Piedmont, OK'
quote: >-
As Freddie donned his mercurial black waistcoat, trimmed his mustache,
and helped his younger brother tie his ascot in preparation for the 22nd
annual Ravencon he could not help but reflect how happy he was to be a
Poe boy from a Poe family.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Julian Calvin
location: 'Bellbrook, OH'
quote: >-
After almost twenty years of baldness, Harry finally decided to splurge
on an expensive, human-hair wig—after all, four hundred dollars to look
twenty years younger was a small price toupée.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Franks
location: 'Fayetteville, AR'
quote: >-
Being a man of perspicacity, Alexander Graham Bell was able to treat his
own stomach-ache (caused by eating three dozen raw oysters and a warm
crock of sauerkraut on a bet) without the aid of his assistant, and when
asked how he became ill, he would say only "Alimentary dare, Watson."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Evaonne F. Hendricks
location: 'Arcata, CA'
quote: >-
Now that the former emperor, Napoleon, was dead, his doctors, the
guards, and all the other soldiers hanging around decided to go out for
a short bier.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Brent Guernsey
location: 'Springfield, VA'
quote: >-
Winky the flounder, lying flat on the ocean floor, looked about in
horror as he took in the shreds of fish flesh that rained down on him
from the massacre visited upon his family by the barracuda gang, and
realized: "I'm the sole survivor."
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Stephanie Karnosh
location: Springboro OH
quote: >-
"Yeehaw, boys, and so long," called Eugene 'Bullettooth Dynamite' Jones
as he rode off into the torrential downpour on his 32-inch-tall
miniature horse, Kevin, hiding a frown because he knew deep down in his
heart he had yeed his last haw.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Hynes
location: 'Bromma, Sweden'
quote: >-
No-one served up a steak quite as juicy as they did in Mother
McDougal’s, so when the check arrived, Luke Mahan, the meanest
gunslinger in the state, peeled off three greenbacks from his wad, threw
in a dime tip, and told the elderly waitress it was “Three ten to you,
ma.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Adam Johnson
location: 'Longmont, CO'
quote: >-
They were tough men with tough jobs who frequented tough bars with
rough, tough atmospheres, and the way they gripped their drinks, cigars,
and cigarettes in a manly fashion never failed to impress the tough,
hard-faced women who also frequented those same bars, and often ended up
having their babies.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Lee Grossman
location: 'Oakland, CA'
quote: >-
The aroma of the madeleines stimulated Marcel’s intense memory of a
woman from his past, coincidentally not named Madeleine but Gladys, who
smelled like the Dickens so he decided to order the gruel instead.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: David Meech
location: 'Auckland, New Zealand'
quote: >-
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times – though any decent
statistician might net those two factors together and conclude that
things were fairly average all round.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Sarah Totton
location: 'Guelph, Ontario'
quote: >-
The price was cheap, thought P.I. George Brown, but renting an office
out the back of Farmer Frizzle's poultry barn didn't make the best of
impressions, what with the spread-eagled cassowary mounted on the wall,
the eggshells his clients had to walk on to get to his desk, and the
barn's P.A. system, which continuously blared Radio 2020 CHICKEN FM
(bock-bock-bock).
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Tom Venturino
location: 'Encinitas, CA'
quote: >-
It was going to be one of those nights, maybe not dark and stormy, but
nebulous and heavy, nevertheless; the kind of night you would endure
rather than survive, the kind of night you would fear but could not
anticipate, the kind of night I would weather as I had a thousand nights
before with the steadfast companions who would once again escort me to
dawn: Patsy, Roy, and Jack—that is, Cline, Orbison, and Daniels.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Samuel Gallentine
location: 'Battle Ground, WA'
quote: >-
He sat on the tailgate of his truck, an old Ford Ranger as blue as the
summer sky (although it was now winter), sucking on the ass end of his
cigarette, taking puffs to the beat of his speakers as they blared an
old Beetles tune, you know the one.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Grant Gordon
location: 'North Sutton, NH'
quote: >-
Retired professional school dance chaperone, Ted Wilkerson, wandered the
day room, prying couples apart with his chipped wooden cane, sneering
and insisting, “Leave room for Jesus, you’ll be meeting him soon
enough,” and “Let’s keep these crusty arrhythmic shamblings G-rated,
folks.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jim Jones
location: 'Massillon, OH'
quote: >-
It was a dark and shiny tube that Nurse Johnson slowly intubated into
the patient's left nostril when suddenly Dr. Barbarino bent over to old
man Kotter's ear and shouted, "Up your nose with a rubber hose!"
whereupon old man Kotter tried to snort laugh but choked and died
because he had a tube up his nose.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Krista Epton
location: 'Edmonton, Canada'
quote: >-
His hot, fetid breath on the back of her neck pulled her from her sleep
and she felt fear grip her as she recognized his presence and scrambled
quickly to untangle herself from the sheets and exit the bed before
Felix could hack up the forthcoming hairball.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Cass Lennox
location: Switzerland
quote: >-
Puzzles, as Naomi was beginning to realise, after moving past beginner
500-piece illustrations into 2000-piece close-ups of nature, were the
easy part of the competition—going head-to-head with a grandmother from
Limerick on a 2,500-piece of cherry blossom needed finesse and technique
along the lines of a tiny slingshot aimed at the bitch's corner pieces.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: David Hynes
location: 'Bromma, Sweden'
quote: >-
Standing at the altar, dressed in white, Lucy could not help but think
of the suitors she had turned down—Jock, Dick, and Willy—all lovely men,
but not as lovely as her ultimate choice, now standing proudly at her
side, to whom the vicar turned and questioned, “Do you, John Thomas,
take Lucy . . . ?”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Eric Anderson
location: 'Bend, OR'
quote: >-
All I can say is that I have never been so insulted (even by the likes
of my moronic sister (who seems to delight in making me uncomfortable
(and she is so good at it, knowing just how to push my buttons (which I
think is a skill that all siblings possess to some extent (which I
believe proves some sort of genetic link (despite the fact that I really
enjoyed genetics in school (relating on so many levels to Gregor Mendel
and his peas (but of course peas make me gag, since my throat swells
when I eat them)))))))) as I was by someone suggesting that I have ADD.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Everett Roberts
location: 'Washington, DC'
quote: >-
She took a deep lungful of honeysuckle-scented air, though it didn't
smell like honeysuckle because she lived in Colombia and that plant was
not endemic to where she lived (but it is endemic to the author’s home,
so in this story the air smells sweet like whatever’s similar in
Colombia, and our story takes place there) and she wondered idly what
that sweet smell in the air was.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: David Silver
location: 'Greater Manchester, England'
quote: >-
As he left the cemetery after his grandmother's funeral, Victor wondered
if Hollywood screen legend Robert Taylor had been interred under his
real name, Spangler Arlington Brugh, and if so, how had they managed to
fit all the letters onto his gravestone—an inappropriate thought on this
sad family occasion, particularly so because his grandma's favourite
movie actor had been Spencer Tracy.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Marty Williams
location: 'Guelph, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
Accidentally dropping her phone, eyelids, and fake Ottawa Valley accent
was not what Sarah Hemsworthington did best, or most often, or with the
most confidence in her family of nine rather nasty siblings, and
step-siblings, and half-to-one-quarter siblings—but it sure came close!
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Scott Wilson
location: 'Corvallis, OR'
quote: >-
It seemed a cruel irony to Nigel when he realized, only in hindsight,
how mistaken he had been to abandon his youthful ambition to become a
technical writer and bend to his parents' wishes that he go into
proctology.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Scott G. Witmer
location: 'Allentown, PA'
quote: >-
The fun had seemed innocent at first—simple handstands and easy
dismounts, but as the hours passed the routines became more intricate
and aggressive with cartwheels and round-offs, competitive and risky
with back walkovers and flipping twists, until the twins’ mother ordered
them to stop the nonsense and return Grandpa’s walker so he finally
could get to the dinner table.
'2020':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Lisa Kluber
location: 'San Francisco, CA'
quote: >-
Her Dear John missive flapped unambiguously in the windy breeze, hanging
like a pizza menu on the doorknob of my mind.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: Lisa Hanks
location: 'Euless, TX'
quote: >-
As hard-nosed P.I. Dan McKinnon stepped out into the gray gritty dawn, a
bone chilling gust of filth-strewn wind wrapped the loose ends of his
open trench coat around him like a day-old flour tortilla around a
breakfast burrito with hash browns, sausage, and scrambled eggs, hold
the pico.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Geoffrey Braden
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
"Haul away on those slug guskets, you bilge-scum!" roared the aged
captain, leaning wearily against the starboard clog-hutch and watching
as the mizzen spittlestoat rose majestically upward until it cuzzled
atop the upper spit flukes, and cursing his fate that rum and advancing
years compelled him to continually improvise names for the rigging of
his own ship but then deciding, with a resigned sigh, that it didn't
really matter.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Lourne
location: 'Waterloo, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
Sally loved Geoff so deeply that if he were a pirate on a dread pirate
ship (and not an insurance adjuster), snarling and drinking, murdering
and raping his way across the Caribbean (well, maybe not raping, it was
the sentiment that counted) and he had a peg leg, she would have gladly
sawed her own leg off and sewed it to his stump with silken threads, so
he could dance again, holding her up since she was now a sudden amputee.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
None of us, not a single jack-tar of the ten poor souls consigned to the
only surviving lifeboat from our torpedoed freighter, the “S.S. Walter
Jacob,” the noblest vessel that ever hauled the weapons of war across
the Seven Seas and back again, had a nickel's worth of life insurance.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
As he slowly shadowed the white Amazon Prime van down Midvale Drive in
the Fresno suburbs on a sweltering July afternoon, Nigel “Cutthroat”
Hawkins thought back over his career —fastboating along the Somali
coast, broadcasting at 50,000 watts from international waters just off
the Isle of Man, running half a million counterfeit “Bourne Identity”
DVDs out of Hong Kong—and had but a single question: is this really what
piracy has come to?
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ed Buhrer
location: 'Louisa, VA'
quote: >-
As the large wild turkey soared over him, propelled by the twin blasts
from David’s shotgun, Michael gazed up at the cornbread-colored sky and
thought, “What a blessed day to be a Christian!”
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Winner
author: Robert Greer
location: 'Gilbert, AZ'
quote: >-
As Charlotte meticulously finished her egg sac on the lonely rafter at
the county fairgrounds, she thought about the future day when her
children would burrow into Wilbur's flesh to consume him from the
inside-out, and hummed her favorite song about the wheel of life rolling
on.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: DJ Hicks
location: 'Jr, Manchester, NJ'
quote: >-
Dorothy and Toto got kicked out of Kansas just before that group had
several hits back in the day but at least Toto achieved some success
with his band, while poor Dorothy, penniless and insane, lived under a
bridge, prostituting herself and screaming about rainbows.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Kollas
location: 'Orlando, FL'
quote: >-
Once upon a time, in a far off magical kingdom, there lived a beautiful
princess who was loved by everyone in the land, except, of course, for
her servants, for whom she made every waking moment a living hell.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Yale Abrams
location: 'Santa Rosa, CA'
quote: >-
When she walked into my office on that bleak December day, she was like
a breath of fresh air in a coal mine; she made my canary sing.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jarrett Dement
location: 'Eau Claire, WI'
quote: >-
She sauntered into his smoke-filled office with legs that, although they
didn’t go quite all the way to heaven, definitely went high enough for
him to see that she was a giraffe.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Kollas
location: 'Orlando, FL'
quote: >-
The first thing I noticed about the detective’s office was how much it
reminded me of the baggage claim at a nearby airport: the carpet was
half a century out of date, it reeked of cigarettes and cheap booze, and
I was moderately certain that my case had been lost.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Pete Zenz
location: 'Middleton, WI'
quote: >-
“Handless” Harvey Hanker, the sharpest detective in the northern
hemisphere, had little regard for fingerprints, but a nose like Karl
Malden’s, and he could sniff out clues like a bloodhound with its nose
buried in the groin of a fox.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Belinda Daly
location: 'London, England'
quote: >-
Handsome French policeman, Andre Poiret, grappled with the puffed-up
albino hitman, who was about to shoot the beautiful high-class call
girl, Gigi Lamour, who was taking a shower in her apartment, with his
big gun.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Leo Gordon
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
The fact that the cantor's body was covered with a lamb shank, salt
water and a mysterious concoction called charoseth, led Chief Passover
Homicide investigator Ari Ben-Zvi to describe the pattern of murders as
"uneven, perhaps unleavened."
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Frank Bennett
location: 'Malvern, PA'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, explained Moscow weatherman Sergei
Ivanovitch Nabokov, or Sergei Invanovich, fondly called Seryozha by some
and Seryozhenka by his family, but don’t bother memorizing that as
Sergei won’t appear again until the end of this book, when his weather
forecast is heard in the background as we learn that the main character,
Alexei Dmitriovich Makarov, or Alexei Dmitriovich, also known as
Alyosha, Alyoshka, or Alyoshenka ( or simply Alexei M.) has shockingly
died.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Benjamin Tennenbaum
location: 'Chicago, IL'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, the kind where the orchestra in a crime
movie would bang on a piece of wavy sheet metal and blow raspberries to
add ambience to the drizzle coming from an off-camera stagehand holding
a garden hose.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Winner
author: Grant Gordon
location: 'North Sutton, NH'
quote: >-
“So, these are Hobbits?” Grenwildr thought to herself, making an attempt
to seem worldly and not at all surprised by how small they were, despite
the pressure to purchase quickly; the price was right and the
taxidermist would be closing shop soon.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Greg Homer
location: 'San Vito, Costa Rica'
quote: >-
Upon reaching the age of 13, young Ker-Jar of the Hill People was
anxious to complete the time honored Test-of-Manhood required for all
boys his age; to hunt down and kill a corporate Director of Personnel
Management using only a cordless belt sander.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tim Metz
location: 'Kokomo, IN'
quote: >-
She was the aptly named Queen of Night, dark in demeanor and sullen in
psyche, nocturnal as well so her given names, Madleve, Noirine,
Vespereth were spoken only in the eboonic gloom of a moonless night
whereas otherwise everyone just called her “Debbie.”
