And the Winner for Bad Sex is...

"David Guterson has won the 19th annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award, for Ed King (Bloomsbury). The prize was presented to a representative of his publishers by Barbara Windsor, star of the Carry On films and Eastenders.

Alexander Waugh and Barbara Windsor (© Alan Davidson/The Picture Library Ltd)

David Guterson lives in America and was unable to accept the prize in person. 'Oedipus practically invented bad sex, so I'm not in the least bit surprised,' he said in response to his fifth novel winning the award. His bestselling debut, Snow Falling on Cedars, won the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.


Ed King is a re-imagining of the Oedipus myth in the second half of the twentieth century. The winning scene is introduced in the book as 'the part where a mother has sex with her son'. The judges were swayed by the following paragraphs:

These sorts of gyrations and five-sense choreographies, with variations on Ed's main themes, played out episodically between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m., when Diane said, "Let's shower."

In the shower, Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap. After a while he shut his eyes, and Diane, wielding her fingernails now and staring at his face, helped him out with two practiced hands, one squeezing the family jewels, the other vigorous with the soap-and-warm-water treatment. It didn't take long for the beautiful and perfect Ed King to ejaculate for the fifth time in twelve hours, while looking like Roman public-bath statuary. Then they rinsed, dried, dressed, and went to an expensive restaurant for lunch.

Guterson narrowly edged out strong competition from Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 ('A freshly made ear and a freshly made vagina look very much alike, Tengo thought'), Chris Adrian's The Great Night (featuring an 'impossibly stiff, impossibly eloquent cock' that 'poked her now from the front and now from the back and now from the side'), and Lee Child's The Affair ('Then it was time. We started tenderly. Long and slow, long and slow. Deep and easy. She flushed and gasped. So did I. Long and slow').


The shortlist also included:

• On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry
• The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey
• Parallel Stories by Péter Nádas
• 11.22.63 by Stephen King
• The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M Auel
• Dead Europe by Christos Tsiolkas
• Outside the Ordinary World by Dori Ostermiller
• Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy

Last year the prize was won by Rowan Somerville for The Shape of Her published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson..."


The Original article may be found below


http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsex2011.php

Interview with an Evie Winner - Renee Yates

Welcome to the first interview with one of our 2011 Evie Winners - Renee Yates who won in the Fiction Category.  Renee pitched at the Evanston Writer's Workshop Conference and received a contract.  Please join me in welcoming Renee Yates!

Renee, I want to first congratulate you on your contract with Whispers Publishing!

Can you tell us a little bit about the book contracted ?

The title of the book is The White Nightgown.  It is a story about a thirty-six-year-old African-American woman, Michelle, who marries a Jewish man, David, and their difficult relationships with his mother.  I'm told that it is scheduled to be released early next year (2012), perhaps February.  But that's tentative right now.

Did your publisher say what they liked about your piece?

Yes, Jessica Damien, my editor at Whispers Publishing put it this way:

"The White Nightgown grips the heart in a tear-jerking squeeze as the reader delves into the pathos, depression, and the despairing emotions of the characters.  The gritty, down-to-earth reality of the story begs the hope of a happy ending, and one can't put down the book until the end.

This is the sort of story a lot of publishers seem afraid to publish, but it fits in well with Whispers' new search for a broader range of plot devices.  We are looking forward to extending our readership with stories like this, which bravely go beyond the typical."

You won the Evanston Writers Contest with a different story.  What was your inspiration for the Evie winning short story, “The Easter Outfit.”

"The Easter Outfit" was inspired by memories of how exciting it was for me to get a new outfit every year for Easter when I was a child; and a disturbing experience I had with a neighbor around age eight or nine.  Even though the story was inspired by personal, unconnected events, it is pure fiction.

Do you have any writing rituals that you follow on a regular basis?

Not really.  Even though I actually began writing in the late 1980s, I still think of myself as a new writer.  I’m still trying to figure out what type of rituals or schedule will work for me.  Right now, I just write when characters speak to me or when ideas occur to me.  That can happen at any moment because the people and events that occur throughout my daily activities often inspire ideas and character thoughts. However, lately, I found that regular meditation and Yoga helps to keep my mind open to ideas.

My Macbook and a smart phone with a Notes application and a voice recorder.

If you could only answer one question, what would it be, and how would you answer?

The question:  What is the key to true happiness?

The answer:  Mindfulness

Dark or milk chocolate?

Both.

Coffee or tea?

Both.

Thanks Renee for taking the time to interview with ShopNotes.  Keep us posted on your career as we'd love to hear how things are going for one of our first Evie winners.  

If you would like to interview for ShopNotes please contact me at tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org.

Tina
Editor in Chief What are your must-have writing tools?

Short-Story Contest -see hyperlink

"Call for entries: The Writer's 2011 Short-Story Contest

The Writer is pleased to announce its 2011 Short-Story Contest is open! Once again, we're partnering with Gotham Writers' Workshop to bring you this contest, which offers great prizes to the top three finishers:

Call for Submissions! - Magazine dot com

"NARRATIVE"

Magazine.com announces:

The Narrative Library $25,000 Book Award Series.
Open to previously unpublished book-length works.

AND

The Winter 2010 Story Contest, with $6,500 in prizes.
Open to all fiction and non-fiction writers. Entry deadline March 31.

All entries will be considered for publication.
Please see the guidelines at Narrativemagazine.com.

All submissions must be made online.

DEADLINE EXTENDED - TODAY, 12/10/2009 - Contest Announcement: Writer's Digest 10th Annual Short Short Story Writing Competition: Deadline: 12/1/2009

The deadline for the short fiction contest has been extended to today. Our original blurb about it is here. Good luck!

Contest Announcement: Writer's Digest 10th Annual Short Short Story Writing Competition: Deadline: 12/1/2009

Writer's Digest 10th Annual Short Short Story Writing Competition: Deadline: 12/1/2009

We're looking for fiction that's bold, brilliant...but brief.

Send us your best in 1,500 words or fewer. Enter the 10th Annual Short Short Story Competition for your chance to win BIG $$$$ - including the $3000 First Prize!

Click here for additional information.

Writer's Digest 9th Annual Short Short Story Writing Competition

Look for the winners of the 9th Annual Short Short Story Competition in the May/June 2009 issue of Writer's Digest.