Last week, I knew I’d have some time to kill in class while students worked and I had little to grade or plan. Not having my usual books with me, I swung by the library to grab something easy and quick with which to while away the quiet spots of one evening on campus. I scanned the short story collections at the Clark County library, and grabbed Writers of the Future, volume XVIII. This annual anthology collects the winners of their science fiction and fantasy writing contests. I’ve read some other volumes in the series, and they’ve been pretty good.
This one wasn’t bad, also, offering some enjoyable new stories. However, I started one called “Worlds Apart,” whose second page contains the following ridiculously wretched lines:
Her hair was ohh. Her face was ahh. Her body was the gift that keeps on giving. Maybe that’s why I kissed her.
Woah. This won a contest? Maybe it should have been entered in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. It could have won that one, too.
Gently Hew Stone 