[Editors] Oh, fellow editors and writers, take a break for this one...

Tue Sep 22 13:07:08 EDT 2009

In case this thread has anyone fearing for the future, know that  
there's a great way to find good new writing while being totally lazy: http://readsfeed.com 
. It's a site I built recently to make it easier for me to find newly  
posted fiction. Works both as the site itself, as an RSS feed (http://readsfeed.com/feed/ 
) and even as a Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/readsfeed).

If anyone has suggestions for more publications to include, let me know!

Andrew Whitacre
Communications Manager
Comparative Media Studies & Center for Future Civic Media
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(617) 324-0490
awhit at mit.edu

On Sep 22, 2009, at 12:47 PM, Scott Campbell wrote:

> Here are few more to tickle you.  The first four are from this  
> year's winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Contest. The last one, and  
> surely the best, is from The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy, without  
> question the worst writer currently working in the English language.
>
> Here's the grand prize winner from the contest:
>
> Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full  
> moon, when the wind is blowin' 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.
> David McKenzie
> Federal Way, WA
>
> And here are some dishonorable mentions:
>
> In a flurry of flame and fur, fangs and wicker, thus ended the  
> world's first and only hot air baboon ride.
> Tony Alfieri
> Los Angeles, CA
>
> Without warning, their darting tongues entwined, like a couple of  
> nightcrawlers fresh from the baitshop--their moist, twisting bodies  
> finally snapping apart, not unlike an old man's muddy galosh being  
> yanked away from his patent leather shoe.
> Matt Dennison
> Erie, PA
>
> The gutters of Manhattan teemed with the brackish slurry indicative  
> of a significant though not incapacitating snowstorm three days  
> prior, making it seem that God had tripped over Hoboken and spilled  
> his smog-flavored slurpie all over the damn place.
> Eric Stoveken
> Allentown, PA
>
> And finally, in a purple flurry, our boy Pat:
>
> I looked up and saw my father shaking my mother, her eyes brimming  
> with tears, with humiliation. I never loved anyone as much as I  
> loved her at that moment. I looked at my father, his back to me, and  
> I felt the creation of hate in one of the soul's dark porches, felt  
> it scream out its birth in a black forbidden ecstasy.
>
> Who knew the soul had PORCHES?  And not just one, but SEVERAL!
>
> A friend of mine says that his soul actually has a very nice gazebo,  
> thank you very much.
> ______________________________________
>
> Scott Campbell
> Director of Communications
> MIT School of Architecture + Planning
> 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA 02139
> Mail: MIT 7-231 .  Office: MIT 9-422
>
> On Sep 22, 2009, at 11:17 AM, Teresa Hill wrote:
>
>> Thanks a lot, Nancy. Now I'm guffawing in my office and passersby are
>> looking at me funny. Funnier than ususal. Terry
>>
>> Nancy DuVergne Smith wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>> This is passed-on Internet humor…just makes you love our trade,
>>>
>>> Nancy
>>>
>>> *Subject:* FW: *Analogies Written by High School Students***
>>>
>>> 1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides
>>> gently compressed by a ThighMaster.
>>> 2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances
>>> like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
>>> 3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience,  
>>> like a
>>> guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without  
>>> one of
>>> those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country
>>> speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar
>>> eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
>>> 4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was
>>> room-temperature Canadian beef.
>>> 5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog  
>>> makes
>>> just before it throws up.
>>> 6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
>>> 7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.< /div>
>>> 8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated
>>> because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a
>>> surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
>>> 9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
>>> bowling ball wouldn’t.
>>> 10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag
>>> filled with vegetable soup.
>>> 11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an
>>> eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city
>>> and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
>>> 12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
>>> 13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when
>>> you fry them in hot grease.
>>> 14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced  
>>> across
>>> the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one  
>>> having
>>> left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from  
>>> Topeka
>>> at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
>>> 15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
>>> that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
>>> 16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
>>> had also never met.
>>> 17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was
>>> the East River.
>>> 18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap,
>>> only=2 0one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.
>>> 19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
>>> 20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike  
>>> Phil,
>>> this plan just might work.
>>> 21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not
>>> eating for a while.
>>> 22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck,  
>>> either,
>>> but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a  
>>> land
>>> mine or something.
>>> 23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender
>>> leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
>>> 24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around
>>> with power tools.
>>> 25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard  
>>> bells,
>>> as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
>>>
>>> Nancy DuVergne Smith
>>>
>>> MIT Alumni Association | Editorial Director
>>>
>>> W98-3rd Fl | 617-253-8217 | ndsmith at mit.edu
>>>
>>> http://alum.mit.edu/ | Slice of MIT blog: http://alum.mit.edu/sliceofmit
>>>
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>>>
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