And it's time again for the results of the annual fiction contest sponsored by the English Department at an American university and named for a certain mediocre 19th century novelist! Fortunately, this year's unusually long awaited Grand Prize winner is not obscene, so can you find it for me?

zbeckabee

"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." --Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830) Despite his popularity in his heyday, today his name is known as a byword for bad writing. San Jose State University’s annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad writing is named after him. The winner of 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is Garrison Spik, who penned: 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." Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2008 Results follow: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_George_Bulwer-Lytton Aug 06 08, 8:51 PM

edmund80

Hastily, unhesitatingly and oh yes, hungrily I searched and clicked-click-clicked away for the answer. Tap tap tap went the keyboard and zip zap zip went the neurons in my brainbox when suddenly, synapses synapsed and momentous memories flooded the NOW and the HERE. The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest, sponsored by San Jose State U., for the worst in first lines in English writing ! Quietly, I reminisce. Quietly, I ponder. Below are the 2008 winners. Alas, I tried in vain ! Quietly, I simmer. Quietly, I plot. http://thewriteco.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/bulwer-lytton-fiction-contest-winners/ Aug 06 08, 9:27 PM