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Robert Greer
location: 'Queen Creek, AZ'
quote: >-
"Master Wlfindermx sauntered across the Plains of Teflandous towards the
city of Gjorgturc carrying the mythical Blade of Vulbertrian, once owned
by Lord Leszsoriog," wrote the author, who wanted to make the life of
the audiobook narrator a living hell.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gideon Gordon
location: 'Boston, MA'
quote: >-
“You may know my true name,” gloated Archmage-Emperor !Gfńatt’
Bdúnśṽiobfhńr to the foolish traitor who had dared try to end his
glorious mage-empire’s reign, “but can you pronounce it?”
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Edward Covolo
location: 'Menlo Park, CA'
quote: >-
When Sir John of York fought in the crusades, he killed many Saracens
with great dispatch, and was likened unto a whirling dervish of steel
and Christian might—minus the dizziness from constantly spinning in a
circle, and the fact that he was on a horse that couldn't do that.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Art Feenan
location: 'Kennesaw, GA'
quote: >-
Before the beginning God leaned forward from the Empyrean Throne and
gazed at the heaps of OED fascicles littered in layers across the cloudy
carpet, still uncertain just which Word was the perfect one with which
to begin and seriously annoyed that She had decided to do the whole damn
thing in English . . .
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Fuerholzer
location: 'Crystal Lake, IL'
quote: >-
The fearsome isle of Gandew was home to two native tribes: the
Lacenites, a proud warrior race, and the Demescans, a warrior race but
not exactly proud of it, as they found the whole "raping and pillaging"
enterprise a bit distasteful, but recognized the fact you can't build an
empire on artisanal ceramics alone.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Holmes
location: 'St. Petersburg, FL'
quote: >-
The Bulgars (Bulgaris), a 17th century semi-nomadic Turkic tribe, are
often unfairly compared to the Vulgars, who invented the leather bikini
in honor of Princess Urskika from Pacific Palisades.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Deep within the Great Pyramid, Pharaoh Khufu gazed at the walls of what
would eventually be his burial chamber, asking himself what he had been
thinking in entrusting its adornment to the teenaged Prince and
Princess, but comforting himself with the certainty that the younger
generation would soon tire of these annoying “emoticons” and return to
the rich thirty-character Egyptian alphabet.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Cope
location: 'Sanford, NC'
quote: >-
It was the time of the Salem witch hunts when Pastor Edwin Shaunsberry
entered his home one night to a scene of horror in which, just beyond
his son drawing pentagrams on the floor and his wife writhing as if
demon-possessed, he saw the cat with the last bit of bacon in its mouth.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Candy Mosely
location: 'Hydro, OK'
quote: >-
The biker gang roared into the parking lot of the bar and grill like a
troop of howler monkeys trying to lure mates, the gravel beneath the
tires of their well-oiled bikes crunching like the dill pickle spears
the place served alongside their famous tuna salad, BLT, and Reuben
sandwiches.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Edward Covolo
location: 'Menlo Park, CA'
quote: >-
Ah, dearest Lumplina: Her lips were a symphony, her face was a melody,
and her body was a concerto—except for that one hangnail that was like a
strident E-chord from a sleepy, hungover guitarist who, if he shows up
drunk again to practice, so help me I will kick him out of the band—yes,
that was Lumplina.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Connie Kleinjans
location: 'Honolulu, HI'
quote: >-
He revved the engine—filling the air with a deep, throaty roar, rather
like a giant with a wretched head cold, a rumbling cough, and nasty post
nasal drip (the kind where your swollen throat hurts so horribly, and
your eyes turn red and watery, which only makes the cold more drippy
[and the phlegm!])—and sped off.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Elly Fantain
location: 'Kfar Saba, Israel'
quote: >-
On March seventeenth, when the dawning sunshine was drying up the rows
of tufted fog lying gently over the meadows on both sides of the highway
and turning them into wisps of lace floating over the road in front of
him, Jamie, on his way home after a night shift at the plant, decided to
quit.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Lawrence
location: 'Columbus, OH'
quote: >-
Hattie fell to the scratched mint linoleum floor with a thud heard only
on the third day after Halloween, when discarded Jack-o'-lanterns are
strewn over frozen fields, now rotting shells mashing into the
permafrost, spilling seed like a sailor on furlough after seven months
at sea.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kathy Chapman
location: 'Canandaigua, NY'
quote: >-
The rain fell in buckets as I walked the cobbled streets of Old Town,
although I supposed, if rain really came in buckets one might land on my
head and knock me unconscious so I’d much prefer raining cats and dogs
because I’m quite fond of cats, but better still if were hot enough to
fry an egg on the pavement as I’m rather peckish.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kagte Minyard
location: 'Denver, CO'
quote: >-
The sound of his raspy voice and the feel of his chilly hand on her
shoulder made her shudder, like the wooden things on the sides of
windows, but a verb rather than a noun, and with two d’s rather than two
t’s.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Julie Winspear
location: 'Washington, D.C.'
quote: >-
In Gertrude’s experience lovemaking was always bittersweet, or at least
it had been until one fateful night when Chaz, the seductive man behind
the concession stand blessed her with the salty-sweet bliss reminiscent
of both true romance and quality kettle corn.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Leo Gordon
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Gasping for breath as she lay in the dew-laden lakeside grass, Rifka
Lieberman's chest heaved with rising passion as Saul Cohen approached
with the inhaler she had left behind at the assisted living facility.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mike Bowerbank
location: 'Vancouver, Canada'
quote: >-
In his passion, he tore at her clothes, popping the buttons off her
blouse, causing her to moan deeply, as she dreaded the thought of having
to find beige buttons on the off-white carpeting, to say nothing of her
hatred of sewing and her hopes that her favourite blouse wasn't ruined.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
Jarrod, lying in the bed next to Selina, on his side with his head in
his hand, asked, “What would your husband do if he saw me right now?”
and Selina, who was watching her husband sneak up on Jarrod holding a
tire iron with two hands raised above his head, replied, “Probably sneak
up on you with a tire iron raised above his head, preparing to use it
for something other than its intended purpose.”
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kelly Hay
location: 'Milwaukee, WI'
quote: >-
She awoke dreamily as she fumbled around on her side table for her
alarm, knowing that the restless dreams of her faceless lover would be
forgotten like that guy in the movie “Cocktail”—not Tom Cruise, but the
other guy.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ed Buhrer
location: 'Louisa, VA'
quote: >-
“Of all the bars and all the taxidermy shops in all the world, why did
she have to walk into mine?” Hank wondered, “and when did Wanda shave
off the moustache?”
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: MJ Hurben
location: 'Bloomington, MN'
quote: >-
Her lips hesitated to meet his—as one might hesitate to immerse their
hand in the toilet tank to reconnect the chain, because they worry that
the water is . . . you know, dirty—but she granted him the kiss (just as
one does, eventually, fix the chain, because if not, the toilet will
never flush, and who wants that?).
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: DJ Hicks
location: 'Jr., Manchester, NJ'
quote: >-
Farmer Bob, unlucky in love and life in general, received yet another
Dear John letter, this time from Bubbles Magaggaggey, the last blind
woman in town, so here he was, alone and penniless; so penniless, in
fact, that he neglected to make the payments on his tractor and soon
received a John Deere letter, coincidentally from Bubbles, who ran the
Tractor Emporium.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lisa Hanks
location: 'Euless, TX'
quote: >-
It had been fifty-seven days since Madi left him, and still her stinging
parting words slithered through Brett’s mind and echoed jarringly in the
emptiness of his life like a half-frozen iguana falling out of a tree in
an unseasonable Cozumel cold snap.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: David Hynes
location: 'Bromma, Sweden'
quote: >-
"You folks from outa town?” inquired waitress Ginny, shifting her wad of
gum, notepad at the ready to take the orders, while the slime-green,
scale-covered, three-eyed members of the Dzznks family, who had
travelled many a parsec from their rock planet home in the Large
Magellanic Cloud, rubbering their eyes over the menu in Buck’s Diner,
wondered if ‘grits’ tasted just as good as they sounded.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sue Doenim
location: England
quote: >-
“The quantum flux field of the post-Einsteinian hyperdrive has gone
asymptotically and we are in danger of approaching singularity as
described by the Schrodinger equations!” cried Captain Quirke, having no
clue what he said, only knowing it sounded sciencey, secretly crossing
his fingers behind his back and hoping there were no physicists reading
because he didn’t want any pedantic letters saying it was nonsense.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
In the midst of fleeing the city which was under heavy assault by the
invading aliens, known as Comadans, in their octagon shaped flying
machines, Marjorie fell to the ground with a twisted ankle and feared
the inevitable, until a Comadan, in a moment of alien compassion, picked
her up and took her inside where he put her to work washing the dishes
and scrubbing the toilets.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gregory Feeley
location: 'Hamden, CT'
quote: >-
The arrival of the Earthlings with their superior trade goods had
devastated the Trmfflagons’ civilization, but Krrsqtch vowed that by
before night fell, his people’s pincers-to-mandible existence would come
to an end.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Aaron Cabe
location: 'Hillsboro, OR'
quote: >-
As the passing of Keith Richards was announced on the evening news, just
as had been done with Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood before
him, Jorge gazed at the television in his Tijuana home and felt a
sickening knot form in his stomach, for he realized that finally, after
all the albums, concert tours, and era-defining cultural impact, the
Rolling Stones would gather no más.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Amy Torchinsky
location: 'Chapel Hill, NC'
quote: >-
With a whole Holst of problems Mahler Liszt unRaveling from the Verdi
beginning, Chaz was the most clueless employee ever at SCHUBERTTER
BELIEVE IT!, but the straw that Baroque the camel's Bach—that led his
supervisor to finally fly Orff the Handel—was watching as Chaz lost his
balance while attempting to climb a ladder with his arms containing the
entire store inventory, and he decided once and for all that Chaz was
destined for the Chopin block.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: F. Michael Angelo
location: 'Plowville, PA'
quote: >-
Enid shrewdly considered the lushness of litigation for copyright
infringement as she once more reviewed her genealogical studies which
revealed that her aunt, Senta Berger, whose first husband was Gregor
Mendel and second was Carl Czerny made her a Senta Mendel Czerny.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bart King
location: 'Portland, OR'
quote: >-
As the angry mob of poets filled the National Mall, a group of
sonneteers and ballad-mongers surged toward the Capitol Building, but it
wasn't until the Japanese poem enthusiasts stormed the White House that
I realized this was a genuine haiku d'etat.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jay Dardenne
location: 'Baton Rouge, LA'
quote: >-
Louie "The Limp" Lorenzo was the first one the feds indicted because in
the gangster world where they have a language all their own everyone
knowed that nobody knowed as much as da Limp knowed.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Tim Metz
location: 'Kokomo, IN'
quote: >-
Although Snake-Eye Slade had told him to get out of town (in some
old-timey western vernacular), Allthumbs McGubbins reckoned that ever
since the unfortunate pistol-in-the-holster discharge accident, he
couldn’t quite manage a skedaddle but felt that his departure would
require something faster than a mosey.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Arlen Feldman
location: 'Colorado Springs, CO'
quote: >-
As sheriff, I had handled most of the Dwarf gang, having shot Sleepy,
Bashful and Sneezy, strung up Grumpy and Dopey and disemboweled Happy,
but Doc, since you got away, I’m sending Happy’s entrails to you, until
we meet again.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
Lou, the bartender, knew that gunfire in the saloon was pert near sure
when Rex threw down his cards at the poker game, rose from his chair and
accused Charlie of cheating, and then Charlie replying, “Yeah, well, if
you spent more time with your missus then she wouldn’t be spending so
much time rollin’ round with me in your hayloft.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jonas Lefkowitch
location: 'Glen Ridge, NJ'
quote: >-
Folk peered out from shuttered up houses, hotels, saloons, and
storefronts as the fearsome gunslingers faced each other down in the
midst of the muddy thoroughfare, knitted brows beaded with sweat, eyes
narrowed and unblinking, lips curled into cruel sneers, hands poised at
holstered six-shooters, when a stagecoach came tearing up the road and
flattened both those bastards but good.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Greg Homer
location: 'San Vito, Costa Rica'
quote: >-
With all three baserunners standing on second base and two of them
crying, Little League umpire Brittany Skiles thought to herself; ‘Rule
Brittany; Brittany waive the rules.’
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Peter S. Bjorkman & Benjamin P. Bjorkman
location: 'Rocklin, CA'
quote: >-
A young and only slightly slack-shouldered Igor acted on his hunch —that
University of Ingolstadt organic chemistry morgue interns (whose
collective job was to replace decaying corpses with ‘fresh’ cadavers)
might better recall the destination protocol with an appropriate
mnemonic device: “to Victor go the spoils.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Tony Buccella
location: 'Allegany, NY'
quote: >-
The gentle, rhythmic sound of water lapping at the metal hull of the
boat transported Phillip back to a simpler time of marshmallow campfires
and magical summers at the lake until, upon waking, he came to realize
it was only the sound of the Roomba vacuuming robot which had
short-circuited and was running repeatedly into the baseboard heat
register.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jordan Busby
location: 'Leander, TX'
quote: >-
Our story opens, unfortunately, in Florida; a place that's only good for
unhappy old couples living in mobile homes—oh, and the childhood trauma
of making awkward conversation with the cast members dressed as
princesses at Disney World.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Shaun Calvert
location: England
quote: >-
The best job in the world is often debated and Grogslac had thought his
new job as head of the volcano virgin sacrifice procurement and delivery
committee would be it, as he was expecting potential ‘clients’ to be
lining up to prove they weren’t eligible, but he found they took one
look at him and started climbing.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Ray Campbell
location: 'Redwood Shores, CA'
quote: >-
Digby was fine with wearing a mask, since he wanted to do his part to
help flatten the proverbial curve, but the elastic straps on the one his
wife made for him chafed the back of his ears like his first jock strap,
which was two sizes too small and abraded his inner thighs until they
were raw.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Savannah Carmichael
location: 'St. Charles, MO'
quote: >-
As Professor Quinter surveyed his students, his gaze was drawn to their
scrappy sets of cookware and their bemused faces staring stupidly at the
history professor's presentation on Carthage, and with a sigh, Quinter
realized that the students had misread the day's agenda, which was
"Hannibal Lecture."
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Jack Ciotti
location: 'The Villages, FL'
quote: >-
She swept into the ballroom, expensively dressed, coiffed, and
bejeweled, her opulent display most obviously done for the same reason
that a baboon has a red butt, both saying, "Pay attention to me!"
