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Over at GalleyCat Headquarters, we are busily assembling the first edition of our World’s Longest Literary Remix Contest eBook–formatting an entire novel re-written by GalleyCat Reviews readers. Last month, a crew of brave readers rewrote one page of Horatio Alger‘s Joe’s Luck: Always Wide Awake (cover pictured) for fun and prizes.
As you await the final product, you should savor Alecia Burke‘s excellent mashup of Alger and Goodnight Moon–a remix reprinted below. We hope to have the eBook finished by the end of the week, and we’ll announce the contest winners soon. In case you have forgotten, our prizes include:
1-Scribd.com and Blurb.com are donating 10 printed copies of the completely remixed novel, using the company’s new print-on-demand service.
2- The remixing experts at Quirk Books will give one lucky winner an assortment of Quirk Classics prize, a package worth over $100.
3-The multimedia literary journal Electric Literature will donate “Electric Literature: Year One”–a complete set of the first four issues of the journal–a $40 value.
“Goodnight Fortune” by Alecia Burke
“I am thinking of making a trip to the mines with my friend Carter,” continued Folsom. “Very likely we shall start to-morrow. Do you want to go with us?”
Said Joe, “For now I must decline
Lay by some money before I hit the mine”
GOODNIGHT FORTUNE
In the great tent room
There was a boy near grown
And a Colt Dragoon
And a picture of
Men digging riches out of a dune
And there were three rough chaps sleeping with caps
And two dirty mallets
And a slew of hard pallets
And a little black cat
And a quick rat
And a flask and some muck and a heart full of pluck
And a nasty scoundrel who was cursing “Luck”
Goodnight tent room
Goodnight Fortune
Goodnight men digging riches out of a dune
Goodnight plight
And the Colt Dragoon
Goodnight chaps
Goodnight caps
Goodnight mallets
And goodnight pallets
Goodnight mines
And goodnight whines
Goodnight little cat
And goodnight rat
Goodnight flask
And goodnight muck
Goodnight benefactor
Goodnight pluck
And goodnight to the scoundrel cursing “Luckâ€
Goodnight shanties
Goodnight bear
Goodnight prospectors everywhere
CHAPTER XIV
JOE’S SECOND DAY
Awakened at seven o’clock
Joe sat up and took stock
One gold coin and the dinner in his gut
That lazy loaf will try to steal a cut
Not afraid of the motley crowd
Joe announced this loud and proud
“Pretty good, but I beat you,” said Hogan.
Alecia Burke covered the antics of the U.S. Congress for eight years as a political journalist. She now writes for actual children.
UPDATE: Here is a link to the completely remixed novel.