Honours for worst writer

The competition attracts thousands of entrants

A Canadian legal secretary has taken top honours for her parody of Ernest Hemingway's work - with the title bad writer of year.

Sera Kirk of Vancouver took the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest by storm with her fictional ramblings on the running of the Pomeranian dogs in Liechtenstein.

A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each other lustily...

Sera Kirk

She fought off competition from thousands of writers who entered themselves into the contest.

The prize is named after the Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who opened his novel Paul Clifford with the immortal line: "It was a dark and stormy night".

Kirk's own offering begins: "A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each other lustily to the respective ends of the distinct musical choices as the gates flew open to release a torrent of tawny fur comprised of angry yapping bullets that nipped at Desdemona's ankles..."

Awful

Her tale draws on Hemingway's Pamplona bulls, but instead replaces them with Pomeranian dogs - small toy dogs.

She boasts she can write badly in German, French and Spanish.

The competition, now in its 19th year, is open to any writers submitting around 60 words of truly awful prose.

Professor Scott Rice of San Jose State University, which now sponsors the event, said: "It does take skill.

"People always manage to find some new element of absurdity."

The Bulwer-Lytton competition carries an official prize of a "pittance" - about $250 (£177).

This year's contest drew entries from across the globe, including China, Israel, South Africa, United States and the UK.

As well as an overall victor, there are other category winners including detective, science fiction and romance.

Stormy night

There is even a Dark and Stormy Night category, featuring such treasures as "On this dark and stormy night my mother hung the worn enema bag, as was her usual habit, by its sad and frayed rope collar to a rusty nail that protruded from the grotty wall...", written by Baron Fork Weans.

Rice said that while the contest might be responsible for adding to the world's already massive store of bad writing, it was also proof of the enduring appeal of literature.

"You have thousands of people every year parodying language, so in a way you could say the contest contributes to the universal improvement of mankind."