Carburettor breast fantasy wins bad writing prize

Friday, the 29th of July 2005. 8:00am (AEST)
A Microsoft analyst has won an annual contest celebrating bad writing by comparing fixing carburettors to fondling a woman's breasts, while an Australian woman was awarded in the children's category.
"As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburettors 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," Dan McKay wrote in his winning entry in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
Organisers say McKay, 43, of North Dakota was visiting China, "perhaps to escape notoriety for his dubious literary achievement".
He wins $US250.
In a contest that now has several sub-categories, the winner in the children's literature section was sent in by Shelby Leung from New South Wales.
"The woods were all a-twitter with rumours 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," she wrote.
The California San Jose State University contest challenges entrants to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels and has attracted entries from around the world for 23 years.
It was inspired by 19th century novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who opened his 1830 novel Paul Clifford with the now-immortal words: "It was a dark and stormy night."
San Jose State English Professor Scott Rice says judging the contest "is a hoot".
"By and large the entries are submitted by serious readers who have a notion about what is good and bad writing. That is what is heartening," Professor Rice said.
- Reuters

ABC 29-7-5

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1425265.htm



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