Anybody remember when Fidel Castro decided to liberate a baseball game under way in Havana and stepped up to the plate?  A swing and a miss three times, but out?  Not a chance.  He simply changed the rules.  Because he could.  The new rules, instantly enacted, declared that premiers and presidents of any island nations within 100 nautical miles of Florida were entitled to four strikes, not three.  The fourth pitch and he sent the ball farther than Elian Gonzalez.

Now we at A Word with You Press are changing the rules.  Because we can. We got feedback from a lot of participants on the blog that they don’t have cats or kitties on which to model their stories for the contest, “Cat Tales: Stories of Feline Virtue & Vice,” and they were feeling left out.  So a change in the rules is in order.

You may choose to follow the original rules, writing a tale linking your lynx to one of the seven vices or seven virtues, OR you can complete this story, which was suggested to me yesterday by best selling author Victor Villasenor (Rain of Gold, The Thirteen Senses, etc):

It seems there was this house cat living in a modest cabin with a family on the backside of Palomar Mountain here in Southern California.  On a night when the wail of coyotes could be heard rising above the pines, the cat disappeared, presumably having become coyote crepes.  The family mourned the loss, but eventually got over it.

Two years later, the cat returned, not scrawny and whimpering, but masterful and muscular, though it sported assorted battle scars.  It resumed its place by the fireside as if nothing at all had happened, and didn’t even flinch an ear at the sound of coyotes in the moonlight.

SO…WHAT HAPPENED in those two years? Tell us in 750 words or less.  Ascribe your name to each page and send it to us as a microsoft word doc.  Wuss’n'Boots, who visit us every Sunday from the UK will still judge the contest, and the prize is still $100 to the best story, AND you will receive a hand-drawn and signed cartoon of those very British felicitous felines.  BUT WAIT!!  There’s is more!  We will also send you a one of a kind pussy-footin’ trophy, which we will post in the next few days to tempt you.

We are extending the deadline to September 20th to give everyone a chance to submit up to three entries. If we get enough quality submissions we’ll consider making this a printed anthology in time for Christmas.

You have spoken and we listened. So meow’s the time to get writing.