Bad Writing Award

Bad writing award 2012 goes to Cathy Bryant

Agencies
August 20, 2012 First Published: August 20, 2012

Bad writing award 2012 goes to Cathy Bryant

‘She gazed into his eyes, noting the infestation of eyelash mites’, these cringe-worthy lines by Cathy Bryant of Manchester, UK have won the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2012 award for bad writing.
The contest is named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, the man who wrote the most ridiculed opening lines in literature – ‘It was a dark and stormy night’.
This year’s winner Cathy Bryant wrote, “As he told her that he loved her she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny deodicids burrowing into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the eyes are truly the windows of the soul; and, if so, his soul needed regrouting”, reports Huffington Post.
Sponsored by the English department at San Jose State University, the contest was started in 1982.
According to the contest website, “In keeping with the gravitas, high seriousness, and general bignitude of the contest, the grand prize winner will receive … a pittance.”
Still, the award sees participation from all over the world. The contest gives out prizes in categories from general to detective, western, science fiction, romance, and children’s.