Love Block is the winner of the 27th Annual 3-Day Novel Contest, the annual Labour Day weekend marathon in which entrants around the world spend 72 hours writing a novel from beginning to end. The contest, inspired by the story that Voltaire wrote his novel Candide in three days, has attracted thousands of contestants over the years, undaunted by the notion of creating a narrative masterpiece on their laptops or typewriters, fueled by coffee, adrenaline, and the dream of spontaneous literary nirvana.

Love Block is just like the contest itself: funny, fast, and furious. Through a series of correspondences, two female secret agents debate, bicker, and explore the issue of love, specifically a search for a cure for the lovelorn, perhaps to be found in a "love block" potion that will foil any and all heartbreak. Whether same-sex or opposite-sex, it's about being human and whether to surrender to the idea of true love.

Meghan Austin and Shannon Mullally met while earning their Masters of Fine Arts in writing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They are both 26 years old, and Love Block is their first novel. Austin lives in Portland, Oregon, and Mullally lives in Chicago.

Meghan Austin's profile page

Shannon Mullally is a two-time winner of the International 3-Day Novel Contest. Her latest novel, The Second Detective, won the 40th Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest. Shannon holds a doctorate in creative writing from the University of Denver and a master of fine arts in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She writes, edits, and lives in Grand Haven, Michigan.

Shannon Mullally's profile page

The contest has created its own genre concerned with the creation of novella-length works of great originality.
?subTerrain magazine

subTerrain