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Steve Cormier
location: 'Slatington, PA'
quote: >-
Having lost part of her left ear while working in a circus
knife-throwing act during the summer between her junior and senior
years, Karen felt all the more reassured about her decision to major in
statistics, but she couldn't help but to ponder the probability of
regaining physical symmetry were she to return to the circus for one
more summer after she graduated.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Pat DuVal
location: 'Arlington, VA'
quote: >-
“Dilly, Dilly,” Nelda sobbed, “Tell me you still care, Dilly,” as his
blood spurted rhythmically onto her freshly-starched, pink pinafore—the
one given to her on her 16th birthday by her maternal grandmother, Nana
Gertrude, the one she had worn the previous Sunday to the witch dunking,
the one she swore never to stain— which was now permanently stained, but
she mused that it didn’t matter since it was in the same color family.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: John W. Engle III
location: 'Houston, TX'
quote: >-
Her breasts heaving like the 50-pound sacks of grain thrown over the
shoulders of sweaty dock workers, Karen stepped up to the counter and
demanded to see the manager, as only a Karen would.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Arlen Feldman
location: 'Colorado Springs, CO'
quote: >-
The rules of drama are many and varied, but the most important, as
stated by the great writer Chekhov, is that if there is a banana covered
in axle grease in act one, then you’d better hope that the theater burns
down before act five.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
Call me Ishmael, for my tale is that of the only survivor of the attack
by a great white whale on the “Pequod,” our Nantucket whaling vessel,
and though the story is so fantastic you may be tempted to question my
veracity, I need only remind you that writers write and readers read,
and you really should stay in your own lane.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Drew Herman
location: 'Port Angeles, WA'
quote: >-
“You know, Pierre,” said Harry Sackville-Soup to the friend seated
opposite him in the Chloroform Club’s smoking room, using much the same
tone that precipitated their trek across the Dark Continent last year
and that cost poor Fellowes three of his toes the year before that,
“I’ll wager I can turn a guttersnipe into a ragamuffin in time for
Ascot.”
'2021':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Stu Duval
location: 'Auckland, New Zealand'
quote: >-
A lecherous sunrise flaunted itself over a flatulent sea, ripping the
obsidian bodice of night asunder with its rapacious fingers of gold,
thus exposing her dusky bosom to the dawn’s ogling stare.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: David Hynes
location: 'Bromma, Sweden'
quote: >-
Victor Frankenstein admired his masterpiece stretched out on the lab
slab; it was almost human, OK, no conscience or social awareness, and
not too bright, but a little plastic surgery to hide the scars and
bolts, maybe a spray tan and a hairdo, and this guy could run for
President!
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Greg Homer
location: 'San Vito, Costa Rica'
quote: >-
When I asked our novice Safari guide Guy Pommeroy to identify what that
roaring sound was he replied (and these were his last words), “It sounds
to me like someone with a bad case of bronchitis; I’ll check and be
right back.”
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Among the more useful life lessons that jumping out of a perfectly good
airplane teaches you are that money isn’t everything and that species
chauvinism can really limit your opportunities for finding happiness,
thought D.B. Cooper as he canoodled with his common-law Sasquatch wife
D'un'h in their cozy lean-to deep in the sodden Cascade foothills.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Drew Herman
location: 'Port Angeles, WA'
quote: >-
The collapse of the Taiping Rebellion and my subsequent wanderings to
avoid the deadly clutches of vengeful imperial agents form the basis of
this narrative, a narrative whose very existence and use of the first
person pretty much ruin any sense of suspense that might have made it
worth reading.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Derek Lepoutre
location: 'Pickering, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
As Dr. Steinbeck fought off the stone monstrosities that had ambushed
the expedition crews deep within the Mayan pyramid, his lifelong friend,
Dr. Williams, chose to heed his colleague’s wise words and “run while
you still can”—a choice that ultimately left us stuck with him for a
protagonist rather than the infinitely more intriguing late Dr.
Steinbeck.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Winner
author: Paul Kollas
location: 'Orlando, FL'
quote: >-
Despite an exhaustive search, rescuers were unable to locate young
Christopher Robin in the Hundred Acre Wood before hypothermia took him,
and the animals he once called friends descended upon his corpse like a
silly old bear upon a pot of hunny.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Donald J. Hicks
location: 'Jr., Manchester, NJ'
quote: >-
Little Timmy suffered from Claustraphobia: the fear of being trapped in
a closet with Santa Claus.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Greg Homer
location: 'San Vito, Costa Rica'
quote: >-
Even though Bambi the deer grew up to become a sleek and powerful
10-point buck, the other deer frequently chided him about his name,
which was a perfectly fine name for a cocktail waitress but not so much
for a male deer.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kyla Guimaraes
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
Mary savored her stew, enjoying every last warm, flavorful bite, each
one reminding her of her little lamb, Coco, and the way he would hop
alongside her joyfully as they walked down the lane . . . speaking of
Coco, where was he, anyways?
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Francis Nys
location: 'Mechelen, Belgium'
quote: >-
“Ding dong, the witch is dead, ding dong, the witch is dead, ding . . .
“ before I could tenor the next “dong” the black cat that had been
sitting on the unmarked grave fixated me with a strange look and a
sudden burst of sparkles came over me and changed me from a villager to
a green frog, and now I spend my days sitting on the edge of the duck
pond in which we drowned the witch, all alone and afraid a Frenchman
would come along and fancy my little legs.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Andrea Nicole Carlos
location: 'Union City, CA'
quote: >-
As Snow White, the fairest of them all, rushes into the forest to escape
being killed by her evil stepmother, she is about to be the most
unfortunate of them all because now she is trapped in a miniature home
as the pseudo-mother to seven man children.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Paul Scheeler
location: 'Buffalo, NY'
quote: >-
The Big Joe Palooka murder wasn’t just another killing, another
homicide, another manslaughter, another slaying, another hit, another
whack, another rubbing-out, another bumping-off, another assassination,
another liquidation, another extermination, another execution—but it was
nothing new for Johnny Synonymous, Obsessive-Compulsive Crime Fighter.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
"Irony,” bombasted Inspector Simons, "is when someone believes
themselves more clever than anyone else in the room, but in fact they
are careless, and foolish, like the murderer— MATILDA DANNER—yes,
Matilda, YOU killed—wait, um . . . where's Matilda?"
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michael McDermott
location: 'Dublin, Ireland'
quote: >-
The cat purred like a Geiger counter beside the fireplace which crackled
like gunfire (which reminded Detective Greenwich of his service in The
Ukraine and The Latvia), this feline being the only witness to the
murder of the wet nurse and, unless purring counts, he wasn't talking.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Justin C. McCarthy
location: 'Cranston, RI'
quote: >-
Detective Hill raised his service pistol and pointed it at the suspect,
a master of disguise hiding in plain sight as a living statue in central
park: “Freeze!” he called out.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
location: ''
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at
occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind
which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies),
rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of
the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Louise Taylor
location: 'Paris, France'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy . . . morning, Gotcha! — this is just the first
of innumerable twists and turns that you, dear Reader, will struggle to
keep abreast of as I unfold my tale of adventure as second plumber
aboard the hapless SS Hotdog during that fateful summer of 1974.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jeff Laurence
location: 'Carmel, CA'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, as disorienting and miasmic as the
inside of the bag of an industrial strength vacuum cleaner with a
shredded HEPA filter being dragged over a steel foundry floor.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Hwei Oh
location: 'Sydney, Australia'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night that caused Beryl's anxiety to flare up,
that and the giant mutated Madagascan Hissing cockroach which had taken
residence in her kitchen, and earlier that evening had made light work
of Nibbles, her ageing Mini Lop Rabbit.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jack Holiday
location: 'Burbank, CA'
quote: >-
Dark and stormy, the night screamed like a ravished virgin .... the
dark, stormy night ranted madly in a barometric tantrum .... it was an
ebonic nocturnal tempest .... the stygian typhoon of eventide ....
prosopopeic fuliginous Nyx, enceinte as it were with lachrymal lamia
farouche as Hecate, disbosomed upon her terrene demiorb an empyreal
borasque.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Steve Lauducci
location: 'Bethlehem, PA'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in Torrance, but not in
nearby Rancho Palos Verdes, which was unusual given the two towns'
proximity.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Winner
author: Donald J. Hicks
location: 'Jr., Manchester, NJ'
quote: >-
Upon his death, Van Helsing wrote: “This Vexes me still to-day . . .
with no Mirror able to cast his Curs’d Reflection, how did Dracula comb
his hair so perfectly every time and achieve such a clean, close shave
that brought the babes in truckloads??”
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Neil B Harrison
location: 'Springville, UT'
quote: >-
Our story begins in the cozy cottage of Bynnoldh-Dyr, son of
Asgwitch-Torgwyr, in the idyllic elven village of Myrthffolwrd, but our
book actually begins some two hundred pages earlier, in which you are
pummeled by irrelevant history and unpronounceable names, because my
publisher is paying me by the word.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Dave Hurt
location: 'Harrogate, England'
quote: >-
at the boatman holding the list, certain that the man was toying with
him, whilst in the background Mount Vesuvius rumbled like a pregnant
woman with severe morning sickness.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Francis Nys
location: 'Mechelen, Belgium'
quote: >-
Standing on the top of his half-finished pyramid, and surveying the long
rows of stone pullers and whip crackers, the Pharaoh had a pang of
doubt: was he building the key to his eternal life, or would it later be
regarded as a mere tourist trap?
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Greg Homer
location: 'San Vito, Costa Rica'
quote: >-
Neanderthal parents Hru-Vak and Chee were none too happy when their
oldest girl Fa-al brought home one of those recently arrived Homo sapien
boys but after a while they grew accustomed to his non-protruding brow
ridge, upright posture, and problem-solving abilities.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Scott Lyons
location: 'Stirling, Scotland'
quote: >-
To the rest of the world, General Sir Antony Alexander Agamemnon
Hardcastle may have been the Scourge of the French, the Hero of the
Borghorst Pass, and the fourth-worst enemy of the late Napoleon
Bonaparte, but to the waitress at the Badger's Head Tavern and Grill, he
was just another customer—and if he called her "cutie pie" one more
time, she was going to do to him with one fork what Boney couldn't with
a thousand men.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Paul Kollas
location: 'Orlando, FL'
quote: >-
His voice rang out sweet and loud, like maple syrup that had achieved
speech and wished to push its deeply held political beliefs on others.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Stu Duval
location: 'Auckland, New Zealand'
quote: >-
With one bound she was at the bookcase reaching for the heaviest book
she could find to halt her attacker, a thesaurus of indeterminate,
inconclusive, or unstipulated weight, ponderosity, or heftiness, with
which she intended to pummel, lapidate or belabor her assailant’s skull,
cranium or brainpan.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Daniel Leyde
location: 'Shoreline, WA'
quote: >-
As the dawn begin to break, Debby and Robert, their arms tightly wrapped
around each other, watched in awe as the sky turned a brilliant pinkish
red as the sun’s rays inched their way down the slopes of the craggy
peaks of the Rocky Mountains, but this was Canada so the rays were
centimetering their way down the slopes.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Roni Markowitz
location: 'Brooklyn, NY'
quote: >-
As the two beheld each other, Lady Asthenia's bosom swelled with love
like two perfectly popped pans of Jiffy Pop while Lord Mycort's heart
melted like butter, making their union complete.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: CP Marsh
location: 'Urbana, IL'
quote: >-
Their eyes had met and they'd had coffee, but now Miss
latte-mocha-with-a-chai-twist bid a wistful adieu to Mr.
black-cup-of-Joe-strong-enough-to-walk-over-and-beat-up-the-cheese-Danish,
and they parted.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randall Card
location: 'Bellingham, WA'
quote: >-
Brigid O’Hanion was the fairest flower of Southern womanhood, and Lt.
Lance Beauregard was almost blind with lust for her, but after he
slipped off her hoop skirt, unbuttoned her lacy blouse, untied her
incredibly tight corset, dove beneath the rustling crinoline petticoats,
and laboriously inched off her pantalets, he realized his mood had
shifted and he now wondered if there was still some cold ham on the
sideboard downstairs.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Izzy Maurer
location: 'Lincoln, England'
quote: >-
He had never seen such a beautiful woman, he thought to himself as his
blind date was being escorted to their table at the restaurant, although
unfortunately he hadn't seen her yet and was just staring at a framed
photograph taken three years earlier of a famous actress standing
awkwardly with the restaurant manager.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David S Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
He figured a little tongue-flirting in the afternoon might open the door
to some serious sandy acrobatics in the evening, but he was wrong,
because his wife, like all two-banded Duck Head Lizards, only enjoyed
love in the hot noontime sun.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Hynes
location: 'Bromma, Sweden'
quote: >-
The door to happiness, which was now closed so cruelly for Clare, had
been slammed shut the day Jimmy died, yet she lived in hope that someday
somewhere someone would come, not perhaps with that superior key of
Jimmy’s, the one that fitted the compatible lock of her affections so
perfectly, but one like the card-key that finally manages to open the
door of your dreary motel room after a whole heap of jiggling and
fiddling.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lisa Hanks
location: 'Euless, TX'
quote: >-
As he dejectedly flipped the light switch on, Mason’s heavy sigh did
little to fill the lonesome expanse of his bathroom where only the HIS
towel remained, crumpled in a stiff pile on the floor, like a rigor
mortis-riddled reminder of the death of his marriage now awaiting a
chalk outline.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Reinhold Friebertshauser
location: 'Chagrin Falls, OH'
quote: >-
Believe it or not Ripley refrained from firing her laser at the alien
creature lurking in the starship’s ceiling above the crew’s happy hour
gathering, its dripping secretions burning through the titanium floor
like it was made of cheap wet toilet paper, when she discovered by sheer
accident that just one drop of the oozing substance reacted with the
contents of her cocktail glass to produce a martini so perfect that 007
himself would have betrayed Queen and country for just one sip, as long
as it was shaken and not stirred.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Richard Grennan
location: 'Shanghai, China'
quote: >-
Even out here in zero gravity her absence was dragging him down, he
missed her wonky smile, her long delicate fingers, the little moments,
the scales of her inner thighs rubbing against his soft human skin, her
tentacles stretching involuntarily during the night and stealing the
covers, but she was gone now and a million light years kept them apart.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dave Drews
location: 'Henderson, NV'
quote: >-
In the waning seconds before a blinding blast from the evil enemy’s
warship turned Sam’s spaceship into a mini-sun bursting forth in the
scorched planet’s night sky like a budding rose in the blush of spring
on another planet that still had seasons, he waxed poetic about how
different his life would have been if he’d taken his uncle’s offer to
become a shepherd on that planet that still had seasons.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David S Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
On the distant planet Okra Minor, Botanical Man thought about his
girlfriend Iris gracefully slipping off her frilly green planties and
maybe removing her bracts, and his mind was suddenly awhirl with all the
love-words in his language: stamen, pistil, petiole, blossom, pollen,
honeybee, seedling, sap; his fronds opened up and his tendrils would be
a-quiver until he met her again by pale moonlight in their private
plant-bed.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randall Card
location: 'Bellingham, WA'
quote: >-
around the star three times a week, its holds filled with popcorn and
that rancid-smelling butter substitute.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Fr. Jerry Kopacek
location: 'Elma, IA'
quote: >-
One time at the hoagie shop the actress Ms. O'Hara asked what the tiny
pimiento-stuffed thing in my cheddar-bread sandwich was and I had to
respond: "Wee olive in a yellow sub, Maureen."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Laatsch
location: 'Baton Rouge, LA'
quote: >-
Post-game cake, long a clubhouse tradition for the Mudville Nine, was
taken off the menu when new manager Sperb Farquhar made it clear that
everybody, including the team's sluggers, would be called on to
sacrifice bundt.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Ben Connor
location: 'Wilmington, Delaware'
quote: >-
After commandeering the Black Dog Saloon for a day and a half to lay out
every map, zoning ordinance, and land deed in the Territory, and after
checking and rechecking their cartographic calculations, Tumbleweed
Mulligan and Johnny "Trigger" McAllister were forced to admit that there
might just be room in this town for the both of them.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark and Michelle Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
In the one-horse town, she gave the two-timing man to the count of three
to get down on all fours and give her five reasons she shouldn't use her
6-shooter on him for violating the 7th Commandment.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Kevin Kinzer
location: 'Spokane, WA'
quote: >-
A major city’s new community policing guidelines have struck a notable
compromise: police will first attempt to defuse all conflict situations
by singing, “Stop, in the Name of Love,” but the public should know that
holding palms out like The Supremes is optional, as is “before you break
my heart!”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter Skrzypczak
location: 'Burlington, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
Virginia knew Gerald would make love like a recently released convict,
probably because he was a recently released convict, and Virginia always
fell for his type, not the least because the diner where she worked was
between the gates of the penitentiary and the bus stop.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Anna Franklin
location: 'Lubbock, TX'
quote: >-
Rocking contentedly on the front porch while watching Marvel’s pretty
little baby girl pluck dandelions in the yard and poke them up her nose,
Granny Witherspoon fondly recalled her wild weekend at Woodstock.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Romag
location: 'Colorado Springs, CO'
quote: >-
After discovering a business like showbusiness, newly confident Drs.
