LitReactor: the supplemental material

Contest Time!

Like many of you, I write in my books as I read, making note of favorite passages, adding side comments and insights, and even writing in the occasional expletive when a favorite character dies (looking at you, George R.R. Martin).

Well, LitReactor wants to see your annotations and margin notes! As an example, I’ve included a photo of a page from my personal copy of Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.

Here are the rules:

Send us an image of either your most heavily annotated pages or your most interesting annotations.
If the book title and author aren’t clear in the image, make sure to include them in your submission.
The deadline for submission is Friday, March 13th, 2015
Prizes include a copy of the new Jonathan Lethem collection, Lucky Alan, and a copy of the new TPB of Frog Music by Emma Donoghue.
The winner will have first choice from the prizes and the runner up will receive the remaining book.

You can submit your photos to the tumblr or tweet them to us using #annotatedcontest

Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Journal Entry Contest Runner-Ups

1st Runner-Up: Grant Williams

Villain: Buffalo Bill, Novel: The Silence of the Lambs

Dear Diary,

Slow day today. Went to the store to get some dog food and some of that lotion with the oatmeal in it. Had a coupon. Saved 55 cents. I should have waited until Wednesday when they double coupons, but things are drying out at home. Got distracted in the makeup section for a while.
The scrawny woman stocking the shelves asked me if I needed any help. I mumbled under my breath that she’d need to gain some weight first. When she said she couldn’t hear me I told her that I was just picking some things up for a friend. Maybe someday I’ll have the confidence to really tell people what I think.
So flustered I left with a tube of lipstick that makes me look like a trashy clown.
Stopped by Joann Fabric next to get some thread. I’ve got a huge sewing project to finish up.
Gotta go. I think someone is trying to break in.
-B. Bill

2nd Runner-Up: Tierney Green

Villain: Bellatrix Lestrange Novel: Harry Potter Series

Monday 1st September

8st 3 (can still fit in best corset- huzzah!), murders 3 4, muggles killed 12 (getting a little lax).

Noon. Malfoy Manor. Potter boy didn’t show up on Hogwarts express. Typical. Dark Lord is annoyed but not surprised.

2.30 Killed the moron responsible for taking several Death Eaters to search train instead of being at their posts. Dark Lord hasn’t noticed yet but hoping it makes him happy.

2.35 Still no thanks from Dark Lord.

2.45 Nothing as yet. Not even comment on my wandwork or new “revenge" robes (figured it’s best to be prepared for all occasions).

3pm Spoke to Sissy in fire. She thinks he was probably busy thinking about how to kill Potter so didn’t have time to notice little niceties. Humph.

5.20 Success! He laughed and said it was good to get such idiots out from under his feet. We exchanged a meaningful look. Was glorious. Think am still his favourite.

6.30 Still. Would be nice to be appreciated for more than just bloodlust. Lucius all huffy because Dark Lord still thinks he’s a wet blanket. Threw his cane at me when I pointed out that he kind of is.

7pm Snape came round. Is still a tosser. Boasted about searching the school even though Potter wasn’t there anyway. Dark Lord thanked him and congratulated him on his thoroughness.

How does that greasy git get praise for bossing people about when I put in effort myself and it’s barely noticed? Ugh. Men.

Journal Entry Contest Winner

Well, we’ve picked our three winners for our villain journal entry contest. We received a lot of great submissions, which is why it took a few days to decide. Below is the winning submission, the two runner-ups will be published in a separate post. Since we got such a great response to this contest, we’ll try to do another one soon. Thanks again for all the submissions everyone!

Winner: Sarah Pilato

Villain: Cancer, Novel: The Fault in Our Stars

I always have to be the bad guy, don’t I? It’s not like I try to be. I mean, I guess I never try to be the good guy either. I’m just trying to survive. That’s all my life is about anyway. Survival. Funny thing is, self-preservation is often misinterpreted as evil.
Okay, I know from the outside looking in it’s pretty dark. An unfortunate side effect of my survival is another’s demise. Everywhere my life touches I’ve left a trail of destruction. It’s kind of my legacy.
But what do they expect me to say? I’m sorry? I’m not.
What do they expect me to do? Give up? Leave them to their own lives and their own survival? I can’t. See, that unfortunate side effect goes both ways. If they are to rise above in this war that I’ve single-handedly declared against them, my own demise is imminent.

So tell me which you would choose. Your own survival against that of a complete stranger. One you’ve never had the misfortune to have to interact with. One whose existence you never even noticed until you were forced to. One whose life or death meant absolutely nothing to you, until it meant everything.

Yeah. That’s what I thought.

It’s okay. It doesn’t make you bad. It doesn’t make you good, but it doesn’t make you bad. Any living being in their right mind would choose themselves. If they wouldn’t, they’re not in their right mind.
So I guess the world can say what it wants about me. I know they would all choose the same. And I know it doesn’t make any of them any less good or any more evil than the others.

I’ll say this though. Gus put up one hell of a fight.

Survivally yours,
C.

Contest Deadline

Don’t forget that our villain journal contest ends this Saturday, June 22nd! If you need a refresher on the rules, check out the original post here. Since the submissions have been so great, two runner ups will get a copy of Chuck Palahniuk’s current book, Invisible Monsters Remix. I’ll announce the winners early next week. You guys have been pretty creative so far, keep it up!

Redesign a cover (and win some books)

papress:

Calling all graphic designers:
Bobby Solomon over at The Fox is Black (formerly Kitsune Noir) is holding another Re-Covered Books contest, where he asks you, dear reader, to redesign an existing book cover. This week’s challenge is Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. If you can improve upon the work of Chip Kidd or John Gall, you just might win a $100 Amazon gift card, plus everything you see above courtesy of Princeton Architectural Press. Get to work!

Contest Reminder!

Don’t forget to send in pictures of your most destroyed (yet adored) books for our contest! I’m extending the deadline to this Friday, January 26th- you can either submit them here by reblogging/picture replying/submitting or tweet them to us! Here’s a recap of the rules:

You can submit as many pictures as needed to showcase the bindings, pages, cover, etc…
Deadline for submission in January 26th
Winner will receive a prize package full of LitReactor goodies including: t-shirt, mug, button, stickers, and a one month membership to LitReactor.
If you have any questions, hit up the ask box or feel free to tweet them to us.

Contest time!

We all have those books that are falling apart: ripped pages, broken spines, coffee stains, the list goes on and on. These can be the most well-loved books on a shelf- I can’t open my first copy of Catcher in the Rye without it falling apart but I’ll be damned before it leaves its well-deserved spot on my shelf. With that being said, we want to see your most destroyed, well-read books! Here are the guidelines:

-Submit the picture on here via the submission box/photo reply or tweet it to us
-You can send in multiple pictures to show off the cover, binding, pages, etc…
-The deadline for submission is January 23, 2013
-The winner will get a prize package full of LitReactor swag: mug, t-shirt, button, stickers, and a one month membership to LitReactor. Pretty awesome, right? Right.

If you have any questions, feel free to hit up the ask box, reply to this post, or ask via twitter. I can’t wait to see all of your fabulously destroyed books!

And the winners are…

That’s right, I’ve chosen the winners for the literary character contest! There were some pretty great submissions, but ultimately I ended up choosing three glorious snapshots.

The first winner is Jordan as Hunter S. Thompson/Raoul Duke from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

Here is tumblr user littlegreyghoti as the angel Castiel from the book series based off of the television show Supernatural, complete with the beloved Impala.

and last but not least is lifeaccordingtobabsie as Ginny Weasley from the Harry Potter series, including copies of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages:

The winners will be receiving a copy of DAMNED by Chuck Palahniuk. Thanks to everyone who participated! If you guys have any suggestions/requests for future contest ideas, please let me know!

Hurry!

It’s the last day to submit a picture for our literary character contest!

Quick rules recap:

Just snap a picture of yourself dressed as any literary/comicbook character
No nudity- I’m sure you look great, but I’ll be posting the winning pictures on here.
Submit them here or to the LitReactor Twitter
Feel free to send me messages here or on my personal if you have questions
I’ll pick the winners before the 27th
The winners will get a free copy of DAMNED by Chuck Palahniuk

Go, to the cameras with you!

Posts tagged contest