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4th July 2009

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Spik wins Bulwer-Lytton contest

18.08.08

Little-known writer Garrison Spik has been named the 26th winner of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which honours bad opening sentences to imaginary novels.

Spik's winning opener was: "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'."

An international literary parody contest, the competition honours the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803—1873). A new collection of previous winners was published in August 2007 by The Friday Project.

This year's runner-up was by Andrew Bowers: "'Hmm . . .' thought Abigail as she gazed languidly from the veranda past the bright white patio to the cerulean sea beyond, where dolphins played and seagulls sang, where splashing surf sounded like the tintinnabulation of a thousand tiny bells, where great gray whales bellowed and the sunlight sparkled off the myriad of sequins on the flyfishes' bow ties, 'time to get my meds checked'."

Bulwer-Lytton website

Prize Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest