A Prize Well Deserved

The winner of the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is David McKenzie, a 55-year-old Quality Systems consultant and writer from Federal Way, Washington. This is his entry:

Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the “Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.

Well deserved sir. Well deserved.

And Dishonorable Mention goes to Lisa Mileusnich of Willoughby, Ohio:

He slowly ran his fingers through her long black hair, which wasn't really black because she used Preference by L'Oreal to color it (because "she was worth it"); her carrot-colored roots were starting to show, and it reminded him of the time he'd covered his car's check engine light with black electrical tape, but a faint orange glow still shone around the edges.