by Sue Horner | Nov 7, 2024 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Is it that time already? Yup. All the Halloween decorations are tucked away for the season and stores have been filled with Christmas decorations for weeks. I haven’t heard a cheerful “Only X weeks to Christmas!” yet but it’s only a matter of...
by Sue Horner | Nov 13, 2023 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The “gifting season” is upon us! I heard this term for the first time this year, and you have to admit it is politically correct. No dancing around what holiday you celebrate, even if it does reduce the season to an exchange of gifts. In any case, it’s time for my...
by Sue Horner | Aug 17, 2023 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I can’t be the only one who eagerly awaits the results of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. At last, they’re in! This amusing contest goes back to 1982, and invites ideas for the worst possible opening sentence to a fictitious novel. It’s named after Edward...
by Sue Horner | Nov 9, 2022 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
All the Halloween decorations are stashed for the season. American Thanksgiving is on the doorstep. Warm weather on the weekend had neighbours putting up their Christmas lights. Someone I know (not naming names) had a Christmas tree up on November 3. So, it’s time for...
by Sue Horner | Aug 22, 2022 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
As I note every year around this time, it takes real creativity to come up with truly awful writing. Yes, I’m talking about the winners of the over-the-top Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. This contest challenges entrants to come up with the opening sentence to the...
by Sue Horner | Mar 3, 2022 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
During such a troubling time in the world, it may seem wrong to be talking about grammar. Yet the pandemic, the anti-vaccine protestors and now Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have clearly showed the importance of words and how they are presented. Also, maybe you...
by Sue Horner | Dec 3, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Any contest (1) dealing with books and (2) awarding a prize to The Oddest Book Title of the Year is a winner. So if you’re a book lover too, you’ll be eager to find out the winner of the quirky Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title for 2021. Drumroll…. Is Superman...
by Sue Horner | Nov 19, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Festive lights and Christmas trees are already popping up in my neighbourhood. American Thanksgiving is fast approaching. The news is full of dire predictions for the availability of whatever it was you hoped to buy for Christmas gifts. Let’s get cracking, then,...
by Sue Horner | Aug 13, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
If you like the idea of spinning a wordy, over-the-top sentence that would be proud to launch a bad novel, you must know about the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. I first found and wrote about this amusing contest in 2009, although it began in 1982. As the site says,...
by Sue Horner | Mar 4, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Hold onto your dictionaries; it’s National Grammar Day! You can thank Martha Brockenbrough and the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG) for this “glorious” day (haha). She founded SPOGG in 2008 “for people appalled by bad grammar in public...
