World's First Known Squash Fiction League Match Set to Erupt
by Ted Gross

October 9, 2013 - Fourteen esteemed authors are bracing to put themselves on the line in head-to-head matchups as the world's first known squash fiction league match unfolds this month, under the sponsorship of Black Knight.

The Black Knight Squash Fiction League Match will pit The Quill Shots against The T Party in a one-game, winner-take-all showdown, as the two teams compete in the authoring of simultaneous, collaborative squash-themed novels.

Two opposing chapters will be posted each week, with the winning chapter gaining a point for that writer's team.

PAR scoring will be enforced. When the first team reaches 11 (provided they are ahead by 2) they are declared the winner.

The losing team's novel will be then withdrawn from publication, while the winning team will write to conclusion.

James Zug, Noreen Ayres and Daniel Paris will take on the tricky task of judging the affair.
 
Each team will be granted three replay challenges to alternate judges Barbara Cooper and Samantha Cornett.

Chapters will be restricted to 1200 words, in an effort to limit some of the radical plot shifts and rafts of new characters that surfaced in the recent non-league collaborative effort, The Club From Hell.

The Club From Hell began innocently enough, focusing on a London family taking over a struggling club, but characters were soon traversing continents and stowing away on ships, testing the bounds of credibility even before the obligatory international drug ring entered the picture.

Both Black Knight League Match teams appear loose and confident as they make their final preparations. Latin, among other languages, has found its way into the pre-match trash talking ritual.

It will be interesting to observe if the heretofore harmonious team dynamics remain intact should one team falter and lose, say three consecutive weeks, early in the match.

One enthusiastic reader has likened the pending proceedings (what he can understand of them) to Dueling Banjos, from the movie Deliverance.

Team Rosters:

The Quill Shots

Kathryn Abernathy
Pierre Bastien
Marcie Chan
Tracy Gates
Will Gens
Mick Joint
Matthew Munich

The T Party

Margot Comstock
Steve Hufford
Richard Millman
Tom Oberdorfer
David Smith
The Squashist
Jeanne Woods