Thursday, June 11, 2009

This is not not a Contest: Finalists

I have selected 10 finalists for the Lamination Colony This is not not a Contest contest.

A winner will be picked from among these finalists on Friday.

I gotta say, it was really really hard narrowing it down. There were more than 200 entires and such a small percentage of stuff that I was able to eliminate with a quick read, which usually cuts normal submissions by at least in half. My usual reading policy is, When I feel bored, I stop. Sometimes, if I feel the boredom might be random, I will give it a few lines to come back to me, but it rarely does. Excitement and interest is a huge indicator for me whether something is doing good and new at once, as even when the reading might be language-difficult, it still will either have that light, or it will not.

All that said, let me say: Thanks to everyone who sent, good god man, I almost feel bad not selecting a whole lot more as finalists, because there were was so much in there that got me going, and for that, this contest is already a success. Pretty much if you sent something, damn. I hate to have to be the decider.

For the selections, then, I read mostly blind for names, I did not read cover letters and tried to not look at the names when clicking on emails. Sometimes I did see but mostly I was able to read blind even though it was not 'scientific.' I marked each piece as No, OK, or Good. Then with the Goods I went back through and cut until I had the nine pieces that most excited me, and simultaneously seemed to be doing something new or at least interesting in both form and content, with language, images, and ways of communicating information. Straight stories, even though there were some good ones, just didn't feel right for this contest n whatnot.

Ok, I'm babbling, here are the 10 finalists, all of whom will get some sort of prize, though the lion's share will go to the winner, who will be announced (from among this group) on Friday.

** To be clear, I have not decided the winner, and the winner will be one of the finalists...


LC CONTEST FINALISTS

Bobby Alter, ‘A cardiovasc’
Andrew Borgstrom, ‘Stories with Teeth in Them’
Mel Bosworth, ‘Stump Grinder’

James Chapman, ‘Rat’

Mark Doten, ‘Gray Zone Kidz’

Sasha Fletcher, ‘we are going to get paid and then we will dress for the weather’

Drew Kalbach, ‘Scraps from My Bathroom Stall’

Darby Larson, ‘Digestable Moose Kidney Sculpture Garden’

Ben Segal, 'Jelly Bodies'
Christian TeBordo, ‘Rules and Regulations’



Thanks again to all for the support, the words, and the time. You're all tops in my book, for real.

13 comments:

Ken Baumann said...

Good job to all.

Crispin Best said...

well done humans
well done men

Crispin Best said...

well done bosworth

Mel Bosworth said...

Thanks for the love, Blake. Back at you. Thanks for the love, Crispin. Back at you too.

Godspeed to us all.

Frank said...

grr.

Anonymous said...

Nice, everyone. Excited to read the finalists/winner/whatever will be eventually posted.

Reynard said...

can't wait to read the winner. will you also post a runner-up story, or? i wanna read all of them.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

hi everybody, thank you again.

yeah, i will likely publish more than one of the finalists, depending, we'll see. :)

Keith Montesano said...

Awesomeness. I don't understand how you have all the time to do all this, Blake. You are a hard-working-alien-not-really-from-this-planet-probably among men.

exadore said...

damn, most of these beat mine on title alone.

sam pink said...

i like darby's title.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

yes, titles killin it, i have been staring at the list of titles in admiration

christopher higgs said...

This project was a great idea!

This list looks pleasing.

I look forward to reading the winner, and I assume the ones that don't get published in LC will easily find homes elsewhere, where I can read them.