I know you've been waiting breathlessly for this. I've been waiting too, because the entries were so good, so unbelievably good, it was very hard to choose the winner. Nonetheless, one stood out from the crowd. Namely, it made me laugh so hard, that I tinkled in my pants a little. But you all already know I do this anyway, daily. No surprise there. To refresh your memory what this madness was about, last week one of my readers had this wild idea that I should do a writing competition, when I whined how hard it is to find great indie authors and indie books, and how I want to help people discover amazing new voices. I thought, okay, why not? And so Mad Tutu Writing Competition was born. I got 20 submissions, and I think I will do it again, because reading them was a delight. The terms were:

• Write a 1,000 words max short story with magic in it. And make sure it's funny.
• Mention an elephant, a tutu, a breathalyzer, beer-flavored lollipops, a brick and a purse.
• Send a picture of yourself in character (I scratched that, the quality of pics was bad).
• The winner gets to be featured on my blog and gets 1 of my signed paperbacks.

Below you will find the winning entry (get ready, you will pee your pants, I guarantee it) and there rest of the entries underneath, in the order they were submitted (so don't think the one on the top is because it's somehow better than the one on the bottom), with author names and links to their entries as PDF files (you can click on them to upload them). And underneath ALL THAT you will find a PDF file with ALL the entires combined, if you wanted to just read them all. 

Now, people expressed interest in editing it and putting it into a book. Feel free. Jump into comments and organize it. Why not? 

Well then, here we go.

The winner! Of the MAD TUTU WRITING COMPETITION is! Philip Wardlow! About Philip: "If I could live inside the pages of books I would but I do the next best thing, I write."

THE SUMMONING by Philip Wardlow

This was a fuckery of the highest magnitude as her grandmother used to say.  The demon was too damn powerful to hold it in the circle for much longer.

He (and I say he loosely because you never really know for sure) was wearing a fedora with a raven’s feather stuck into it. She saw two small horns sticking out through either side of the hat. Silk black pants and a red silk shirt, with oddly enough a small yellow smiley face button pinned to it that simply read “Shit Happens” finished his ensemble. And boy was he handsome. He smiled at them as he had been doing for the last thirty minutes not saying a word. She could feel him pushing at the boundaries of the trap that had been setup in their backyard, testing for a weakness and still sucking on that damn lollipop.

There were no weaknesses.

Susie, one of her other sisters in the coven, had done a beautiful job with the lawnmower. The cut patch of grass was a perfect cut circle with another design of a pentagram cut within and then traced with human blood (their own of course).  Other rune symbols ran near the inside perimeter of the circle and within the pentagram itself.  A weed-wacker and hedge clippers had been used for the smaller symbols.  

I wondered idly what flavor lollipop the demon was sucking on.

“Margaret! Stop your day dreaming and shore up your point.”  

“Yes, Mother,” Margaret said, looking over out across the circle at the woman she called Mother, who was not her truly her Mother at all.  Mother was naked as the day she was born wearing only a silver necklace which held at the end of it a ruby as red as blood which dangled between her breasts.  Margaret was naked as well, along with her three Sisters who all wore the very same necklace.  Each of them stood just outside at one of the five points where the Pentagram touched the circle.  Margaret bent her will through the red jewel.

“Much better daughter. Be diligent. No meandering of the mind if we are to…”

“Its beer flavored my dear.” the demon said, interrupting the Mother.  “Pabst Blue Ribbon I believe. I do so love a good beer lollipop at a summoning.” The demon turned a wicked smile at Margaret and she shivered. He can read my mind?

“Well of course my dear witch. I wouldn’t be much of an all powerful demon if I couldn’t, now would I? In fact I am getting stronger by the second. Isn’t that right Mother, you feel it don’t you?” the demon said, sneering and turning to her in the circle.

“Shut up, you vile thing…” she started to stay before she couldn’t say any more since she had suddenly turned into an elephant, a small elephant mind you, but still an elephant.  And wearing a yellow tutu with pink polka dots.  It actually looked rather flattering.

