{"id":26929,"date":"2015-06-02T10:18:59","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T14:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=26929"},"modified":"2015-06-16T07:08:18","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T11:08:18","slug":"revenge-of-the-awkward-author-photo-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2015\/06\/02\/revenge-of-the-awkward-author-photo-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Revenge Of The Awkward Author Photo Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of last summer, I ran an awkward author photo contest<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Which is to say, I asked people to submit authorial photos of themselves that were, in a word, completely terrible. Truth is, most author photos are somewhere between fine\u00a0<\/i>to\u00a0great<\/em>.\u00a0A novelist smoldering with intellectual possibility! A crime author at a fake crime scene! A sci-fi author looking up at the stars! A literary author staring off at the middle-distance and haunted by literary things! Pierce Brown just being super handsome<\/strong><\/span><\/a>! (Seriously, I met him this past weekend at Phoenix Comic-Con and it’s like, dude, you need to ugly it up a little. Handsome? And talented? And charming? Hint-hint, that guy\u00a0better be a serial killer or he’s just too good to exist. We’re watching you, Pierce Brown. We are\u00a0watching<\/em> you.)<\/p>\n

But then sometimes you get this guy:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(That’s last year’s winner, by the way — it’s not a real author photo.)<\/p>\n

In fact, you can check out last year’s entire submission photoset\u00a0here<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. I mean, holy shit. Lady with a chicken! Dude in a wolf hat! A lion eating dinosaurs! What the fuck is happening!<\/p>\n

I loved the contest so much, it’s time to do it again.<\/p>\n

SO, here’s the rules:<\/p>\n

Submit to me the\u00a0most awkward author photo you can conjure of yourself.<\/p>\n

This must be a photo of\u00a0you<\/em>. Not someone else. You must also own the rights to the photo.<\/p>\n

Send this photo to me at terribleminds at gmail dot com with subject header:<\/p>\n

REVENGE OF AWKWARD AUTHOR PHOTO CONTEST<\/p>\n

And send it to me by [EDIT: 6\/23], at noon EST (meaning, you get two weeks).<\/p>\n

Photoshop or other manipulation is okay, but not necessary.<\/p>\n

You get one entry per person. Multiple entries disqualifies you automatically.<\/p>\n

Winners will be determined by your voting (a roughly week-long process).<\/p>\n

Prizes!<\/h2>\n

All three winners get:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That is the Secret to Writing<\/strong><\/span><\/a> mug.<\/p>\n

(You have to be in the United States to win and receive the mug — though international can win it provided you’re willing to pay for the shipping.)<\/p>\n

But as they say, WAIT, THERE’S MORE.<\/p>\n

First prize winner (the one with the most votes) also gets:<\/p>\n

DEATH<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Literally!<\/p>\n

I will kill you in the\u00a0fifth<\/em>\u00a0and penultimate Miriam Black book<\/strong><\/span><\/a> (tentatively titled The Raptor & The Wren<\/strong>) in some creative manner. Miriam always sees death — since it is her gift to behold how people are going to die by touching them — and you will creatively perish in the book. (And yes, I’m totally stealing this idea from Kevin Hearne.)<\/p>\n

Second prize winner will get (in addition to the mug):<\/p>\n

My writing e-book bundle<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — eight books, y’all, $20 value.<\/p>\n

Third prize winner gets:<\/p>\n

NADA.<\/p>\n

I mean, except the mug.<\/p>\n

But c’mon, it’s still a mug.<\/p>\n

WHY DON’T YOU APPRECIATE NICE THINGS.<\/p>\n

So, that’s it.<\/p>\n

That’s the deal.<\/p>\n

Get your photos lined up. Go big. Go awkward. Be as terrible or weird or what-the-fuck as you can. Play with the expected tropes of having an author photo — or don’t! YOU DO YOU. And we’ll vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of last summer, I ran an awkward author photo contest. Which is to say, I asked people to submit authorial photos of themselves that were, in a word, completely terrible. Truth is, most author photos are somewhere between fine\u00a0to\u00a0great.\u00a0A novelist smoldering with intellectual possibility! A crime author at a fake crime scene! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-70l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26929"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27052,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26929\/revisions\/27052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}