The Department of Balderdash, Flummery & Hokum
Veritas Optional Since Whenever
Before We Congratulate This Lady Author
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We are here to recognize this Lady Author, who joins a prestigious list of exceptionally decent male writers who earned this Very Distinguished Award. She’s the first lady writer who managed to write something good enough to impress our selection committee. But tonight is not about her. Tonight is about all the men who got her to this magnificent moment.
As such, we’ve invited several important men in Lady Author’s life to join us here tonight. Though none of them ever believed in her—and still don’t—Lady Author should recognize their impactful role in setting such an impossibly high bar of expectations. A bar set so impossibly high that they all believe that this ceremony is one elaborate ruse orchestrated by Lady Author.
Give a round of applause to Lady Author’s Father, whose greatest disappointment in life is that he had a daughter rather than a son. Thank you for instilling in her one of life’s difficult truths: women aren’t funny, and she is no exception. To prove this point, Lady Author’s Father has prepared a fifteen minute standup comedy set in which he’ll tell recycled jokes with no punchlines. Even so, all the men in this room will laugh uproariously and give him a standing ovation.
Next, let’s give props where props are due by bringing attention to Lady Author’s ExBoyfriend, who would like everyone here to know that it was he who “inspired Lady Author by giving her the best sex of her life.” He also wishes to set the record straight by sharing that Lady Author stole all of his ideas. As such, our strongest audience member shall lift this erudite young man onto his shoulders while we all cheer his name.
Then, we’ll call Lady Author’s agent and require the inclusion of ExBoyfriend’s name on the byline of all future prints of Lady Author’s novel.
And lastly, give a warm welcome to Lady Author’s Writing Professor who is a previous recipient of this Very Distinguished Award. His generous invitation for Lady Author to attend his university’s Esteemed Writing Program was the impetus for this exact moment. Although he “only accepted her into the program because her name sounded misleadingly masculine,” he was gracious in letting her stay in the program after finding out that a pending lawsuit forced him to keep her there. Writing Professor, we wish to honor your courage with this Very Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award.
Lady Author, now that we have recognized these men who are unequivocally responsible for your novel’s success, it is your turn to take the stage. Acknowledge your gratitude by placing these medals of mentorship upon the necks of these commendable men.
We have deducted the cost of these medals from your prize fund, as we strongly feel their symbolic meaning far outweighs any monetary compensation. In fact—in lieu of a prize fund, this committee gives Lady Author this invaluable piece of life advice: rekindle your love for ExBoyfriend, who is an obvious fount of good ideas and multitudinous orgasms.
Lady Author, it is our expert opinion that you should lock that shit down before your eggs wither in your sad, old (nearly forty!) womb.
Congratulations, Lady Author on putting a bunch of random words together that somehow made a story. This feat is so unfathomable to us that we’ve begun to believe in the infinite monkey theorem. Our committee was moved by your writing that they actually finished some sections of your novel. It was cute.
We’d like to present to you this Prestigious Award. We’ve forgone the traditional bronze statue depicting a well-endowed nude man poised in thought—his manhood hovering over the “A” and “S” keys of a typewriter—on the precipice of erecting his magnum opus.
Instead, you shall receive a certificate of accomplishment in the form of a note written across the author bio and photo in your novel. Inside, you’ll be delighted to find a coupon for BuyOneGetOneFree Reuben sandwiches at Arby’s, which has been bookmarked on the page in which this committee feels the story would have benefited from a multi-paged description of the protagonist’s (i.e. your) voluptuous breasts.
Congratulations! Please know that your hard work has not gone unnoticed, though it will most certainly go unnoticed by an overwhelming majority of the male species, including all of those currently in the room with us and with us in spirit.
Since the Arby’s coupon expires in an hour, please leave this ceremony at once to procure your celebratory Reubens. Your men can stay, however, and enjoy an extravagant buffet on your behalf. After all, this night is about you.
Nat Hrvatin is a writer and humorist whose work has appeared in “The New Yorker,” “McSweeney’s Internet Tendency,” “Scary Mommy” and others. Find her on Instagram as @NatHrvatin, her website at nathrvatin.com, and her Substack called “My Emotional Support Blog.” Nat lives in Cleveland with her daughters, her husband, and her intrusive thoughts.