The girls in the secretarial pool at Top Novelist refer to him just as "Boss" but his name is Melvin Finkelschlagen. He's a short man, with a little bit of a paunch, balding and with big, thick glasses, but he's a dapper dresser, and the girls never have seen him without his shoes buffed to a high shine and wearing a brightly colored, crisp shirt and contrasting bow tie - each day wearing a shirt and tie of a different color combination. His voice booms out from his office at regular intervals. He never says please or thank you - there's no time for pleasantries for a high-powered veteran of the publishing industry like Melvin Finkelschlagen - but he has a heart of gold, as any one of the girls would tell you. He may not say please and thank you, but he understands when you have to leave work early to go to your kids' soccer games or ballet recitals, and he always gives a big bonus to any girl in the secretarial pool who draws his attention to a manuscript worth reviewing.

In fact, that's why Sally Mae has stayed working for "Boss" for the past 25 years. Unlike every other boss she'd ever had in her years as a secretary, Melvin Finkelschlagen never took credit for discoveries or ideas that weren't his, and he would never turn up his nose at an idea if it was a good one. "Boss" can spot a bestseller almost intuitively, but he's modest, and he likes to get the input of his girls in the office. At the same time, he's not afraid to make the tough decisions and to tell an author when they've stopped performing up to his very high standards.

At the end of the day, Melvin goes home to his wife Fifi and their Persian show cats Cookie and Buttercup, and he has a gin martini, which Fifi serves him as he sinks into his favorite chair. He's done well for himself in the volitile industry that is publishing, and he's made a nice life for himself. And Fifi really likes reading the manuscripts that come across Melvin's desk, so that's a bonus.

Up until five years ago, Norman Poulenc was just another mid-list writer in America, supplementing the paltry income of each of his three well-received but largely un-bought novels of literary wit with his salary as a professor in the M. F. A. program at a large East Coast university. The predominant bitterness of his life—since he had already given up the idea of achieving either greatness or fame through his writing—was that he had been turned down for a teaching position at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and the job in question had gone to a young woman with one short story collection out and a novel only half-finished. Poulenc thought her stories were jejeune and forced, and he secretly believed—he knew better than to voice his suspicions within the hallowed politically-correct halls of any major university—that she had been hired to fill a certain “multi-cultural” quota on the staff.
It wasn’t until one night, after rereading, that he allowed a particularly elaborate revenge fantasy to unwind in his head, in which he moved to Ames, seduced the young writer both sexually (he had met her once and the prospect of carnal contact was hardly unpleasant) and creatively, and then discarded her, humiliated her, and left her in the dust. When he emerged from the vision, feeling both stimulated by the idea and more than a little disgusted with himself, he discovered that he had another novel simply waiting to write itself. All he needed to do was give the main character—the embittered older man—a bit more of a comeuppance himself on the page, and he had a sharply-written, ironic story ready for his editor to read within six months of the idea’s first germination.
As everyone knows, of course, Seducing Ranjani was an instant critical and popular success. It won every prize it could win, and the movie rights sold for an undisclosed figure with six zeroes at the end of it. Poulenc still teaches at the same school, but now he breezes into class late and rather than respond to the students’ actual prose, simple regales them with stories of the celebrities he has met or spoken to that week. He has let his receding hair grow long in the back, cultivating what he obviously believes is a rakish style, and delights in appearing the part of The Rumpled Author at all of his public appearances. He has even started wearing glasses when he reads from his work, even though he doesn’t need them. His selection as a Top Novelist judge came as absolutely no surprise to him—he would have been surprised if they had chosen anyone else, once Updike (who raved about Seducing Ranjani in The New Yorker) was dead.
As for the young woman on whom Poulenc basically built his newfound fame, she is still teaching at Iowa and was tracked down by the media for comments within weeks of the book’s release. She reportedly considered filing a suit, but was advised against it by her lawyer. Instead, she is currently at work on a play that will skewer Poulenc and imply that he is both impotent and suffering from a phobia about v--- dentata.

When she announced that she'd volunteered to be the commissioner for the County 12-and-under Babe Ruth league that summer, her husband had been surprised. After all, she'd never had much time for the kids' activities before, preferring to spend the few hours of each day that she wasn't at the office locked away in the library with a glass of scotch and a legal journal. But once the season started, no one could deny that she was the most engaged and devoted commissioner the league had ever seen. She'd arranged, at her own expense, to have her gardener act as groundskeeper for the 6 diamonds scattered in public parks around the county. And she showed up early for every game, carrying huge coolers full of cold CapriSun for the players.

