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Roaring Sea Tale Takes SJSU Worst Writing Honors

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Jun 29, 2009 4:58 pm US/Pacific

Roaring Sea Tale Takes SJSU Worst Writing Honors

SAN JOSE (CBS 5 / AP) ―

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A tale of bellowing sea fellows has taken top honors, if you can call it that, in a contest celebrating bad writing.

David McKenzie, a 55-year-old Washington man, won grand prize Monday in San Jose State University's 27th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. The contest calls for bad opening sentences to imaginary novels, with the worst one taking grand prize.

McKenzie's line begins, "Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish."