Peevish Advice is a compilation of Becky Mushko's humor columns that originally appeared in Blue Ridge Traditions. Ida B. Peevish, the often-divorced proprietress of Ida's Salon of Beauty and Live Bait Shop in downtown Rock Bottom, U.S. of A., answers questions and offers advice about love, life, and the town of Rock Bottom.
I'm a retired English teacher who currently writes children's literature. My Appalachian version of the Rumpelstiltskin tale, FERRADIDDLEDUMDAY, was published in 2010 by Cedar Creek Publishing and my middle-grade paranormal novel, STUCK, was published in 2011 by Cedar Creek.
To learn more about me, visit my website, http://www.beckymushko.com.
For 10 years, I wrote a humor column, "Peevish Advice," first for Blue Ridge Traditions and later for the Smith Mountain Eagle. My previously published columns have been collected into two books: PEEVISH ADVICE and MORE PEEVISH ADVICE.
I'm a 5-time winner of the Lonesome Pine Short Story Contest and a 3-time winner of the Sherwood Anderson Short Story Contest. My short stories have appeared in some regional magazines, and one was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Collections of my winning stories are THE GIRL WHO RACED MULES and WHERE THERE'S A WILL.
My story, "Out of the Fog," appears in A CUP OF COMFORT FOR WRITERS (Adams, 2008) and several of my dreadful sentences appear in the Bulwer-Lytton anthology, IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT (Friday Publishing, 2008).
I'm best known for being a Bulwer-Lytton Bad Fiction Contest category winner--twice. In 1996, I won the "Worst Western" category with this:
Following the unfortunate bucking of his horse when it was startled by the posse's shots, Tex--who now lay in a disheveled heap in the sagebrush--pushed back his sweat-stained Stetson from one deep-set eye, spat a stream of tobacco juice at the nearest cactus, and reflected momentarily that the men approaching him with ropes probably weren't just out for a skip, and--if they were--his freshly broken ankle would have to cause him to decline any entreaties to join them.
In 2008, I won the Bulwer-Lytton "Vile Pun" category with this:
Vowing to get revenge on his English teacher for making him memorize Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality," Warren decided to pour sugar in her gas tank, but he inadvertently grabbed a sugar substitute so it was actually Splenda in the gas.
