Blooker Prize Blog

Updated entry lists

Entry to the 2007 Blooker is officially closed, and the last few submissions are trickling in. I have replaced the Entries So Far sidebar list with updated lists broken down by category. If your blook has been removed from the list, that means that we never received the printed, bound version of it (as per the contest rules). If it's on the way (and was shipped no later than January 16), I will add it back to the list when it arrives.

The submitted blooks now go to the review committee that will select the short-list for each category. We will announce the finalists on Monday, March 12, 2007. Until then, I will continue to blog about this year's entries, so if your blook hasn't been featured in a post yet, don't worry, I will get to them all in due time.

To everyone who entered the the Blooker this year, thank you and good luck!

Deadline Extension

Due to an embarrassing oversight on our part, the entry deadline for the 2007 Blooker was scheduled on the same day as the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday--a day when the U.S. Post Office is closed.

Therefore, we will  be accepting entries that are postmarked on the 16th of January, 2007.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Truth strange enough for fiction

So far, we've given a lot of attention to our Non-Fiction entries, so it seems high time to give the floor to some of our submissions to the Fiction category--several of which are novels based on the author's non-fiction blog.

The Washingtonienne: A Novel
by Jessica Cutler - www.jessicacutleronline.com

$10.95 (Hyperion) Buy it

Blooker category: Fiction

"When Jacqueline Turner's fiance give her two days to move out of his apartment, she has no choice but to leave New York City and crash with her best friend in Washington, D.C...It's a town where a girl has to make her own excitement--and Jacqueline is just the woman for the job...Jackie's roster of paramours grows so complicated that her friends ask her to start a blog so they can keep up. But in a small town like Washington, the line between private and public blurs very easily, and Jackie quickly realizes this blog idea may be more than she bargained for...Deliciously gossipy and impossible to put down, The Washingtonienne is every bit as steamy and outrageous as the real-life exploits that inspired it."

The Banana Project
by Cat Oars Fiction Collective - forums.losangeles.craigslist.org

$8.50 (Francias/Lulu) Buy it

Blooker category: Fiction

Stories by the Cat Oars Fiction Collective--writers who post on the Craigslist Literary & Writing forum.

"What are we? Well, we're not an MFA publication. We like to think of ourselves as the garage band equivalent of a literary review or a punk rock version of the Algonquin Round Table, or an online community of outsider artists, or anything you can think of besdies an MFA review...For Banana I asked the writers to find a few words from a Velvet Underground or Lou Reed song that had some personal resonance, then blend them into a story, then write about why they picked that songs and those lyrics."

Faces in the Street: Louisa and Henry Lawson and the Castlereagh Street Push
by Pip Wilson - www.wilsonsalmanac.com

$21.48 (Lulu) Buy it

Blooker category: Fiction

"'She struggled to get women the vote. Her son was Australia's most famous writer. They drove each other crazy.' Meticulously researched big Aussie historical novel that takes the lid off the world of Louisa Lawson and Henry Lawson and their circle of radical friends: revolution, poverty, love affairs, madness, drunkenness, sedition, terrorism, passionate hopes, and friendships with some of Australia's most remarkable people. Much historical info here is not in their biographies."

Diary of a Dysfunctional Flight Attendant: The Queen of Sky Blog
by Ellen Simonetti - queenofsky.net

$22.95 (Blog Based Books) Buy it

Blooker category: Fiction

"The novel is based on the controversial true story of Ellen Simonetti, whose 2004 firing from a major US airline made headlines around the world and causes an international debate about the limits of free speech. It follows the online ramblings of Queen of Sky, the alter ego of Elena Guaio, a fun-loving, light-hearted and slightly dysfunctional flight attendant for "Anonymous International Airlines." Elena's blog quickly becomes her trusted confidant, which she uses as a release and a tool to sort through the numerous ups and downs of her life...She eventually even decides to post pictures of herself on her blog--pictures in her flight attendant uniform. The result of this seemingly innocent act throws her life into complete disarray."

The Doorbells of Florence
by Andrew Losowsky - www.flickr.com/photos/andrewlos

$27.99 (Prandial Publishing/Lulu) Buy it

Blooker category: Fiction

"As more than 12,500 viewers (and counting) of the Flickr set can testify, The Doorbells of Florence is cult fiction at its least predictable.

This book contains 36 real Italian doorbells (including some never before seen), each one with a strange story about the people and things that may, or may not, live inside.

This first-ever volume of "flicktion" was written by Andrew Losowsky and lovingly put together by award-winning designer, Nuno Vargas as the mini coffee table book that espresso was invented for."