Frankenstein and Jekyll applied for another experimental research grant
as they began their quest to find something like a dame.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The ragged and exhausted boy looked tearfully up at his long-lost Aunt
Betsey and exclaimed, “I am David Copperfield, and I have been slighted,
and taught nothing, and put to work not fit for me, and robbed, and
walked all this way from London, and never slept in a bed, and between
you and me, this crap has got to stop!”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Angelica Zhu
location: 'Alameda, CA'
quote: >-
It is not until Liam sat down, wrapped in a white, blue, and red flag,
with a bucket of fried chicken, throwing the bones in the plastic-filled
ocean next to him while stroking his gun that he realized he had become
truly American.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Grant Gordon
location: 'North Sutton, NH'
quote: >-
We all knew that a butterfly flapping its wings in Thailand would have
little to no effect on our current criminal undertaking, but we refused
to leave anything to chance and so the cut-throatiest among us were
about to set off on the genre defining adventure of a lifetime to find
and kill that butterfly.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
I’m a very smart and loyal dog, but when I found out that the average
lifespan of a dog is about thirteen years and a human’s is nearly eighty
years, I didn’t see the fairness in that at all, so on the day after his
fourteenth birthday I lured Timmy to the old abandoned well and when he
looked in I jumped on his back and knocked him in, his final words
echoing from below: “Why, Lassie, why?”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Greg Otis
location: 'Brooklyn, NY'
quote: >-
His fist lashed out like one of those boxing gloves on a spring you used
to see in Saturday morning cartoons when you were just a kid out of your
mind on sugary cereal and unaware that your parents were having sex in
the bedroom and hit me hard right between the eyes.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Patrick James Plunkett
location: 'North Vancouver, Canada'
quote: >-
Sonny hated life on the farm -- the cloying reek of overripe figs, the
acrid stench of chickens, the tangy funk of oxen, and the malodorous
attitude of his older brother; nonetheless, he was grateful to be home
after some riotous living abroad which had left him denarii-strapped,
and his stomach growled at the sight of the fetid calf.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nick Stevenson
location: 'Sevenoaks, Kent, England'
quote: >-
“You're a lazy, indolent, slothful, idle, good-for-nothing, work-shy,
sluggish, inactive, bone-idle, inert, skiving, lackadaisical, listless,
apathetic, lumpish layabout!" exclaimed Mrs. Roget when she saw the
state of her son's bedroom.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jeff Harrison
location: 'Maplewood, MN'
quote: >-
Two Thursdays after I met Wanda I awoke outside the Luby’s sporting a
fresh three-inch gash on my forehead and staring at the scorched
remnants of the chopper, unaware that my bank account had emptied faster
than the Hogwarts adjunct faculty lounge after J.K. Rowling decided that
surely somebody must’ve been suffering from moderate-to-severe plaque
psoriasis.
'2022':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: John Farmer
location: 'Aurora, CO'
quote: >-
I knew she was trouble the second she walked into my 24-hour deli,
laundromat, and detective agency, and after dropping a load of
unmentionables in one of the heavy-duty machines (a mistake that would
soon turn deadly) she turned to me, asking for two things: find her
missing husband and make her a salami on rye with spicy mustard,
breaking into tears when I told her I couldn't help—I was fresh out of
salami.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: Brent Guernsey
location: 'Springfield, VA'
quote: >-
And so the two pachyderms with the same first name met, and they formed
the jazz duo legend known as the Elephants Gerald.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Joe Tussey
location: 'Daniels, WV'
quote: >-
“Hoist the mainsail ye accursed swine” shouted the Captain over the roar
of the waves as the ship was tossed like a cork dropped from a wine
bottle into a jacuzzi when the faucet is wide open and the jets are
running full blast and one has just settled into the water with a glass
of red wine to ease the aches and pains after a day of hard labor raking
leaves from the front yard.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David S. Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The raiding party of seven Viking longships approached New Amsterdam
quietly, captained by brave Sven, Ragnar, Erik, Jann, Erik, Thor, and
Erik, seeking fulfilment of the ancient legends of untold riches to
come: IKEA, ABBA, Bjork, smoked salmon, the Minnesota NFL franchise,
Greta Garbo, and crunchy delicious fiber-rich rye crispbreads.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Shafer
location: 'Tonbridge, England'
quote: >-
It was only when the booming voice of the Sergeant-at-Arms rang out
declaiming the surprising order for each and every member of the firing
squad to shoot the Sergeant-at-Arms himself and then turn their rifles
on each other, an order assiduously followed by the well-trained
soldiers, that the cigarette-smoking, blindfolded Gerry Corker truly
appreciated the seemingly endless hours his mother had denied him on the
baseball field during his lonely childhood, instead sending him every
afternoon to Crazy Barney’s School of Mimicry and Ventriloquism.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Vivien Doyle
location: 'Buxton, England'
quote: >-
As he hacked through the dense undergrowth and tangled bushes in search
of the marauding big cat, Desmond heard something rustling in the
vegetation behind him, so he turned around, brandishing his machete,
only to find Susan with a mug of tea telling him dinner would be in half
an hour.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Winner
author: Neil Prowd
location: 'Ballarat, Victoria, Australia'
quote: >-
Three bears arrived at their den to discover a yellow haired girl
sleeping, and as she was neither too hot nor too cold, neither too soft
nor too hard, but just right, they ate her.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Hannah Thomasy
location: 'Toronto, Canada'
quote: >-
Amanda is brown-haired and small for her age, but soon she will learn
that she is actually the reincarnation of a powerful witch burned at the
stake several centuries ago; also two boys will fall in love with her
and she will have to choose between them, which is mostly what this book
is about.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: James Avery
location: 'Millington, TN'
quote: >-
As the fearsome jabberwock bore down on Baldor the Unlikely, he suddenly
regretted having passed on the vorpal sword in favor of the “verpul”
sword that was half the price and “practically the exact same thing, I
swear you won’t even notice the difference.”
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Emily Ho
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
These stories, my children, are about Prince Charming and his three
girlfriends: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Tracy
location: 'Palm Desert, CA'
quote: >-
The Director of Child Protective Services was aghast, and needed
clarification, “Let me get this straight—You were rocking your baby on
the tree top, and when the wind blew, the cradle rocked and the bough
broke, the cradle fell, and down came baby, cradle and all?”
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Jim Anderson
location: 'Flushing, MI'
quote: >-
The detectives wore booties, body suits, hair nets, masks and gloves and
longed for the good old days when they could poke a corpse with the toes
of their wingtips if they damn well felt like it.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Barbara Stevenson
location: 'Ottawa, Canada'
quote: >-
They called Rock Mahon the original hard-boiled detective, and it wasn’t
because of his gravelly voice, or his crusty manner, or his chiseled
jaw, or his cement-like abs, or his feldspar fists, or his iron
incorruptibility, or his calcite cynicism, or his uzonite
unsentimentality, but because of his goddamned, geezly, infuriating
habit of polluting every crime scene with shells dropped from the
hard-boiled eggs he munched without surcease.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Doug Self
location: 'Brunswick, ME'
quote: >-
As detective Harry Bolton knelt down looking at the fifth murdered
prostitute in as many weeks, he thought his was a cold cruel city and
that maybe he should have taken that job in rural North Carolina but he
didn’t think he could be like sheriff Andy Taylor all in black and
white, plus he couldn’t stand Aunt Bea’s falsetto voice, and who names
their kid Opie anyway, he had to know it rhymed with dopey, you might as
well just call him dipstick, that doesn’t rhyme with much.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Eric Rice
location: 'Madison, WI'
quote: >-
The heat blanketed the small village in much the same way a body bag
blankets a murder victim, except that a body bag is usually black, which
the heat wasn’t, as heat is colorless, and the village wasn’t dead,
which a murder victim usually is.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
location: ''
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at
occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind
which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies),
rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of
the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Ross Ozarka
location: 'Auckland, New Zealand'
quote: >-
It was a Dark 'n Stormy night: Dark n' Stormy cocktails were half-off at
Tata's, the breast-themed barbeque chicken restaurant.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joe McKenna
location: 'Iowa City, IA'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell mainly in the plain
—except for occasional intervals when it was checked by Andalusian
fields full of grain (for it is in Spain that our story takes place)—and
the heroine of our story, Pam Plona, was in the middle of giving birth
to a minotaur after running with the bulls.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Allison Bryski
location: 'Durham, NC'
quote: >-
It was a Dark ‘n Stormy night; the rum fell in torrents—except when it
was checked by an equal, if not more substantial, measure of ginger beer
(for it is in a highball glass that our drink lies), accented with a hit
of lime juice from a well-placed wedge, and perhaps a dash of Angostura
bitters, though that is at the bartender’s discretion and certainly not
required.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jim Anderson
location: 'Flushing, MI'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, made darker still by the melancholy that
gripped the drainpipes of my soul in a plumber's wrench of despair that
opened the u-trap of my consciousness to remove the last, great
greaseball of hope.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Winner
author: Jordan Peace
location: 'Mountlake Terrace, WA'
quote: >-
Sir Reginald Brimwater, Guardian of the Tome of Remembrance, Herald of
the Immortal Word, Voice of the Histories Both Recent and Ancient,
Archivist of the Eternal Ledger, and Memory of the Empire had forgotten
his quill, but he was pretty sure he got the gist of what
what’s-his-face was saying.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nicole Postorino
location: 'Toronto, Canada'
quote: >-
In dreamlike Wyhotth, where musesang the vibrant lyssle-wing, the
Brether-Clave of Amathoro had gathered at last for Sothenfeast; knurl
and truthseller alike parleyed anxiously of the sure bequeathment of
Voro-Denang, legendary Kalx of Vestramne, but none more querulously than
Jeff, who had just come in from Buffalo and didn't know what the hell
anything was supposed to be.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gabriel Burch
location: 'Edmond, OK'
quote: >-
I stood transfixed at the eerie sight before me, so strange, so odd, so
peculiar, so weird, so bizarre, so eldritch—Gods, mine ocular ducts
weren't meant to witness such blasphemous heresy—so indescribable,
beyond all possible descriptions, at least in any kind of adjectival
way!
