Well, strangely enough I'm not a sore loser. I am, however, somewhat outraged that someone who can't fucking write to save her life won.

Just for interest's sake, I circulated the story amongst NON-MEDIUM writers and readers. In every respect, the response was the same. "Couldn't get past the 2nd/3rd paragraph. Boring. Longwinded. English isn't good. It doesn't sing."

I don't know what the rest of the story was because I, too, couldn't read past the 3rd paragraph. It would just have been a waste of my time.

Someone else summed it up very succinctly - that this wasn't about awarding nice people, it was supposed to be about awarding good writers. And a good writer, this lady is not. She is a good university essayist. Not the same thing.

From the general kind of article selected for these prizes, I would say that the people who did the selecting were not actually professional writers or authors. If there was an author amongst that lot, they were probably in the literary genre - the stuff that doesn't sell overmuch.

There are people who think that good writing is about presenting depressing situations, and that,somehow these depressing situations are a) what people want to read about and b) brings people to tears or feel strong emotion.

They haven't the foggiest.

I'll leave it at that.

Oh. yes, I'm looking forward to the Dune movie. Best fucking book I ever read in my entire life. Now there's a writer.