Anonymous Lawyer
by Jeremy Blachman - anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com

$25.00 (Henry Holt) Buy it

Blooker category: Fiction

"He's a hiring partner at one of the world's largest law firms. Brilliant yet ruthless, he has little patience for associates who leave the office before midnight or steal candy from the bowl on his secretary's desk. He hates holidays and paralegals. And he's just started a weblog to tell the world about what life is really like at the top of his profession...Written in the form of a blog, Anonymous Lawyer is a spectacularly entertaining debut that rips away the bland facade of corporate law and offers a telling glimpse inside a frightening world."

New Blooks for a New Year

We're back for 2007, and there are only 11 days left to enter the Lulu Blooker Prize! Remember, entries  must be POSTMARKED no later than Monday, January 15. For anyone who has already entered, and would like to advertise it on their own website, we've created this official web badge:

Download it for free

This image could even be used as a button to link back to www.lulublookerprize.com.

For today's spotlighted entries, we have six non-fiction books which represent many of the key genres of the blogosphere--such as mommy blogs, soldier blogs, and photoblogs.

The Blog of War: Front-line Dispatches from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan
by Matthew Currier Burden - www.blackfive.net

$15.00 (Simon & Schuster) Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"In The Blog of War Burden presents selections from some of the best of the military blogs, the purest account of the many voices of this war. this is the first real-time history of the war, a history written even as the war continues. It offers a glimpse into the full range of military experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, from the decision to enlist right through to homecoming. There are powerful stories of soldiers in combat, touching reflections on helping local victims of terror and war, pulse-racing accounts of medevac units and hospitals, and heartbreaking chronicles of spouses who must cope when a loved one has paid the ultimate price."

Vegan Lunch Box
by Jennifer McCann - www.veganlunchbox.com

$22.95 (Little "S" Press) Buy it

Blooker category - Non-Fiction

"If you think vegan lunchtime means peanut butter and jelly day after day, think again! From the simple to the sublimely gourmet, Vegan Lunch Box brings you an amazing array of entirely meat-free, egg-free, and dairy-free launches that will transform how you look at lunchtime forever!"

Mommy Confidential: Adventures from the Wonderbelly of Motherhood
by Melinda Roberts - www.themommyblog.net

$19.95 (Aventine Press/Lulu) Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"Mommy Confidential is a naked, brutally funny, endearingly honest chronicle of family life beset by disaster on many fronts. Mindy keeps her family together through catastrophic illness, four bouts of postpartum depression, financial peril, familial Waterloo, and job instability. All through it her sense of humor and her sharp, edgy, witty writing keeps her together and upright. No, really."

Blood, Sweat & Tea: Real-life Adventures in an Inner-city Ambulance
by Tom Reynolds - randomreality.blogware.com

£7.99 (The Friday Project) Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"Have you ever wondered what's going on inside the ambulance you see screaming past with its sirens on and blue lights flashing? Meet Tom Reynolds. Tom is an Emergency medical Technician who works for the London Ambulance Service in East London. He has kept a diary of his daily working life since 2003, first as a website called "Random Acts of Reality" and now for the first time as a no-punches-pulled book. His award-winning writing is, by turn, moving, cynical, funny, heart-rending and compassionate...the stories Tom tells give a fascinating--and at times alarming--picture of life in inner-city Britain, and the people who are paid to mop up after it."

Tana's Habitat: The Ultimate Guide to Finding, Affording, and Styling Your First Place
by Tana March - www.tanashabitat.com

$18.95 (Perigee) Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"From living in a storage unit to creating art out of the everyday, Tana's been through it all, and knows how to turn trash into treasure. Now she's bringing her special brand of design savvy to you. Her popular website is a hit with people who crave her creative, environmentally friendly, do-it-yourself projects and real-world philosophies."

Fotolog.book: A Global Snapshot for the Digital Age
edited by Andrew Long, texts by Nick Currie - www.fotolog.com

$34.95 (Thames & Hudson) Buy it

Blooker category: Non-Fiction

"With digital cameras and camera phones, millions of people are obsessively documenting their daily lives. The fotolog™ phenomenon transcends national borders, language barriers, and age gaps. From hotblooded (and sometimes hot-headed) teenagers in Brazil to cool silver surfers in Iceland, doctors, lawyers, dentists, mothers-to-be, and great-grandfathers, all these people have one thing in common: they communicate with images.

Organized into themes with quotes and commentaries, this book guides us to the best of the millions of images and multitudes of words found in the fotolog™ archives.

fotolog™.book shows us how we see our world, rather than images that newspapers deem newsworthy, images that marketers hope will be money-making or galleries judge to be Art with a capital A. It shows us what the fresh eyes of hundreds of ordinary men and women find beautiful, funny, moving, or extraordinary. Over 1000 color illustrations."