Sunday, August 17, 2008

Bullet Points: The Kicked-back Sunday Edition

• I know I’m a few days late with this, but I don’t want to miss mentioning the winners of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton (Bad) Fiction Contest. Robert B. Robeson of Lincoln, Nebraska, triumphed in the “Detective” category with this opening line:
Mike Hummer had been a private detective so long he could remember Preparation A, his hair reminded everyone of a rat who’d bitten into an electrical cord, but he could still run faster than greased owl snot when he was on a bad guy’s trail, and they said his friskings were a lot like getting a vasectomy at Sears.
The runner-up in that same category was Russ Winter of Janesville, Minnesota, who submitted this rough gem:
The hardened detective glanced at his rookie partner and mused that whoever had coined the term “white as a sheet” had never envisioned a bed accessorized with a set of Hazelnut, 500-count Egyptian cotton linens from Ralph Lauren complemented by matching shams and a duvet cover nor the dismembered body of its current occupant.
• Anthony Neil Smith is the latest master of ceremonies for the traveling Carnival of the Criminal Minds. You’ll find his self-proclaimed “freak show” here.

• Tickets for the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Awards banquet, to be held during Bouchercon in Baltimore this fall, are going for $60 apiece. More info here.

• The summer issue of Mouth Full of Bullets is now out.

• Did you know that the first KillerCon--“a new multi-genre (horror, thriller, and paranormal romance) convention”--will be held in Las Vegas in mid-September 2009? There are more details here.

• Congratulations to Duane Swierczynski on the sale to Hollywood of rights to his latest novel, Severance Package.

• And comic-book writer Chris Mills has posted an early review of the DVD set Honey West, which follows our recent look back at that 1965-1966 series. We look forward to at least renting the set.

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