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
Even though the heavy snow forecast threatened transportation problems
at the mountain pass leading to the social engagement of the season,
every invited member of the party had RSVPed in the affirmative, for the
single reason that the Donner family chef was nationally recognized for
his all-vegan menu.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
As Jack Walker led his four CIA wet-ops colleagues along the misty
Mekong and into Cambodia under cover of night, he heard the ghostly
voice of his three earlier tours in the ‘Nam whispering to him that they
were about to learn the hard way that Pol Pot wasn’t just an exotic
strain of powerhouse Southeast Asian weed the Beltway suits toked on
while they cooked up still more futile ways to make Mao keep his
chopsticks in his own rice bowl.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Nick Waites
location: 'Bishop Auckland, England'
quote: >-
The trees sighed with pleasure as the wind caressed their limbs, the
lake lapped contentedly at the shore, the grass waved cheerily to all
and sundry, and the moon smiled benignly between the playful clouds
while George buried his latest victim.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
"The clouds resembled an endless roll of runaway toilet paper that
unspooled itself into a massive fluffy pile, the sound of the lightning
banged like hundreds of inadvertently dropped toilet seats, and the rain
quickly flooded the street and spilled over the curb like a toilet
clogged with who-knows-what," reported eyewitness to the sudden storm
and flash flood, Steve Talbot of Steve's Plumbing.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tony Bucella
location: 'Allegany, NY'
quote: >-
When Sandy left him, Buck tried as he might to carry on, but he couldn’t
help feeling thrown away like last night’s pork chops, except instead of
pork chops, he had had deep dish pizza the night before which was even
better warmed up and he was looking forward to having it for lunch so
the analogy totally didn’t work.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Andrea Dumas
location: 'West Fargo, ND'
quote: >-
The pallid North Dakota winter coughed its phlegmy wind in my face,
spattering my face with its icy spittle.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jeff Green
location: 'Celina, TX'
quote: >-
As the hot air balloon ascended into the calm morning air over his
native Bavaria, Stefan's nerves were on edge as he reached into his
jacket pocket and fumbled for the little velvet box containing his
grandmother's wedding ring, cleared his throat, and dropped to one knee
in front of his beloved Gwendolyn; meanwhile, our story begins on a
cold, rainy day at a pig farm near Belgrade, Nebraska.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Katrien Andria-Habermann
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: >-
The sky was as dark as an olive pit, which was either very dark or not
very dark at all, depending on which type of olive you’re talking about.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Izzy Maurer
location: 'Lincoln, England'
quote: >-
At least it was a creative way to be dumped, Ben mused to himself as he
looked at the new location of his name on the updated seating chart for
his wedding reception—the singles' table.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Erin Casey
location: 'Halifax, Canada'
quote: >-
French exchange student who in 1977 had initiated her into the art of
French cooking, gently guiding her from baguettes to bouillabaisse to
boeuf bourguignon before mysteriously disappearing one April evening six
weeks before graduation, leaving her nothing but her Julia Child, and
his host family’s daughter, Julia, with child.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lizzie Nelson
location: 'Wheaton, IL'
quote: >-
Tony Angel walked Fiona back to the car and handed her the leash, if
only he hadn’t thrown the ball so hard; it had marred an otherwise
perfect first date on the White Cliffs of Dover.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Terry Drapes
location: 'Brisbane, Australia'
quote: >-
Gloria’s feelings for Boris were nowadays more like the warm affection
you feel for a pet dog, not a boisterous, extroverted dog but a cuddly,
slightly lethargic dog, or even an old cat that just sleeps all day in
its favorite spot so that most of the time you hardly even realize it’s
there until one day it just dies without warning, rather than the fiery,
intense passion of their early years together.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Andrew Nance
location: 'St. Augustine, FL'
quote: >-
As Bridgett the Discount Dominatrix flicked the length of clothesline
she used as a whip, he licked the ball gag, which was really a tennis
ball held in place by a length of duct tape, and thought, *Dad was
right, you really do get what you pay for.”
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: Thomas Hill
location: 'Mountain View, CA'
quote: >-
Pfandrilys was a classic beauty of her star-faring race, and Brian's
love was immediate, their kisses were magical, if scaly, and the alien
sex was mind-blowing, and if only Brian had read more exobiology,
perhaps he wouldn't have been surprised that, when all was done, and
they lay spent in each other's arms, she bit his head off.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Whoever figured out that combining basic cyber-bullying techniques with
third-generation sex robot AI technology would tap a gigantic market
among submissives was a freaking genius, mused Mistress Tiffany 3.1 as
she toweled off and plugged herself in to recharge.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randall Card
location: 'Bellingham, WA'
quote: >-
Ensign Kurt Pulver inadvertently scuttled his command career path by
interrupting the starship dedication ceremony with “You mean, ‘to go
boldly,’” and spent the next sixteen years de-polarizing the Jefferies
Tubes four times a week.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Tracy
location: 'Palm Desert, CA'
quote: >-
The captain of the alien starship resembled a mutant octopus-squid
hybrid with tentacles, arms, legs, eyestalks and boobs everywhere, and
her negotiations with Captain Kirk started off rough when she chastised
him that, "My eyes aren't down there," and that’s when he realized those
weren't shoes, they were bras.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Miriam Birch
location: 'Hobart, Tasmania, Australia'
quote: >-
"Greetings," said the aliens, who looked–in a preemptive budgetary
consideration for the future Netflix series adaptation–surprisingly like
attractive twenty-something humans wearing coloured contact lenses and
spandex.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Peter Bjorkman
location: 'Rocklin, CA'
quote: >-
Prior to his CNN career, Wolf Blitzer slummed the gossip magazines, once
inquiring of Hugh Grant’s then-wife, Liz Hurley, why he had never been
in a film with Virginia Madsen, to which she replied, “Hugh’s afraid of
Virginia, Wolf.”
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
While Little Bighorn is where the famed General lost his life, at that
fateful moment his young Scottish girlfriend was soaking up the rays
with a bunch of her sorority sisters and as such unaware of his demise,
Miami Beach is where Custer's lass tanned.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Leah Dagenbach
location: 'Loveland, OH'
quote: >-
Whenever Elvis graced the bar stools at the steakhouse, he never failed
to order a rare steak, bordering raw, and oozing greasily at the edges;
and during the interviews after the musician's untimely death, none of
the waiters could deny that he loved meat tender.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Life on a hardscrabble fourth-generation family farm in the dust bowl of
western Kansas was no picnic, thought Hank Metzger as he wearily took
his seat at the kitchen table, and sure enough, here was your proof –
first to play, and seven consonants staring dully up at him from his
tile rack.
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
Cowboys “Cross-eyed” Earl and "Bucktooth” Benson were drinking in the
saloon and lamenting the fact that the town had a doctor for people with
regular problems, a doctor for animals, and even a doctor for people
with head issues, but no doctor to uncross eyes and no doctor to unbuck
teeth.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
As Bo Snyder's infamously vicious outlaw band rode slowly through the
narrow, jagged, and tortuous mountain pass, sunlight cut through the
thin air, slanting down and warming the cold, uncaring steel of the old,
but fully loaded, Winchester, cradled in the waiting arms of Marshal
Luke Elliott, as he sat against a comfortable boulder, snoring like a
coffee grinder.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joanne Morcom
location: 'Calgary, Canada'
quote: >-
"Not again!" exclaimed Dusty the absent-minded trail boss, as he
suddenly realized that he'd led the cattle drive to the wrong
tumbleweed-infested prairie town, although a good time was soon had by
all at The Saddle Sore Saloon, especially when the nattily dressed piano
player started taking musical requests, including the lively square
dance tune “Don't Cry On My Shoulders 'Cause You're Rustin' My Spurs.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joel Phillips
location: 'West Trenton, NJ'
quote: >-
The Pecos Kid crawled over the rubble under an unrelenting desert sun
before collapsing into a heap near the ridge, which is where Tommy and
his mom met Duke and the other vultures and began a summer of adventure
he would never forget.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Sharon Durken
location: 'Port Wing, WI'
quote: >-
I’m very very good and I know this because momma told me and all her
bridge friends that I was an angel she got when the stork dropped me
from the sky and she says I’m such a good girl so if you want to be with
a real honest to goodness angel tonight come on down to the corner of
Bitcoin and Pussycat Way for a very special time with an angel who
accepts American Express.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mike Christensen
location: 'Washington, DC'
quote: >-
Apart from his undergraduate degree in art history and several years
under the tutelage of Simone d’Poisson, preeminent Monet scholar at the
Louvre, truckin’ was all Billy knew.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Palakshi Singh
location: 'Duisburg, Germany'
quote: >-
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a work of literature,
regardless of how magnificently brilliant, almost on every occasion
unvaryingly recasts into insufferably monotonous bullshit when being
studied in a ninth-grade English class with a dreary, underpaid teacher
and a pack of so-called scholars who would much rather be at their
residence, gazing into an illuminated screen.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
When Big Rita was on parade in a tight skirt, moving like a burlap bag
full of bobcats, the men in town sat up and took notice, knowing the
hunt was on, for she had run the gamut from wealthy philanthropists to
dopeheads and bikers, though, until today, she had maintained a shred of
dignity by always rebuffing English professors.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Elliott Cox
location: 'Clover, SC'
quote: >-
Jimothy walked into the joint like he owned the place, which he did, but
not like a typical owner of a place like this; more like a classy,
silver spoon owner, except not classy like wearing tuxedos to horse
dancing and equine NASCAR event classy, but an eating a gas station
hotdog with a knife and fork, napkin on his lap kind of classy.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Susanne Antonetta
location: 'Bellingham, WA'
quote: >-
Doris learned two things working at the Post Office—the first was that
when Jake came in and asked her if she wanted to see a really big
johnson, he didn't mean he wanted her to go through The Special Limited
Presidents stamp collection, and the second was that she didn't need to
head outside at the end of each shift with a bag of envelops and a
trowel because it turned out the dead letters were not, in fact,
actually dead.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Terry Drapes
location: 'Brisbane, Queensland, Australia'
quote: >-
Winning the Kentucky Derby was something Conrad had dared not dream of a
mere twelve months ago because twelve months ago, he didn’t even own a
horse but now he did, although to be perfectly honest, it was not the
type of horse that had any chance of winning the Kentucky Derby which
was why Conrad still dared not dream of winning the Kentucky Derby.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rusty Hamilton
location: 'Candby, OR'
quote: >-
While scrolling through the online catalog of the Acme website trying to
decide if he should order rocket roller skates, TNT, and an anvil,
or—Fool-Me-Twice fake tunnel paint, the Coyote suddenly realized, ‘Hey,
I could just order food.’
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Benson Smith
location: 'Somerville, MA'
quote: >-
I'd just lost my third game of solitaire in a row, and was eyeing my
last two Chesterfields, when she walked in, wearing an outfit that said
"hospital orderly" but whispered "French maid" (a couple of the buttons
were straining, but I didn't feel sorry for them) . . . there was a
package on her hip and a question on her lips—she had the legs of a
supermodel, long and shapely: "Shall I leave them here on the slab, Dr.
Frankenstein?"—and when a dame's got gams like that, it's hard to say
no, especially when they're so fresh.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jonathan Golden
location: 'Norwood, MA'
quote: >-
“When had these elephants gotten so big?” said Edmund, with the
aloofness of a man who knew only of small elephants.
'2023':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Maya Pasic
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
She was a beautiful woman; more specifically she was the kind of
beautiful woman who had an hourlong skincare routine that made her look
either ethereal or like a glazed donut, depending on how attracted to
her you were.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: Daniel Bradford
location: 'Lexington, KY'
quote: >-
It was a sunny day in Los Angeles, hot and bright, and I was in my
office, playing Mahjong against myself and losing, when she walked in,
120 pounds of dynamite, a blonde with legs that began at her ankles and
ended in trouble.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Oliver Mauser
location: 'Jacksonville, FL'
quote: >-
The man squinted his eyes as the blistering cold winds battered his
rugged face, his eyes darting about, desperately hoping, daring to dream
that amidst the frozen wasteland, he would find the last Klondike Bar
that he had hidden in his freezer.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mara Lynn Johnstone
location: 'Santa Rose, CA'
quote: >-
these city slickers don’t know the first thing about stayin’ alive out
here.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Keith Martin
location: 'Westport, Mayo, Ireland'
quote: >-
He gasped as the giant airship pushed itself through the fog over New
York harbour, like a bosom emerging from an open blouse, and he realized
his evening was going to turn into a hell of a night.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Winner
author: David Snook
location: 'Berkeley, CA'
quote: >-
As Snow White met with her new, cheaper, replacement dwarfs for the
first time, shaking hands in turn with the likes of Sweaty, Greasy, and
Flabby, aptly named identical twins Grabby and Gropy, and proud
owner-of-a-joy-buzzer Scabby, she found herself wondering if the savings
would prove to be worth it, and she was about to learn why the others
were so afraid of the seventh new dwarf, the oddly named Uzi.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tamra Andrews
location: 'Spicewood, TX'
quote: >-
Mrs. Little, if truth be told, was not surprised in the least that her
child looked like a mouse, as Mr. Little not only had beady little eyes
and whiskers, but his fingers and toes were extraordinarily long and
thin and often made her squeal, and not in a good way.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ezra Greenhill
location: 'Portland, OR'
quote: >-
After the unfortunate events involving the wicked stepmothers of
Cinderella, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel, the city council set out
to ban all men from remarrying until further notice.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Harry Katz
location: 'Ashland, VA'
quote: >-
"Ahhhhh sugar, sugar," and "ahhhhhhhh honey, honey," and "you are my
candy, girl," screamed the scheming and now terrified parents of Hansel
and Gretel as their unwanted children returned home and descended upon
them, armed to the teeth with only the finest in German
confectionary-based weaponry.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Having attended Oktoberfest, taken in the beautiful foliage of New
England, gone apple-picking, roamed through a corn maze, and visited a
pumpkin patch, one thing was certain—Humpty Dumpty had a great Fall.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joel Phillips
location: 'Weston Trenton, NJ'
quote: >-
For the third time this week, Lassie dragged Timmy from the well, and
while she performed CPR wondered when the Martins would have the good
sense to connect to the public water supply instead of living in their
libertarian fantasy-world of self-reliance.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mugdhaa Ranade
location: 'Mumbai, India'
quote: >-
Determination and desperation make for a winning recipe, I thought as I
watched Katmess Everclean, with her murky brown eyes sparkling with
determination and her grip around her trusty plunger tight with
desperation, approach the clogged toilet that stood between her and
being crowned victor of the 74th Plumber Games.
- category: Children's & Young Adult Literature
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Tracy
location: 'Palm Desert, CA'
quote: >-
The witch received few visitors, residing deep in the haunted woods and
all, so her culinary skills were rusty, and she wasn't about to be
busted not making dinner from scratch, so she disposed of the empty box
of “Brat Helper,” threw Hansel and Gretel into the oven, and hoped like
Hell the witches coming for dinner wouldn't notice the difference.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Julian Calvin
location: 'Atlanta, GA'
quote: >-
The tall, slender seductress had Tom Pauley wrapped around her little
finger, and she had James McGee hanging from a necklace, but the police
were still waiting for the lab results to determine whose body parts she
had used to make her earrings and that stunning tennis bracelet.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Frederick Ankowski
location: 'Santa Monica, CA'
quote: >-
Elsie was seated by the window overlooking the deserted boardwalk (the
crime scene in this saga) holding the hand of her beloved Jeremy (the
soon-to-be unwitting accomplice), when George (who you will soon learn
is the murderer), suddenly opened the door to their cozy loft holding a
cup of coffee and said, “This cup is for you, Elsie” —and this cup would
of course be her last . . . but you do not know any of this yet.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gloria Glau Burkstaller
location: 'Rome, Italy'
quote: >-
John was a police officer, and Mary was a serial killer, and just like
that you think you know how that’s going to end, don’t you; well, John
lived in New York and Mary lived in London, and they were both
moderately afraid of airplanes, so I bet you’re not feeling like the
brightest crayon in the box right now.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Chief Homicide Inspector Gerald “the Bloodhound” McLean regarded the
list of victims —a corporate litigator, an investment banker, a
hedge-fund founder, and a Tony-winning playwright —and wondered what he
could make of their only identifiable connection: membership in the
long-dispersed punk rock band John Vomit and the Leather Scabs, rare
copies of whose only record, “Picked Off the Litter,” now traded hands
for a thousand bucks a pop on eBay.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Justin C. McCarthy
location: 'Cranston, RI'
quote: >-
Officer Meyer Briggs burst into the bedroom and saw Professor Rorschach
standing over the body of his mother, bloody knife in hand; "I swear
it’s not what it looks like!" Rorschach exclaimed.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Larry Nixon
location: 'Qualicum Beach, Canada'
quote: >-
She waltzed into the place like a spring thaw, all flushed and bursting
with promises of warm and cloying things to come but I stopped her in
her tracks with a dream-grounding "This is a detective agency
sweetcakes, not a dance studio."
