“It was a dark and stormy night” – Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

The results of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for 2003 are now out and, in the interest of preserving the best of purple prose everywhere, here are several of the winning entries:

Grand Prize:

“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” – Ms. Mariann Simms, Wetumpka, AL

Runner-up:

“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. ” -John Dotson (U.S. Naval Officer), Arlington, VA

My personal favorite:

“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.”- Harry H. Buerkett, Urbana, IL

Bravo, bravo! For more check out the full contest results at the Bulwer-Lytton site.