“6. sarah and i would ‘bond’ more if she won the contest”
- OK, this is funny but hard to “cover.” Tao Lin’s publishing company Muumuu House Brandon Scott Gorrell held a short story contest with a $7 entry fee. Tao submitted a story under his girlfriend’s allowed his girlfriend to submit a story that he’d given her for eight different reasons, the sixth (and our favorite) which we’ve posted above. He ended up winning the contest and now people are accusing him of embezzlement. Note: She gets to keep the title and prize money. [via the fiction circus via spiersblr]
Update: We just received the corrections above in an email from Tao. He says that The Fiction Circus article is almost entirely incorrect, and that would we should be better fact checkers in the future. Point taken. You can read his account of the whole thing here. There’s also a forum here for participants to air their feelings about the contest; most of them don’t seem pissed off.
Comments (5)
Just another example of the self-entitled masturbatory bullshit you'd expect from Lin.
He is a bad, bad, very bad man
almost the entire above post is not true
You still need to work on your fact checking. Brandon Scott Gorrell is an editor and writer at Muumuu House, and he ran this contest using their resources, clout, and with the intention of finding new talent at Muumuu House, hinting that the winner would be published by them.
From Chase Kamp (the runner-up to Lin) on the "contestants" page to which you link:
"We were also aware that the winner of the contest might be considered for publishing by MuuMuu House, as hinted at by Brandon early on too. We figured that whoever won would likely write in the vein of MuuMuu House. We both thought the contest was probably a way for MuuMuu House to scout new talent, or at least to assess the work of other young writers who have no desire to pander to the ivory tower literary world."
Consider the fact that the number one prize in this contest, in addition to the cash, was a lifetime subscription to Muumuu House. It is trivially true that Muumuu House was not OFFICIALLY running this contest, but then it would be a criminal matter, and not simply an extreme, gross, and flagrant conflict of interest.
Additionally, one of Lin's OTHER 8 reasons was that he wanted the money because his bank account only had $1300 dollars in it. Why would you believe that he simply "allowed" his girlfriend to submit his work, when he expressly says that he wanted to win? He used his girlfriend's name because he would not win using his own name, because Gorrell would not pick him, because it would be unethical and against the very idea of the contest. Gorrell, at least, has a conscience. Now he is in the very, very difficult position of defending his friend and business partner after being scammed by him.
Lin got caught, and now he is playing you some more. Really, honestly, considering the nature of the situation, who are you going to believe?
–Miracle Jones
The Fiction Circus
Posted by Gorrell about the contest on May 7th:
*CONTEST UPDATE RE: MUUMUU HOUSE* ever wonder how to get published by muumuu house? if you win the contest, your chances of getting noticed by muumuu house increase! *CONTEST UPDATE RE: MUUMUU HOUSE*
Posted by Gorrell about the contest on May 11:
"*important* i have received a question about this contest which i would like to address publicly. the question was "the contest isn't rigged, is it?'
the answer is "i am going to choose the winning story based on how much i 'enjoyed' reading it. whichever story produces the most 'enjoyment' will win. i feel unsure how you can rig this contest. you can rig slot machines. seems like you couldn't 'rig' something like this, 'provided' you believe my claim that the winning story will be chosen based on my level of 'enjoyment' while reading it"
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