something to do

Im going to try this...and see how it goes.

Contest #1: Imaginary Book Review

Borges famously wrote: "The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a resume, a commentary . . . More reasonable, more inept, more indolent, I have preferred to write notes upon imaginary books."

The Modern Word is hosting the following contest, open until July 15, 2003:

In the spirit of Borges' remark, write a book review of an imaginary book. The book may be from any time period, it may be fictional or non-fictional, and its author may be either an invention or an actual writer.

The review should be between 500-1000 words, and must be submitted electronically to The Modern Word at the following email address: [email protected]. Entries should be submitted as a Microsoft Word attachment, or as text in the body of the email itself.

The five most creative and well-written reviews will be gathered together and posted permanently on the site. Three reviews will be selected as First, Second and Third place by The Modern Word's staff. The First Place winner will receive a package of five books as a prize: D.B. Weiss' Lucky Wander Boy, Tom Carson's Gilligan's Wake, Matthew Derby's Super Flat Times, Jim Knipfel's The Buzzing, and the new centennial edition of George Orwell's 1984, with a foreword by Thomas Pynchon. (Courtesy of Plume, Picador, Back Bay, Vintage, and Plume, respectively.) Second and Third place winners will receive copies of The Buzzing, courtesy of Vintage.

Submitting a review to The Modern Word authorized the site to have non-exclusive rights to the review for all eternity and a day. The contest closes July 15, and winners will be announced by August 1, 2003.

So study up on your Herbert Quain and Pierre Menard and have fun!