No contest

When it was first announced back in July, the Sobol Award was greeted with general derision (here's one example among many). Recognizing unpublished writers seemed like a worthy goal. Dinging the entrants at $85 a pop sounded less worthy, especially if the funds flowing in from the projected pool of 50,000 applicants happened to outweigh the $100,000 prize granted to the winner. Even after Simon & Schuster sweetened the pot by offering to publish the top three books, some doubts remained. Now, however, the point is moot. Having received no more than a feeble trickle of entries--less than a thousand all told--the organizers have canceled the whole shebang. The entrants will get their money back, and the manuscripts will be destroyed.