Chamblee54

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest has announced the results of the 2022 competition. Every year, B-LFC solicits opening sentences for bad novels. The “winners” of this competition receive heartfelt condolences from all concerned. Chamblee54 uses B-LFC as an excuse for text to go between pictures every year. Parts two and three are available. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
As a “value added service,” chamblee54 compiles a list of noteworthy author names and locations. None of the participants are from Georgia. This years notables: Brent Guernsey, Springfield, VA, Joe Tussey, Daniels, WV, Vivien Doyle, Buxton, Derbyshire, UK, Neil Prowd, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, Emily Ho, Los Angeles, CA, Jim Anderson, Flushing, MI, Jordan Peace, Mountlake Terrace, WA, Nicole Postorino, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Mark Meiches, Dallas, TX, Andrea Dumas, West Fargo, ND, Joanne Morcom, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Sharon Durken, Port Wing, WI, Leah Dagenbach, Loveland, OH.
“Hoist the mainsail ye accursed swine” shouted the Captain over the roar of the waves as the ship was tossed like a cork dropped from a wine bottle into a jacuzzi when the faucet is wide open and the jets are running full blast and one has just settled into the water with a glass of red wine to ease the aches and pains after a day of hard labor raking leaves from the front yard.
Joe Tussey, Daniels, WV
It was only when the booming voice of the Sergeant-at-Arms rang out declaiming the surprising order for each and every member of the firing squad to shoot the Sergeant-at-Arms himself and then turn their rifles on each other, an order assiduously followed by the well-trained soldiers, that the cigarette-smoking, blindfolded Gerry Corker truly appreciated the seemingly endless hours his mother had denied him on the baseball field during his lonely childhood, instead sending him every afternoon to Crazy Barney’s School of Mimicry and Ventriloquism.
John Shafer, Tonbridge, Kent, UK
Three bears arrived at their den to discover a yellow haired girl sleeping, and as she was neither too hot nor too cold, neither too soft nor too hard, but just right, they ate her.
Neil Prowd, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
The Director of Child Protective Services was aghast, and needed clarification, “Let me get this straight—You were rocking your baby on the tree top, and when the wind blew, the cradle rocked and the bough broke, the cradle fell, and down came baby, cradle and all?” John Tracy, Palm Desert, CA
The detectives wore booties, body suits, hair nets, masks and gloves and longed for the good old days when they could poke a corpse with the toes of their wingtips if they damn well felt like it.
Jim Anderson, Flushing, MI
They called Rock Mahon the original hard-boiled detective, and it wasn’t because of his gravelly voice, or his crusty manner, or his chiseled jaw, or his cement-like abs, or his feldspar fists, or his iron incorruptibility, or his calcite cynicism, or his uzonite unsentimentality, but because of his goddamned, geezly, infuriating habit of polluting every crime scene with shells dropped from the hard-boiled eggs he munched without surcease. Barbara Stevenson, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
The heat blanketed the small village in much the same way a body bag blankets a murder victim, except that a body bag is usually black, which the heat wasn’t, as heat is colorless, and the village wasn’t dead, which a murder victim usually is. Eric Rice, Madison, WI
It was a Dark ‘n Stormy night: Dark n’ Stormy cocktails were half-off at Tata’s, the breast-themed barbeque chicken restaurant. Ross Ozarka, Auckland, New Zealand
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell mainly in the plain —except for occasional intervals when it was checked by Andalusian fields full of grain (for it is in Spain that our story takes place)—and the heroine of our story, Pam Plona, was in the middle of giving birth to a minotaur after running with the bulls. Joe McKenna, Iowa City, IA