Purple Prose Contest Winners

The winners were determined by voting over the last week.  Please remember that in order to win, the sentences had to be purple (overwritten).

First place receives a query critique by literary agent, Jon Tienstra.  

First place--Rachelle J. Christensen:

11. When he heard about the empurpled contest on Query Tracker, the coils of dark, multitudinous hair which made up his eyebrows knit together in fury, like a spry grandmother’s knitting needles, clicking incessantly and rapidly, the sun’s rays illuminating them with a silver gleam, like the gleam of a young child’s brand new bicycle bedecked in all its glory with lemon-colored streamers and chiffon paint with stripes of lavender that shimmered like the violet hue of his eyes which were now thoughtful; the wrinkles around his wide, pupil-inhabited orbs seemed pensive as he considered how he might win Query Tracker’s contest and emerge a champion like a magnificent Olympic sports-star—but not like Greg Luganis because he hit his head—instead his own powerful kind of win—the kind to fill a man’s soul with joy to overflowing like a large bowl of Rocky Road ice cream with ostentatious helpings of steaming hot fudge, but not butterscotch because it would contrast with the rich hues of the chocolate which was so sweet as would be his joy when he won—like a bareback rider in the National Rodeo Finals hanging on for dear life to a fraying strap of yellowed rope—he imagined this with fervor, gripping the gleaming pen in his hand as he began to write.

Our second place winner receives a free premium membership to QueryTracker (a $25 value).  

Second place--Amy Sonnichsen:

2.  Her laugh spilled from vermilion lips like a waterfall rushing, heaving, crashing into a deep cataract of stone, into a pool of endless depth, ringing eternally in the night air, stirring the music of the cicadas ebbing and flowing with their throbbing, undulating dirge in the deepening, empty darkness, as she smiled wistfully, her lips curling into a subtle, voluptuous hallow, like a half-moon draped provocatively over a deep-blue sofa amid the glowing, phosphorescent stars, and whispered with a breathy huskiness, "Query Tracker is having a carnival ... how delightful, dahling!"

  

We had a three-way tie for third place.  All will receive a copy of Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors by Steve Weber.  

Third place: 

1. The stars twinkled above like tiny diamonds caught in the fabric of the night sky, or possibly they could have been fireflies stuck in the black expanse of the night, either way the stars twinkled and glittered like finely cut gems from the most expensive jewelry stores, the kind where people pass by and gaze with wonder through the glass windows as they wish for something incredible, wonderful, and unexpected to happen--just like they do on stars; so Querytracker, here's me wishing on those exquisite gems that are really giant balls of flaming gas situated farther from earth than I'm comfortable in traveling, that perhaps, if you are quite agreeable, that this dreadful purpleness that is not quite mauve may be acceptable to you. --by Danyelle Leafty

8. It began one sultry mid-August afternoon, whose ominous, bruised Manhattan skies and sweltering, stultifying Big Apple pavements drove yours truly into the air-conditioned comfort of Macys Fifth Avenue with no particular destination in mind, consumed, in fact, by idle thoughts of entering the Query-Tracker Purple Prose contest (though it seemed to me that given my dedication to prose clarity and syntactic precision, it was laughably improbable I could be physically or mentally or, for that matter, emotionally, capable of constructing such an entry, let alone do so in a manner calculated to achieve some sort of buffoonish recognition) when, out of the blue, I was seized unaccountably and without warning by the urge to embark upon a casual stroll through the ladies' lingerie department, unaware, sadly, that had I been adequately prepared — though, now, in twenty-twenty retrospective hindsight, through the cruel, pellucid lens of reality as well as the stark prism of senescence, I realize there could have been no such preparatory experience, and furthermore had I not at that very moment found myself sitting on a razorblade of indecision (lingerie? shoes? lingerie? shoes?) — I would have disdained notice of the mammiform apparition that exploded from the fetid bowels of a changing room – in front of which (I was subsequently required to explain to a battery of unsympathetic security personnel whose rude and intrusive conclusion-jumping and absence of good will spoke volumes) I'd happened to drop my car keys, and had as a consequence fallen to my knees in search of them — like a Wagnerian wood nymph whose diaphanous wings had been wickedly bound by mischievous gods and secured by a gilded undergarment that left so little to the imagination it evoked from within my innermost being a carnal ululation so intense and released a gushing flood of unabashed desire so overwhelming that I was sucked headlong into the maws of an enormous black hole of desire, thus occasioning what became, at length, one of the most profound mistakes of my entire life, that is to say, one whose reach and magnitude cannot be overstated, as — with the gravity of heavy water and the unabashed existential momentum of a meteor on an ineluctable trajectory presaging the utter destruction of life on this planet as we know it — I extended a hand palsied by desire and, my voice unable to suppress the husky susurrus emanating from stalactites of passion drip-dripping deep within the echoing caverns of my fevered id, I helplessly intoned, "Madam, my card!" --by Curt Snodgrass

13.  Carla professed to her shrink her feelings of paranoia, of being followed, tracked, even, like a bear in the woods followed by three bloodhounds, one more blood-thirsty than the other, until he discovered that her suspicions were warranted since Carla is listed as an agent on QueryTracker and therefore hundreds, if not thousands, of people were indeed tracking her every move. --by Pamela Hammonds

As with all our contests during our QueryTracker Carnival, every contest entry results in the participant's name going into the drawing for the grand prize: a free writer's website design by Purple Squirrel Design, a $600 value! (They designed my website, by the way.)

The QT Carnival has been so much fun for the blog authors.  We hope you guys have enjoyed it too.  Tomorrow, the Anagram Contest winners will be announced. 

Have a great week.

Mary

Mary Lindsey writes paranormal fiction for children and adults. Prior to attending University of Houston Law School, she received a B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Drama.

Mary can also be found on her website.