Writer's Grove

The Drop Your Sword Contest

Meant to get this up on release day, but just couldn’t get to it—better late than never!

Many people have told me that the cover for HEXED is their favorite cover in the series, and I confess that it is mine also. Atticus is lookin’ right at us, pointing the pointy part o’ Fragarach in our general direction, and he looks as if he might be saying something along the lines of “Drop. Your. Sword.” to someone like Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride. If you’ve read the book already, you know when Fragarach comes out to play and you can imagine very well who’s getting the ol’ evil eye. But let’s pretend you haven’t read it yet and treat this like a caption contest. What’s Atticus doing here? Who’s he talking to? About what? Time to have fun!

DA RULEZ:
1.) This sucker’s international, unless you’re from Trinidad & Tobago. I’ve never gotten over my disappointment that the proper demonym for your country isn’t “Toboggans”. That totally crushed my spirit when I was learning about your country in sixth grade geography, and this is my petty revenge.
2.) Take a giant swig of your creative juices and snap a digital photo of HEXED in an amusing composition. Perhaps Atticus is pointing at something in the foreground…perhaps he’s protecting something in the background? Title it or write a caption for it—or both. You can use the paperback, a cover display on your electronic device, or even use the cover art digitally if you want to do the entire thing in Photoshop. See? No purchase necessary.
3.) Either post your composition somewhere and link to it in the comments below, or send me a jpeg as an attachment in an email sent to kevin at kevinhearne dot com. You have until Wednesday, June 15!
4.) By entering the contest you give me permission to post your picture here and on my author Facebook page in an album I’m creating for the purpose.
5.) I will pick two winners at random so you’ll have a chance at winning even if you ran dry of creative juices long ago. But I will pick five winners because they make me smile, chuckle, titter, or even guffaw. I haven’t had a good guffaw in a long time. Last time was back in ’98, I think.
6.) As a hint, I tend to enjoy wordplay and double meanings quite a bit. Be punny and you’re more likely to make me titter.

DA PRIZES:
1. One of five signed copies of HAMMERED, third book in the series.
2. One of two signed copies of HEXED, which you may already own, but think of all the Cool Points you’ll have if you own a signed copy too! ;)

SETTING THE BAR LOW:
I composed a simple one and snapped the photo with my cruddy cell phone camera, so it’s going to be pretty easy to beat. I’m posting it here as an example of the sort of thing we’re all going to enjoy:

All right, Atticus fans. Go have fun! Can’t wait to see what you guys come up with! Remember, I need it on or before June 15!