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Tom Prentice
location: 'Dublin, Ireland'
quote: >-
Under the skewering stare of DI Jack ‘Robin’ Redbreast, the culprit’s
wits scattered like a patina of rain-startled spiders, leaving his
fraught denials as nakedly unconvincing as Mick Jagger in a movie role.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Phil Saunders
location: 'Barrie, Canada'
quote: >-
The second she stepped into my office I knew she was Trubble, Sarah
Trubble, she was wearing a name tag and I’m a detective.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
location: ''
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at
occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind
which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies),
rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of
the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Fred Mason
location: 'Evansville, IN'
quote: >-
Time was passing as slow as a snail on Valium as I waited on this dark
and stormy night, for the taxi I called, that would probably never come
to this wretched street where the waterfront serial killer had, in the
past year, strangled nine women, two cats and a parrot, but that is
another story.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Robin Alberts
location: 'Ludenscheid, Germany'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night at the harbors of Sydney, where wind
whipped the seawater across the docks and the torrents of rain soaked
everything that the waves could not reach, but luckily for James Tyche
this story begins at a beach in Southern France, where it was currently
day and James was gradually developing a healthy tan and less healthy
sunburn.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bill Anderson
location: 'Dublin, Ireland'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy day easily confused as night (for it is
December in Svalbard that our story lies) and probably not helped by all
the Julebokk we had drunk, but when in Svalbard . . .
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jaya Basu
location: 'Chestertown, MD'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night when I decided that opening was far too
clichéd for my erudite, scintillating novel, so I withdrew my
indispensable, adroit thesaurus and compelled my readers to penetrate a
tenebrific, aphotic, tempestuous, acrimonious nightertale.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Hazel Beaton
location: 'Swindon, England'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night and a fell wind whipped off the black
moors of Llakcuf, and drove squalls of rain along the twisting streets
of grim walled Ffokcuf (built in days of yore to repel the savages and
heathens &tc.) where dark—or at least very poorly lit—deeds abounded in
the low places of sin and iniquity, much like any other university town
on a Saturday night.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Allison Bryski
location: 'Durham, NC'
quote: >-
It was a Dark ‘n Stormy night; the rum fell in torrents—except when it
was checked by an equal, if not more substantial, measure of ginger beer
(for it is in a highball glass that our drink lies), accented with a hit
of lime juice from a well-placed wedge, and perhaps a dash of Angostura
bitters, though that is at the bartender’s discretion and certainly not
required.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Vanessa Bullock
location: 'Earby, England'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night a few weeks before this story began, and
since ‘damp and drizzly’ and ‘slightly breezy’ aren’t very atmospheric,
let’s fudge the dates and start there instead.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Judith W. Hughes
location: 'Bremerton, WA'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night and the bitterly cold wind bit into her
old bones like a chainsaw, the feeling of which she remembered sharply
from the time she used one on her left arm to be excused forever from
high school gym class.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michael Karasik
location: 'Novato, CA'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night and, having only cans of chili, corn, and
sauerkraut in my meager larder, I mixed my supper, knowing that if the
electricity went out I, at least, would have gas.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Winner
author: Drew Herman
location: 'Midlothian, VA'
quote: >-
In obedience to the Thousand-year Mandate of Hawksrealm, following the
prophecy of Glenfrik the Morrowsayer, Klagnar and his (thus far) loyal
Deathsword Warriors journeyed countless skyturns across the Burning
Plains of Hellsplat and the Great Eastern Doomsea to an immense, shining
folkshive that more or less resembled Fresno, but with a more
genre-appropriate name.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dave Agans
location: 'Wilton, NH'
quote: >-
Draxyl’s breathing quickened—finally, in his hands he held the Sacred
Jewel of Grondor, the key to the legendary Chamber of Secrets, the icon
that so many had died for, and the perfect gift to win the heart of his
beloved; the question now was how to fit all those things into his
pockets without the shopkeeper noticing.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
The townsfolk were approaching the castle holding flaming sticks ready
to express their displeasure with the monster that the scientist within
had supposedly created from various cemeteries in the area, and as the
crowd got within sight of the castle, bloodcurdling screams filled the
night because the flaming sticks they carried were too short and the
flames were now burning their hands.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Erin Martin
location: 'Orlando, FL'
quote: >-
Grunchkukk The Vile couldn’t believe that the 250-year-old Frodo Baggins
was still alive, after he had dealt him countless blows with his
iron-spiked Dwarf-death orb, slashed him to ribbons with his
Elf-shredder axe, and run him through with his Goblin-cleaver, until he
remembered his Orcmother had once told him “Old Hobbits die hard.”
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: Brent Guernsey
location: 'Springfield, VA'
quote: >-
None of the soldiers, their reddened faces wet from boutonnière squirts,
their bodies covered in feathers hurled from buckets, wanted to admit
the 102nd Clown Infantry Division had routed them at the Battle of
Little Big Top.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gloria Glau Burkstaller
location: 'Rome, Italy'
quote: >-
Congratulations, dear Trojan soldiers: you are the lucky winners of the
latest model Wooden Horse Supreme 2000; you can redeem your gift by
opening the doors of the city and bringing it inside, but hurry— the
offer ends at sunrise.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gary Funk
location: 'Sacramento, CA'
quote: >-
My dead mother, or so she told me, was five clicks from Omaha Beach when
the sky exploded into a virtual rainbow of skittle colors after the
overnight rain permitted the Teutonic sun to struggle through the
eastern mist where the Germans lived amongst their bratwurst, beer,
Gesundheits, and Auf Wiedersehens.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Rob Greer
location: 'Queen Creek, AZ'
quote: >-
Quintus Arias, along with many other Romans, came out of their hiding
spots to observe the multitudinous bolts of burlap which festooned their
city and glimpsed the tail end of the retreating Goths, concluding that
as far as sackings go, this could have been a helluva lot worse.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Marc Luban
location: 'Chicago, IL'
quote: >-
Buford The Bold was the last descendant of the proud Bold family and was
particularly proud of how he chose to keep “The,” his father’s middle
name.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David S. Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The silver monkey, high atop the forest canopy in this stifling
Mesoamerican landscape, loomed like a cloudy misty doom-shadow, and he
was raining down papayas and feces onto the first wave of
Conquistadores, hoping against hope that he and his furry comrades could
forever block despoilment, narcoterrorism, exploitation, forced
collectivism, constant currency devaluation, and a pitiful diet of corn,
corn, corn.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Frederick Ankowski
location: 'Santa Monica, CA'
quote: >-
She was just like Greta, who’d poisoned her family, burned down my
house, bombed six countries, and used a gun on anyone she wanted: short.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Charis Adkins
location: 'College Station, TX'
quote: >-
When he dove in, he appeared lithe and slippery, like a fish, but the
way he swam was labored and rife with splashing, like a fish who's been
hooked one too many times and now has motor function issues.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lauren Bouchard
location: 'Portland, OR'
quote: >-
The wind howled and the autumn leaves skittered around my driveway like
a legion of angry crabs fighting over a sandwich.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Susan was a walking thermal reactor, with an electron-beam smile, a
megawatt body and an amazing fuel assembly, radiating heat at a lethal
dose; and though Jack knew that any achievable fusion of his charged
particles and her spark chamber would have a very short half-life and
would leave him a decaying, spent fuel rod, he also knew in his core
that no amount of coolant could quench the chain reaction currently
taking place in his overheated neutrinos.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Candy Mosley
location: 'Hydro, OK'
quote: >-
Thom and Sarah basked in the warm glow of the fire and new love,
watching the flames dance a seductive rumba and listening to the dry oak
and cedar logs snap, crackle, and pop not entirely unlike a bowl of Rice
Krispies cereal in a bowl of cold 2% milk.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Donna Parsons
location: 'Tulsa, OK'
quote: >-
Having sent his wife Rosemary to their cabin (for it was an unlit and
turbulent night at sea), Basil maintained his position at the helm while
the driving rain peppered his graying ginger hair, and the old salt
thought sagely that it was a good thing he was a well-seasoned sailor.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joseph Williams
location: 'Devizes, Wiltshire, England'
quote: >-
That night she looked a million dollars, which, when considering the sum
of her lifetime outlay on her cosmetic surgery ($456,783), her wardrobe
($893,324), her hair and make-up ($379,330) and her jewelry ($432,339),
was a poor return, indeed a hefty deficit.
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Ananya Benegal
location: 'St. Louis, MO'
quote: >-
It was love at first sight—he was tall and broad-shouldered, with a
dimpled smile, twinkling green eyes, and in keeping with his combination
of statistically unlikely but deeply alluring features, type AB blood,
and that condition where cilantro tastes like soap.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Eliza Frost
location: 'Bellingham, WA'
quote: >-
They had gone through fire and ice to be together, but the general mood
of the wedding would have been improved if he wasn't suffering from
second-degree burns and she hadn't lost several toes to frostbite.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ryan Hanaway
location: 'Dearborn, MI'
quote: >-
It wasn't the way that she moved that first caught Edward's attention
but rather that she didn't move at all, and her cold porcelain-like skin
set his heart aflame because after all, she was the most beautiful
corpse he had ever laid eyes on.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jim Hart
location: 'Cleburne, TX'
quote: >-
She languidly stretched her swan like neck looking up from her venti
10-shot, 2-pump mocha, nonfat, extra whip, with 5 shakes of cinnamon
stirred in, at the long legged, lithe, and burly cowboy leaning in the
doorway smoothing his flowing hair back and returning her gaze with a
passion that ionized the air between them, and thought, "I should have
gotten 3 pumps.”
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
She was the caviar on his blintz, the cream in his coffee, the hole in
his donut, and the cherry on his chocolate sundae, thought Doug Penrose
as he looked at Katie through the haze of the Labor Day barbecue smoke,
if only she’d stop nagging him about his weight.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Dwight & Beth MacKinney
location: 'Marengo, IL'
quote: >-
Hyacinth was a light and airy girl—like a soufflé which had been made
with eggs cracked on a flat surface, not on the edge of a bowl, and
separated with no egg yolk in the egg white, whipped into stiff peaks
and baked to perfection without falling flat, as so many of her blind
dates inevitably did.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Winner
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Her mind racing through the hasty protocol briefing she’d received
shortly before launch fourteen months ago, Commander Winona Bengston,
the first Earther to lead a delegation to the Nardoz system, regarded
the alien commander who was now undressing her with his eyes, which
wouldn’t have been that big a deal except that, his being Nardozian, the
officer’s four eyes were ten feet long, and prehensile.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jyri And
location: Estonia
quote: >-
The signal was stronger than ever, and realizing they finally found the
thing, a bunch of Mars vagabonds exited their rover and headed toward
the crashed spaceship, a metal coffin, hacking into the door terminal
and opening it to find this half man, half robot, the legend, the
infamous first colonizer himself, Elun Musci, his paralyzed body lying
still, dust of hundreds of years covering his armor, red eyes still
glowing and blinking.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joran Boersma
location: 'Drachten, The Netherlands'
quote: >-
As soon as the scent of roasted meat—tender enough to fall right off the
bone, with skin seared to a perfect crisp—hit my nose, I started to
regret picking a fight with that guy holding the laser pistol and hoped
my insurance would cover a new arm.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Watson
location: 'Chapel Hill, NC'
quote: >-
We were in a proverbial Mexican Standoff (though on Martian soil— go
figure), yet I lay down my weapon despite my undeniably superior skills
and intellect because she was cute, seemed frightened, made no hostile
moves and (parenthetically) her laser blaster was
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: William Kasper
location: 'Silver Springs, MD'
quote: >-
The only possible way to describe the Fradosian spaceport was as a piece
of partially burnt toast, with the service droids as dull knives,
scraping crumbs of hyperrust into the void while applying the drab, gray
butter of radioactive Meitnerium-282 sludge in cold, uneven chunks until
the station itself buckled, cracked, and fell to the planet,
Meitnerium-282 side down.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kevin M. Kinzer
location: 'Spokane, WA'
quote: >-
Yes, the Enterprise crew had taken the Non-Interference in Primitive
Cultures Oath, but as the ship moved out of its undetected orbit around
“Thumb-Shaped Planet” of the Galaxy Phalanges, Bones smiled to himself
over beaming down a twentieth-century earth football helmet made into a
lamp, because he knew they’d wonder WTF it was for eons.
- category: Science Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joanne Morcom
location: 'Calgary, Alberta'
quote: >-
Margaret Anne cautiously approached the fearsome looking aliens emerging
from their spaceship that had just crash landed in the small yet trim
backyard of her tidy Las Vegas home, and heard them intone in slightly
accented English, "Take us to the Bellagio."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: Raven Chmelka
location: 'Olathe, KS'
quote: >-
While she had no regrets about throwing the lever to douse her husband's
mistress in molten gold, Blanche did feel a pang of conscience for the
innocent bystanders whose proximity had caused them to suffer gilt by
association.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Mike Nash was no quitter, so when the cease-and-desist letter from a
certain aging parrot-headed pop star cost him the lease to “Jimmy’s
Buffet” on the sand in Coronado, he dusted himself off, raised another
stake from his long-suffering but still loving friends and relatives,
and headed for Kona, which is how we come to find him sitting, tanned
and contented, at the bustling bar of his next sure-fire franchise
concept, Mahalo Leg.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David S. Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
The reach of the Romanov Emperors was long and deadly, especially in the
last hundred years of the dynasty, and every rumor or whisper of
anti-monarchists, Marxian communists, meetings of Bessarabian
malcontents or anarchist "intellectuals" coming out of North America was
dealt with swiftly and ruthlessly, the mutilated bodies shipped to
remote Los Angeles and dumped in what would become known as the La Brea
Tsar Pits.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Yancy Sanchez
location: 'Las Cruces, NM'
quote: >-
The day I lost my tractor was the same day I found out my wife was
moonlighting as a hooker when she gave me a wad of cash and told me,
“It’s from a John, dear."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Daniel Smith
location: 'Centennial, CO'
quote: >-
Half of Rome was ablaze, but the emperor Nero reclined in his palace,
plinking out a disconsolate tune on his lyre, when the door flew open,
and in charged his favorite mistress (barking mad but delightfully
zaftig) with a knife in each hand, and evidently set on regime change,
forcing Nero to leap to his feet and snarl "Come on, baby, fight my
lyre!"