Her other sisters were aghast.  Dark short haired little Susie’s eyes went wide and looked ready to run and leave the circle.  The two tall blonde twins, Monica and Harmonica, were besides themselves, both wringing their hands in unison. Margaret had to take charge of the situation. It was up to her now. She was the eldest next to Mother in the circle.

“It’s just an illusion sisters, be strong.  Repeat the binding incantation, now.”  Margaret knew the spell itself would do nothing more than it already had, but it would distract the sisters and give them a focus for the real power behind it. It was all about the will. Always. 

“Thrice inter orbis, reus subsido totus, malum pessum…”  they all began to chant together.

Which essentially meant get the hell back in your cage you evil piece of shit…more or less.

Mother suddenly popped back into view, gone was the small elephant and tutu. Margaret found herself missing the little elephant already; it had actually been an improvement as far as she was concerned.

“Thank you daughter for your strength, you others had best take lessons.”

Margaret couldn’t help but swell with a little bit of pride from the compliment. She was thinking being an elephant for a minute or two had taken the edge off her a bit.

“Oh, how I tire of this farce. Let’s be done already. And shut up already with that chanting.” The demon bemoaned, rolling his eyes with arms crossed.

Margaret suddenly found she couldn’t’ talk, as did her other sisters.  For they all had lollipops stuck in the mouths.  Beer flavored lollipops. They weren’t half bad actually.

“Mmm…mmm.”  Margaret tried to say to the demon.

“What’s that my dear I can’t quite hear you?” He smiled wickedly again.

Margaret spit out the lollipop. “Fuck you! By the way, I have something for you.” Margaret cleared her mind totally so the demon could not read it. She bent down and picked up her purse next to her feet.

“We have been saving this for just this moment.”

“What in the nine hells are you talking about witch!”

“Why this, my good handsome demon,” Margaret pulled from her purse a small white brick and held in front of her. “It’s a binding brick”, she said.

“Frances Sebastian Cavanaugh Cornelius Plumpkin, I command you to do our bidding.” with that she hurled the brick directly into the face of the demon hitting him squarely in his handsomely square jaw.

“You found my true name?” the demon whispered looking frightened for the first time.

“Yes Francis.” Margaret said as she smiled wickedly back.

Later that night the police left, being satisfied with the results from issuing all of them a breathalyzer test. It seemed a neighbor had called the cops, accusing them of being drunk and disorderly. They then pulled the oh-so-powerful demon out of the closet and got down to business to ask for serious witch wishes.

THE REST OF THE ENTRIES:

RATCHET RETAIL by Kevin A.M. Lewis
DON'T TELL GRANDPA by Ashley Carlson
A NIGHT OUT by Kyle Eggleston
NEGOMBO ROAD by Gary Brooks
PEPITO'S ELEPHANT by Rachel Barnard
I AM DOCTOR - HEAR ME GURGLE by Corey Barker
UNDER THE INFLUENCE by Lynn Bauman-Milner
DESIGNATED DUMBO by Sean Roberts
HORACE by Mike Marlow
MAGIC CIRCUS by Brie Haddock
A LONG JOURNEY by Vincent Le Quang
MAD TUTU by Andrzej Tucholski
THERE WAS A WINDOW by Niko Staten
BRICK THROWING TYPE by Holly Lowe
DIRK MCAWESOME THE SMUGGLER by Richard Junk
SHOWTIME by Carola Wolff
THE MAD TUTU by Christopher Mahan
ALBERT'S RIDE by KN Schultz
THE SUMMONING by Philip Wardlow (The winning entry!)
MISTRANSLATED MAGIC by Leigh Ward-Smith
TUTU NOIR by Courtenay Stallings

ALL OF THE ABOVE SUBMISSIONS ARE HERE IN ONE PDF FILE.

Okay, now I'm off to writing, and if you see your name not linked, that means I couldn't find you online (maybe I would, if I had more time) because you didn't send me a link to your site. I have learned from this, will ask for links in the future. 

We shall do this again!