Urmston woman write world's worst novel opening (From Messenger Newspapers)

Urmston woman write world's worst novel opening to win Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

9:00am Monday 3rd September 2012 in News By Kate Banks, Reporter

AN international prize for the worst possible opening of a novel has been won by an Urmston woman.

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest began at San Jose State University in 1982 and is traditionally won by Americans, but Cathy Bryant, of Trevor Road’s, entry was just too awful to ignore.
 

Her entry read: “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.”
 

Cathy, 44, is the first British woman to win the prize and said Team GB’s luck must have rubbed off on her.

“I always knew I was bad at writing, I just no idea I could do it so well,” joked Cathy.
 

“I know it’s not quite a gold medal at the Olympics, for which people should be grateful, I look truly terrifying in a leotard!”

Cathy also won the Marple Humorous Poetry Prize in 2010 and is one of the editors of Best of Manchester Poets, an annual anthology.
 

The competition was created in honour of Edward George Bulwer Lytton, who penned one of the most famous novel openings in literary history: “It was a dark and stormy night.”
 

Visit www.bulwer-lytton.com/2012win.html for more information.