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Amy Torchinsky
location: 'Chapel Hill, NC'
quote: >-
Noah had given up his career as a zoo architect in order to pursue his
lifelong dream of making wine and during his first delivery to a
campground’s 1970s-themed nightclub, was introduced with "Noah’s the
vintner of our disco tent."
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: Donald J. Hicks
location: 'Manchester, NJ'
quote: >-
“Brawl, grapple, battle, spar, roughhouse, clash, combat, altercation,
dust up”, the drunken cowpoke grunted at the lawman, a wobbly hand
dangling above his pistol like a spider waiting to descend upon on a
helpless fly but Sheriff Thesaurus only stared him down coldly and
responded through gritted teeth: “Mister, them’s fightin’ words.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kevin M. Kinzer
location: 'Spokane, WA'
quote: >-
Linda belonged to an unserved, disgruntled demographic—boot-wearing,
wine-sipping women who loved watching cowboy nudies, but Linda wanted to
become a director, so was forced to apply for loans from credit unions
to finance her vision, and for the premiere her buzzed besties
brainstormed the title, “Buck, Naked,” hoping to fill a gaping niche in
Hollywood’s neglect of the genre.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
The cowpoke’s lot —lonely nights on the prairie, strange saloons with
stranger trade, weeks on end away from the home where the heart is—had
its undeniable drawbacks, but there was a romantic simplicity to driving
fifty head of Angus to market across the Great Plains that paid it all
back, mused Pete McLaughlin as he notched his cabover Peterbilt into
tenth gear, cranked up the Bob Seger, and settled in for nine hours on
the I-70 to St Louis.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Pepper
location: 'Torrance, CA'
quote: >-
They called him “The Roman,” one of the greatest gunslingers the West
has ever seen, occasionally outdrawing his opponents, but mostly just
baffling them into never showing up with his handwritten dueling
invitations telling them to meet him in the center of town at High XII.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Paul Sutcliffe
location: 'Pittsburgh, PA'
quote: >-
Somewhere in North Dakota, shortly before dawn and before sunset, when
the wind stops whistling down the plains, if you listen carefully, off
in the distance you can hear the typing of the High Plains Drifter
Writer Boy and the steady clip-clop of his faithful horse, Text,
carrying saddlebags of spare batteries for his owner’s laptop.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Eric Williamson
location: 'Nine Mile Falls, WA'
quote: >-
“Wagon’s Ho!”, shouted Sweaty Mike the trail boss, waving his hat
dramatically over his head, and though his grammatical error remained
effective at directing the wagon train to begin the day’s travel, he
failed to recognize that he had just given Lumpy Maude, the caravan’s
only “working girl,” a new nickname in the process.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Clark Snodgrass
location: 'Huntington Beach, CA'
quote: >-
Jonathon Emerick’s obsession with cinema meant he constantly lived his
life mimicking the movies he studied, so on this Sunday he dramatically
prepared a rich elaborate foodie meal like Jon Favreau in Chef, invited
his friends to dine with abandon like Babette’s Feast, and of course
after dinner, fed the leftovers purposefully and firmly into the
disposal as if he was Peter Stormare feeding Steve Buscemi into a Fargo
woodchipper.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Layla Beishline
location: 'Bloomsburg, PA'
quote: >-
She sighed as she once again entered her office on the tenth floor,
panting as she had just climbed nine flights of stairs, knowing that she
really couldn’t complain because at least she didn’t live through the
triangle shirtwaist factory fire of 1911, which wouldn’t make sense
anyways because she didn’t make shirts that looked like triangles.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lev Borisov
location: 'Princeton, NJ'
quote: >-
Merlin was weary of spell-checkers after having to come up quickly with
a plausible explanation for why the royal baby arrived on a large white
spork.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Josh Boyd
location: 'Seattle, WA'
quote: 'He wasn''t superficial; in fact, he couldn''t even swim.'
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gloria Glau Burkstaller
location: 'Rome, Italy'
quote: >-
Seemingly out of options, Thomas called the suicide hotline for help,
but when the operator tried to persuade him not to go through with it,
he realized there might have been some misunderstanding on his part
about the exact nature of the “help” those people were providing.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randall Card
location: 'Bellingham, WA'
quote: >-
There’s not much demand for ventriloquism these days, but to visit the
zoo and watch the reaction when some hayseed calls out “See you later,
alligator” and hears the response “I’ll eat you at noon, you hairless
baboon” makes all those hours of practice worth it.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Cat Frenette
location: 'London, Ontario, Canada'
quote: >-
She reached a trembling hand toward the huge wrought iron door knocker,
her heart pounding in her ample, pink cashmere-covered bosom, like the
big bass tom played by that hot drummer down at the new dance club over
on 3rd St, a place where, now that she thinks about it, she might just
go to instead of knocking on the door of this creepy old house, in the
rain, in the dark.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Timbo Gillespie
location: 'Orange, CA'
quote: >-
I stared out at the crepuscular finish to the day, considering all of
the factors, all of the options, all of the consequences, my brain
twitching in much the same manner as my colon had following my last
feast of convenience store sushi.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ryan Hanaway
location: 'Dearborn, MI'
quote: >-
"If I've told you once, I've told you a single time," Garrick the
Literal instructed his pupil, "sticks and stones, may break your bones,
but words will never hurt you unless they are written on the sticks and
stones."
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jon Hardi
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: 'Saturday night, like the Montague Lounge can''t survive without me!'
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Donald J. Hicks
location: 'Manchester, NJ'
quote: >-
The aged doctor, having spent over sixty years practicing in the
combined fields of optometry and proctology, was widely considered the
world’s first and only proctometrist, a title he had relinquished
begrudgingly, for although his jealous peers derided his
accomplishments, only the physician’s failing vision had forced him into
an early retirement though his hindsight would remain 20/20.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ken Hill
location: 'Elkville, IL'
quote: >-
The clouds drifted lazily through the crystal blue sky like cotton candy
from last summer's county fair except that if a plane flew into cotton
candy the engine would ingest so much sugar that it would lock up the
engine and force the pilot to make an emergency landing, perhaps in the
river below where the body of a white male in his mid 50's with no
identification floated face down, which is where our story begins.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Wilhelmina Lyre
location: 'Hausen, Germany'
quote: >-
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that
station will be held by my blasted twin brother, who used to steal my
sweets as a child, copied my Mathematics homework all through secondary
school, got the promotion for which I'd labored so long, and eloped with
my fiancée, these pages must show.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Kevin Mason
location: 'Palm Springs, CA'
quote: >-
As the old chamberlain, oblivious to the goings on within, delicately
slammed the immense yet crude, indigenously carved sanctuary doors, Sir
Reggie caused, forthwith, a rapture, here-to-fore unbeknownst to her
lovely, albeit sedentary, loins, a quaking and upwelling of carnal
release a hundred times more powerful than her usual proximal occasion
of mortal sin, since taking the veil.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joel Phillips
location: 'West Trenton, NJ'
quote: >-
The oyster slid down his throat, leaving it raw and scratchy, and for my
sake, thought Pete, why people considered them delicious was mysterious,
though as a case in point he noticed his companions had pried theirs
open and were eating only what was inside.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Haley Shirley
location: Greensboro NC
quote: >-
Marcus sat on his porch watching the sun set, the light retracting
slowly from where it pooled across the yard, and once the sun finally
dipped fully below the horizon, he yelled into the sky the same thing he
did every night, "And STAY off my lawn!"
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Al Sweigart
location: 'Houston, TX'
quote: >-
The lazy summer afternoon slowly turned to evening, and no one at the
Stillforest Town Potluck took note when he picked up the first one, nor
the next one or the one after that, but for weeks folks in the sleepy
community would excitedly talk about nothing else but the time they saw
Hank McGillie carry seven folding chairs at once.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: John Tracy
location: 'Palm Desert, CA'
quote: >-
“Admitting the need for change is the first step toward recovery—I'm
really proud of you,” said the first-year psych student, moonlighting as
a supercilious clerk at the mini-mart, and Jane responded, “I'm really
just trying to break a twenty and get some ones.”
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Michelle Vondette
location: 'Victoria, British Columbia'
quote: >-
The queen pretended the corgis could understand her when she spoke in
code about the politicians in her day-to-day, as though they knew
exactly to whom she referred when she spoke of the Fluffy One, the
Rabbity One or the Stout-Angry-Moustached One, when in fact the corgis
were hairy, drooly footstools who barely cared to hear her voice.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ted Zelman
location: 'Las Vegas, NV'
quote: >-
Having honed his athletic leaps and twists in the ocean, Hugo, an
18-year-old whale, received a football scholarship to a prestigious
Catholic university, where his diving catch won the championship and, as
the crowd shouted hosannas, Gatorade was poured on his forehead by the
team priest to anoint the victor, Hugo, as The Humpback of Notre Dame.
'2024':
- category: Grand Prize
type: Winner
author: Lawrence Person
location: 'Austin, TX'
quote: >-
She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound
ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.
- category: Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
type: Winner
author: Joel Phillips
location: 'West Trenton, NJ'
quote: >-
Mrs. Higgins’ body was found in the pantry, bludgeoned with a potato
ricer and lying atop a fifty-pound sack of Yukon golds, her favorite for
making gnocchi, though some people consider them too moist for this
purpose.
- category: Adventure
type: Winner
author: Rex Allen
location: 'San Rafael, CA'
quote: >-
As Nils Nordgrund struggled mightily treading water to stay afloat,
while grimly watching from a distance the Norwegian oil tanker he
captained slowly sink in the treacherously dark and stormy seas off
Murmansk—he gave no thought to whether the Giants had any chance at a
pennant win this year.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David Hynes
location: 'Bromma, Sweden'
quote: >-
It had seemed a good idea at the time, the first night of my two-week
all-inclusive vacation, spent with an affable stranger in a tapas bar
oiled by an excess of Corona Extra and tequila shots, but now, in fancy
dress holding a red cape, under a pitiless noonday sun, while 1000
pounds of snorting horned beefsteak eyed me malevolently, hoofing a hole
in the dirt, the packed spectators oléing for all their worth, I, a
junior sales rep in kitchen utensils from Milwaukee, wasn’t so sure.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
As he mustered the platoon for another patrol on a moonlit Mekong night,
Lieutenant John “Hoseman” Walker, Jr., USMC, remembered what his dad—a
fellow devildog who survived the previous generation’s island-hopping
campaign against Japan that had sealed the Corps’s legend—had told him
as he shipped out from Coronado fourteen months earlier: son, when
you’re a Marine, rank is what you smell, not what you pull.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joel Phillips
location: 'West Trenton, NJ'
quote: >-
However unlikely an event, Lucy’s flight had made a water landing, and
as she clutched her seat cushion, which was useable as a flotation
device, she waited patiently for the lifeboats to pick up first the
Plutonium-class members, active service personnel, parents traveling
with small children, and those passengers with special needs.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Joel Phillips
location: 'West Trenton, NJ'
quote: >-
The grappling hook caught, and Dirk hoisted himself hand-over-hand to
the balcony, where to his surprise stood Dr. Darpa, a banana sandwich in
one hand and a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard M&P 380 in the other—a pistol
more suited to the delicate hand of a femme fatale, he thought—though he
kept this observation to himself.
- category: Adventure
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sam Wallington
location: 'London, England'
quote: >-
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, and he
had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish, but as fish tend to
live in the sea rather than in a skiff, he really had only himself to
blame.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Winner
author: Jack Harnly
location: 'Sarasota, FL'
quote: >-
She was poured into the red latex dress like Jello poured into a
balloon, almost bursting at the seams, and her zaftig shape was awesome
to behold, but I knew from the look on her face and the .45 she held
pointing at me, that this was no standard client of my detective agency,
but a new collection agency tactic to get me to pay my long-overdue
phone bill.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Magnus was in a tough spot...the Icelandic Police were pressing him to
cough up the name of the top capo in each of the 3 main cities in which
the Mafia operated—Reykjavik, Akureyri, and Middelf—threatening to lock
him away for life if he didn't, but he knew that if he ratted out the
Reykjavikingur or the Akureyringur the Mob would kill him for sure—so he
just gave them the Middelfingur.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Douglas Purdy
location: 'Roseville, CA'
quote: >-
That sweltering Friday evening she not so much walked but slithered into
my shabby strip mall P.I. office, showing off all her curves, and I knew
then I was in for a weekend of trouble because Dave’s Reptile Emporium
next door, from which the ball python had escaped, was closed until
Monday.
- category: Crime & Detective
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gwen Simonalle
location: 'Grenoble, France'
quote: >-
Staring unblinkingly into the pleading, tear-filled eyes of yet another
dame looking for me to solve all her problems, I sighed, stretched,
scratched my whiskers, stuck my hind leg in the air and bent my spine at
a 45-degree angle to reach down and lick my butt clean, then donned my
fedora—Taco, Cat Detective, was officially on the case.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
location: ''
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at
occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind
which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies),
rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of
the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Winner
author: Owen Roherty
location: 'Colborne, Canada'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, or more specifically, a Tuesday
afternoon in Ireland.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jon A. Bell
location: 'Porto, Portugal'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night, which makes perfect sense when you
realize we’re on Neptune, with a mean distance from the Sun of 4.5
billion kilometers (or 30 astronomical units), and winds that howl at
100 meters per second, composed of mostly hydrogen and helium (and only
trace amounts of methane), which is way better than Uranus, which stinks
to high heaven.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Randy Blanton
location: 'Murfreesboro, TN'
quote: >-
“It’s a dark and stormy night, ladies and gentlemen, just the perfect
atmosphere for the Monsters’ Ball, and look, here comes Mr. and Mrs.