Despite her attention, though, all the parents agreed that it was a very strange season. For some reason, the kids didn't seem to be enjoying the game as much; more often they came home from the games frustrated, crabby, and sullen. There were more than the usual numbers of minor injuries, but that wasn't the real trouble -- there were also more tie games than anyone could remember, and fewer runs scored. Most parents concluded that their kids just weren't very athletic, for how could they know the truth? How could they know that the groundskeeper had been given special instructions to water the basepaths until they were deep and muddy as a swamp, so that runners slipped and slid and stumbled as they headed for second? How could they know that, beneath the ice and drinks in the coolers their commissioner assiduously brought to each contest, she carried that week's game balls? By the time she handed the ball to the umpire to start the game, the outer layer had warmed to the point where the ice that still lingered in the cork and rubber core, deadening the impact of the bat, turning home runs into weak flyouts and delivering jolts to the hands that held the bats, was undetectable. How could anyone know that the commissioner who watched every game, smiling faintly as the shortstop chased after a ball that had taken a bad hop over his glove, had liberally sprinkled the infield with small rocks to ensure just that result?

There are several kinds of literary judges: those who yearn to be writers, but lack literary talent and are therefore forced to turn to in their editing in their bitterness and thus literary judgment in what we call the publishing house; the ones who actually did get published, but only in newspapers and not actual books, but are qualified to be a literary judge based on their title of reporter rather than author; there are also the real writers of books who through research and many bouts of writers block manage to create works of literary art; the last one however is one of a new genre – the plagiarist author who “borrows” certain vaguely familiar passages of work from other authors to create a literary patchwork quilt that is in no way, shape or form, what the publishing world would call true or original work. In fact, it is what the publishing world often refers to as literary identity theft in inner circles, not to mention illegal.

Paige Markham is the latter. She started off life as a child prodigy, a child genius of sorts in the literary world. At age four, she was already writing short poems and stories with 38 published works by the time she was four and half. Her reputation in the literary world was well established and she had been featured on the OPRAH show twice by the age of six. Her parents had hoped she would be bound for literary greatness, thus her moniker Paige. Sadly though, by the time she was twelve, Paige’s literary dreams were slipping into a deep, dark hole of despair. She had encountered irreversible writer’s block and could never seem to bring new stories or her literary ideas to fruition. By the time she was thirty-five, Paige had taken to “borrowing” passages of other works to piece together the inspiration for her books. Her books are thinly veiled plagiarism and she knows it is only a matter of time before someone notices and confronts her publisher.

This reality makes Paige very edgy, nervous and in a constant twitter. She can never sit still and tries to mask her constant uneasiness with random chatter and giggles. It does not help that Paige has always been so busy with her writing that she has never had much time for a social life. She has never been kissed nor has she had a boyfriend, which makes her extremely vulnerable to any male attention or charms. All THAT combined with her natural beauty and gorgeous brunette hair, pixie-cut to accentuate her lovely features and dainty nose, adds up to a dangerous combination. But, she thinks that accepting the invitation to be a judge on the new reality series “Top Novelist” just may be the thing that saves her from literary doom and just maybe, she will finally get that kiss.

Dolores Haze's entire life was one big joke. Actually, two big jokes. The first and most renowned was her birth in Nabokov's great GOTCHA! on the world, Lolita.

The second, and lesser known, is her invention of the "How many _____s does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" one of the most influential bits in the history of comedy. This, of course is ironic, given that Lolita's original version was initially, "How many electricians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One." She was merely a nymphet at the time; ah, but someone who found her use of the word "screw" to be suggestive snorted up his milk, and the rest is comedy history. Today, Ms. Haze (who did not, in fact, die in childbirth as a teenager), is known for repeating recycled versions of her own masterwork as if she herself had devised the variations: Jewish Mothers ("None: 'it's ok, I'll just sit here in the dark'"), feminists (That's not funny!"), Dali ("fish"), members of U2 (Only Bono: he holds the lightbulb and the world revolves around him") etc.

Of course, she is also a third joke: on Phillip, who despite being a hack, claims to worship Nabokov. And Lolita would never pick someone like that. Never again.

My mother called him "Judge" (although not "your honor" as those in court called him), and after calling him "father" for the first 15 years of my life, I took to calling him the same, first privately, and them to his face. I thought it would piss him off, but he just laughed at me and said, "You say that like it's not a term of respect. Is that the biggest rebellion you can muster?"

For all of his claims of justice in his work life, he'd come home and say, "Phillip, the world ain't fair, and when I come home from trying to change that, I don't hafta be fair either. Welcome to the rest of your life."

He was fiercely intelligent, unflinchingly convinced of his opinions, and brutally honest, and if I have taken anything from him (besides his rage), it's that relentless voice in my head telling me to work harder, think more carefully, avoid sentimentality, eschew frivolity. These are the mantras of my writing even today.

Though he was hardly a good man, he was a great judge in the courtroom, and he'd be a great judge in this contest.