Calamity Cove

Grand Prize: A signed (and personalized, if you like) copy of Black Blade Blues, the first of a new urban fantasy series from J. A. Pitts, published by Tor. Also, you get my Cliff’s Notes version, which is pants-wettingly hilarious.
Runner-up: You get my Cliff’s Notes version.

This is how it works:

1. Create an image (or sculpture, or sweater mural, or some other art piece–I ain’t picky) using the theme: “A movie or stage prop that turns out to be real.”
2. Submit your entry by posting it online with a link back to the contest, and e-mailing me the URL.
3. On April 23rd at the stroke of midnight PST, voting begins; on April 25th at midnight PST, voting closes.
4. Popular vote will decide the winner. If there is a tie, my mother will break it.

And now, more about what you win. This is the blurb for Black Blade Blues by J. A. Pitts:

Sarah Beauhall has more on her plate than most twenty-somethings: day job as a blacksmith, night job as a props manager for a low-budget movie, and her free time is spent fighting in a medieval re-enactment group. When the lead actor breaks Sarah’s favorite one-of-a-kind sword, it sends the director into fits. Sarah agrees to repair the blade to avoid reshooting scenes.

One of the extras claims to be a dwarf and offers to help her at the forge. That’s when things start to get weird. Could the sword really be magic, as he claims? Why does he want her to kill a Portland investment banker? And what is it about that homeless guy that has her on edge?

As if things weren’t surreal enough at that point, Sarah’s girlfriend Katie breaks out the dreaded phrase… “I love you.”

Black Blade Blues is about forging an existence in a world that is much different than one expects.

Oh, and dragons.

The contest fine print, which is regular sized because I’m not a douchebag lawyer: You must be eighteen to enter, because while I would have loved this book when I was sixteen, your parents might be more tight-assed than mine, and I don’t like being hunted and slaughtered and made into a Sänskin rug. Also, by entering, you agree to let me archive your entry on my website. I won’t duplicate, redistribute, or alter it without your permission–I just want the contest preserved for posterity. And finally, I’m not going to spend a long time writing more fine print, so if something comes up and I have to make an executive decision, I’m just going to do that. By entering, you agree that I am Contest God and you’ll shut up and take it like a rhinoceros. (I hear they’re pretty stoic.)

Thanks for playing! And hey, if this theme isn’t something you think you can work with, watch for the next one coming up in a couple of weeks. It has to do with superpowers…