Dracula, both looking quite debonair and mysterious, and there’s Frank,
the big guy himself, his neck bolts glinting during the lightning
flashes, but I do have one piece of bad news and that is we probably
won’t be seeing the werewolf tonight because, after all, it is a dark
and stormy night.”
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Judd Hampton
location: 'Grimshaw, Canada'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy roast; the baristas filled the cups in black
torrents—except at occasional intervals when customers asked for non-fat
milk (for it is Starbucks where our scene lies) or perhaps pumpkin
spice, their faces puckered at the bitterness, the inflated prices, and
the unspoken obligation to tip.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mary Laiuppa
location: 'San Diego, CA'
quote: >-
It was a bright and sunny day; the heat beat down, with some relief from
passing clouds which drifted gently across the sky (for it is in
Southern California where our narrative takes place), bouncing off the
rooftop solar panels and inciting the anger of passing conservatives
continuing to deny the reality of climate change.
- category: Dark & Stormy
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Lucy Petersen
location: 'Brisbane, Australia'
quote: >-
It was a dark and stormy night; the cats fell in torrents—except at
occasional intervals, when they were checked by a violent gust of dog
which swept up the streets (for it is in an extended metaphor that our
scene lies).
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Winner
author: Diana Murtaugh
location: 'Baltimore, MD'
quote: >-
Sir Arthur Pendragon, High King of the Britons, son of King Uther
Pendragon, nephew of King Aurelius Ambrosius, who was in turn the son of
a long list of people who weren’t kings and thus don’t matter, only
slept with his sister once, but boy did it come back to bite him in the
ass.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ray Smith
location: 'Crowley, TX'
quote: >-
Harry Potter was a happy eleven-year-old wizard who lived with two kind
and supportive parents in Godric's Hollow because his parents hadn't
been wimps and they had used the Killing Curse on Voldemort as soon as
he stuck his big noseless face in their house.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Sophia Wang
location: 'Nashville, TN'
quote: >-
Not even my last hope, the herpetologist, was willing to officiate my
marriage to my beloved Frog Prince, with his bulging overripe-tomato
eyes, covered in milky film not unlike phlegm, his slimy appendages
reminiscent of a toddler's sucked-on toes, and his lovely love-bites
lovingly laved upon both my fingers and my houseflies without prejudice.
- category: Fantasy & Horror
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Eric Williamson
location: 'Nine Mile Falls, WA'
quote: >-
Cthulhu awoke from loathsome dreams of gangrenous decay and the foul
stench of congealing viscera, lifting his pulpy, misshapen head to find
what foolish supplicant had roused him to yet another age of fear and
creeping dread, but found his bloodthirst unslaked, having been brought
to consciousness not by horror-filled screams of human sacrifice but by
his little sister’s overly dramatic wail of “Cthulhu’s touching me!”
from her side of the family station wagon’s back seat.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Winner
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
On an otherwise fine spring morning, Helga Tottentanz learned in an
exceptionally hard way that, whatever they might’ve told you in
hospitality school up in Cologne, as a serving wench in Mainz’s finest
inn in 451 A.D., you don’t greet a battle-weary and obviously stressed
general named Attila, fresh from crossing the Carpathians at the cost of
ten thousand or so men, with an overly cheery “Hi, Hun.”
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Greg Homer
location: 'San Vito, Costa Rica'
quote: >-
Zenta the Australopithecine woman gently placed the egg into her
homemade reed basket (leaving behind two of her fingers bitten off by
the mother Archaeopteryx) and silently wished that one day a harmless,
delicious, abundant egg-laying bird would evolve.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Eline Lüschen
location: 'Groningen, The Netherlands'
quote: >-
The year was 1302, and Richilde watched as her husband paused his work
to take off his tunic, exposing his broad form, sweaty from his laboring
in the heat—which would've been so much more exciting if her husband was
something cool, like a ripped farmer, instead of a middle-aged balding
scribe on his third attempt to write 'phenomenon' correctly.
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Had Mrs. Reed just offered: "I could whip up a quick buffalo stew, some
corn cakes, and maybe toss together a dandelion salad" instead of
remaining silent, perhaps George Donner never would have followed up his
"Anyone have any thoughts on dinner?" query with "Don't be shy—no idea
is a bad idea."
- category: Historical Fiction
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Gwen Simonalle
location: 'Grenoble, France'
quote: >-
"The hell . . . ?" wondered Dread Lord Atunkhamen, awakening to find his
sumptuous sarcophagus transformed into an airtight glass box and his
hordes of groveling undead servants into a sea of snotty schoolchildren,
bored museum staff, goggling tourists, and an endless sea of faceless
smartphones.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Winner
author: Alexandro Strauss
location: 'New York, NY'
quote: >-
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and it was precisely
this questionable choice of paving material, combined with the ongoing
flight of middle-class demons from the urban center of Pandaemonium
proper to more spacious brimstone-lakefront homes in its suburbs, that
had produced the mess of closures, detours, and gridlock that were
making Azazel’s commute this morning a living . . . well, you know.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Bart King
location: 'Silverton, OR'
quote: >-
As we unrolled our sleeping bags, the sickly-sweet notes of the old
torch song “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” played in my mind and the smell of
burning chocolate and liqueur wafted in a treacly cloud of smoke from
the next campsite, where a vacationing confectioner had lit a smoldering
bonbon-fire.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ciarán McGonagle
location: 'Derry, Northern Ireland'
quote: >-
Ralf Smalborgson kept a small shop in Direperil, Minnesota, and his
goods consisted only of medieval stringed instruments, lanyards and
backstays, and some limited apothecary supplies, giving the store its
uninviting signage: Lute, Rope, and Pillage.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Leslie Muir
location: 'Atlanta, GA'
quote: >-
Norman gazed searchingly into Susan's mesmerizing Windex-colored eyes,
observing that her left eye was quite lighter than her right, more like
a watered-down generic glass cleaner, probably at a dilution ratio of
1:3 which Norman predicted would definitely leave some streaks.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: David S Nelson
location: 'Falls Church, VA'
quote: >-
There were shadowy conspiracists behind every smoking volcano, and in
all the dark corners of Washington, and hiding from the harsh glaring
sunlight of the High Desert of California, but they were laughably easy
prey when the Martian lizard people, the subterranean Vril-empowered
mole-men, and the globalist pedophile Commies finally did show up.
- category: Odious Outliers
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jonathan P. Sanford
location: 'Gilbert, IA'
quote: >-
Harald grew up In a small church in which his parents were unusually
active, involving him at an early age with services and potlucks and
productions and outreach ministries, and in stark contrast to his best
mate Dustin, who grew up in a small veterinary office, in a kennel
between a surrendered Rottweiler and a confiscated caiman.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Winner
author: Robert Wolf
location: 'Pittsburgh, PA'
quote: >-
Hungover, Bethany walked out onto the deck of her Malibu Beach
beachhouse, her pimento-less olive-green eyes scouring the sand below
like two Brillo pads, while a thundering blitzkrieg continued hammering
within her head like demolition wrecking balls repeatedly smashing
against concrete walls while accompanied by the deafening salvos of the
cannons from the 1812 Overture.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Art Ellis
location: 'Ottawa, Canada'
quote: >-
Vera Windrush, ever the romantic, looked at the sea foam washed up on
the shore, and imagined the life of some giant, seafaring marshmallow
tragically cut short after being rammed by a Pacific Princess cruise
liner.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Scott M. Fitzpatrick
location: 'Eugene, OR'
quote: >-
Chardonnay walked in with a swagger that could melt the chrome off a
Studebaker (a pre-1954 one prior to the merger with Packard to form the
Studebaker-Packard Corporation) and with a hip shrug that told everyone
in the room that she meant business (not like the aforementioned failed
merger); because she was, after all, the great-great granddaughter of
Henry Studebaker (not one of his brothers Clement, John, Peter, or
Jacob).
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Matthew Holmes
location: 'Doreen, Australia'
quote: >-
His burnt flesh sizzling like a burger on the grill, blood pouring from
his wounds like an overshaken cola, and sweat as salty as French fries
pouring down his face, John knew that after this mission was over, he
was getting McDonald's for dinner.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Stepping outside just after dawn, Chef Billingsworth was pleased to
discover that for once the morning fog was not as thick as pea soup—or
even lobster bisque for that matter—but was more a chicken velouté, or
perhaps a beef remouillage.
- category: Purple Prose
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Annora McGarry
location: 'Granville, NY'
quote: >-
Alas," he thought to himself, careworn eyes flickering over a veritable
charcuterie of limp meats festering with metaphor, "Is bologna simply a
hot dog that has lost its backbone, its form, its very ilk—flattened,
beaten down into this wretched shape, a mere flicker of what it once
was?"
- category: Romance
type: Winner
author: Tony Buccella
location: 'Allegany, NY'
quote: >-
If broken hearts were made of simple syrup, and shattered dreams were
made from white rum, and agony and despair came from ¾ ounce of lime
juice, freshly squeezed, and three mint leaves respectively, then Mary
Lou just served up a mojito cocktail straight from the ninth circle of
hell when she told Ricky the baby wasn’t his.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Jon A. Bell
location: 'Porto, Portugal'
quote: >-
João Diogo Tiogo Pereira decided to walk down the cobblestone streets
and past the azulejo-clad building façades to finally ask out the lovely
Sara Catarina Custodio da Silva for coffees and pasteis de natas down at
the local pasteleria, or maybe vinho do porto in a taberna swelling with
fado music, with schist stone walls steeped in centuries of saudad . . .
for our story begins in Portugal, which was probably not obvious.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Ann Franklin
location: 'Lubbock, TX'
quote: >-
Like looking for a missing needle in a haystack (a scenario Belinda had
never quite grasped because of the absurdity of having a needle in a
haystack in the first place since no one does needlepoint in a barn),
the futility of searching for exemplary qualities in her ex left her
exhausted and exasperated.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Debi Hassler
location: 'Central Point, OR'
quote: >-
Harvey’s eyes tracked the undulating sway of Betty’s hips, clad in hot
pink leggings, clinging to her voluptuous thighs, each pocket of
cellulite like magnetic orbs of fuschia-tinted bubble-wrap drawing him
forward; gnarled hands poised to snatch just one glorious pop of
forbidden flesh before Nurse Jones whisked him away for cribbage time at
the Rough and Ready Nursing Home.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Jane Hammerlink’s mane of auburn hair blew in the morning breeze like
Seabiscuit’s tail passing the quarter pole; her eyes sparkled like the
finest cubic zirconia; and her snow-white apron and ruby-red lipstick
gave me a tingling sensation in the extremities that I had theretofore
associated only with Flo from Progressive.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
After initially being cold and hard towards Jeremy, Sylvia finally began
to thaw, and then slowly started to warm up to him, just a bit at first,
but more and more the longer she basked in the heat of his yearning
eyes; then, suddenly magically transformed, she became steaming hot for
him, melting at his touch, yielding her softness to his hungry hands—and
so, he devoured her, savoring her oozing delights and consuming every
morsel of her lusciousness—after which Jeremy leaned back, totally
sated, and began to consider what he should name his next batch of
frozen chocolate chip cookie dough.
- category: Romance
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Watson
location: 'Chapel Hill, NC'
quote: >-
Her raven hair, ruby lips, sensuous jaw, and luminous pearly teeth would
all be perfectly preserved—Jacques desperately hoped—by an expertly
honed blade and carefully positioned guillotine basket.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Winner
author: A. R. Templeton
location: 'Stratford, Canada'
quote: >-
"I do enjoy turning a prophet," said Torquemada, as he roasted the
heretic seer on a spit.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Peter Buckley
location: 'Rockville, MD'
quote: >-
The Ad Exec licked his Cheops, contemplated his latest pyramid scheme to
win this year's advertising award, “I am not in de-nile and deserve a
Clio-patra on the back for this and tut tut to anyone who says
otherwise."
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Donald J. Hicks
location: 'Manchester, NJ'
quote: >-
Minnie was a short order cook with big ties to organized crime and
sought respect within the Family, hoping to impress the Godfather, Don
Knotz, with her signature dish, a succulent filet mignon, but the meat
was stored on the top shelf of the massive walk-in freezer and, in the
end, the steaks were just too high.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
As the sun broke the horizon on the windward coast of Kauai, Dave
Barrett, pleased with himself for setting a 5:30 alarm even with the jet
lag from the flight out of Newark the day before, parted the drapes and
shouted “Dawn ho!,” alarming the legendary Hawaiian lounge singer who
was brewing his morning cup of Kona in the condo below him.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
After thousands of years ruling the netherworld, the Devil was starting
to show his age... and though it honestly didn't bother him that his
horns were a bit less pointy, his wings a bit more droopy, and his fangs
a bit less sharp—if anyone mentioned he was losing his hair, there would
be hell toupee.
- category: Vile Puns
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
"My laddies may not be the fastest sugar cane harvesters," Fergus
confessed, "but they're not as slow as my lasses..."
- category: Western
type: Winner
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Even a lone ranger has to adapt to changing times, so with unemployment
running below two percent, when Tonto announced that he was finally
quitting the pro bono law enforcement game to get his real estate
license, the closest an aging John Reid had been able to come to
replacing his trusty Indian companion was Ganesh Sarvapindi, a fair shot
and a so-so horseman with the annoying habit of referring to his new
boss as “kemo sahib.”
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: G. Andrew Lundberg
location: 'Los Angeles, CA'
quote: >-
Tucker Hughes was a cowboy born and bred—his grandfather free-grazing in
the shadow of the Bitterroots, his father homesteading the Bar XZ east
of Great Falls, and young Tucker barrel racing and running Angus from
his grade-school days —but as he gazed across the prairie on this autumn
day in 2031, the now grizzled rancher figured he was finally looking at
the end of the American West, all thanks to the gnomes of Silicon Valley
and their damned self-driving cattle.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Fighting injustice in the Southwest Italian dairy cow farming region
fell to the cheese-rind masked man of mystery, the Provolone Ranger.
- category: Western
type: Dishonorable Mention
author: Mark Meiches
location: 'Dallas, TX'
quote: >-
Durango knew the townsfolk were all peaceful, simple farmers, knew none
of them could shoot a gun, knew Chaga's murderous gang was on its way,
and knew defeating them was all but hopeless—but Durango also knew he
had to stay, because he was moral, and he was brave, and he wasn't very
bright.
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