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Local Aspiring Writers Invited to Submit the Best of Their Worst to WPL: A Dark and Stormy Contest

September 12, 2011

Westchester Public Library will sponsor a contest for local aspiring writers to showcase the best of their worst work.  Entrants are invited to submit the first sentence of their worst novel: a novel that doesn’t actually exist.  A Dark and Stormy Contest will begin Thursday, September 15, and will run through Monday, October 31.  Winners will be announced on Friday, November 4.

Entrants are asked to imagine that they have the chance to write their own perfectly awful novel and to submit the first sentence of that novel.  Each entry must be a single, original and unpublished sentence, not to exceed 50-60 words.  There is no limit to the number of submissions per person.  Prizes will be awarded for the top entries in the following genres: mystery, horror, sci-fi, action/adventure, romance, western, and general fiction.  There will be a grand prize for the best overall sentence.

A Dark and Stormy Contest is a spin-off of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which began in 1982 and was named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose opening line of the novel Paul Clifford is still quoted today:  “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 lamps that struggled against the darkness.” 

For examples, visit http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ or
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2011.htm

For more information, call Thomas Library, 200 W. Indiana Avenue, Chesterton at 926-7696, or Hageman Library at 926-9080, or pick up an entry form at either location.