It was another exceptional contest. Read the best entries and find out who won.
Best First Sentence Winner
It was another difficult decision over which I heartached for one week.
Here, in no particular order, were the finalists:
She sat down exhausted.
— Shannon Murray
After a lifetime of incubation, she now carried the fatal disease.
— Scott
She stepped into darkness, and the sickening crunch of dried bones made her cringe.
— Bethany
But the winner was Dave Zoby, whose entry reads thus:
Macon, Ga–The Ark of the Covenant was a flimsy, earth-worm colored thrill ride that lifted a rattling chain of cars above the lid of fall foliage, flinty hills to the west, glimpse of river like a wet snake; Laura sat beside her husband, Reverend Doug Brown, as the cars trundled upward link by link, and said to herself that when this was over she was leaving him and her idiot children once and for all, his forthcoming pleas and death threats be damned.
Congratulations, Dave.
And my thanks to you all.
One Hundred Dollars for the Best First Sentence
Journal Pulp is offering a $100.00 cash prize for the following:
Best first sentence for a novel about a monomaniacal archeologist who discovers for certain the actual resting place of the Ark of the Covenant, and who resolves that, despite its being so heavily guarded, she will open the golden lid of the Ark — or die trying.
Rules and guidelines:
No outrageous run-ons. You can submit anonymously or under your real name, it doesn’t matter.
No minimum length requirement.
Submit as many separate entries as you’d like.
Leave your sentence(s) here.
The winner will be selected by the Journal Pulp.
The contest will be open for two weeks from today: June 18, 2014, through July, 2014, at midnight.
Best First Sentence Contest
The Journal Pulp is offering a $100.00 cash prize for the following:
Best first sentence for a novel about a lovely librarian who secretly burns the books she loves because she wants no one else to read them.
You got the stuff?
Submit your work here: