Jackson, Miss. — A Virginia man's wordy parody of Goldilocks and the Three Bears was neither too serious nor too silly, but just right — and judges selected his spoof as the winner of the 14th annual Faux Faulkner contest.

Appendix: The Sound and the Furry by Michael Edens was chosen as the best example of the style of Nobel laureate William Faulkner, whose stream of consciousness tales of complex Southern souls have won acclaim the world over.

"Goldilocks," Mr. Edens, 43, a technical publications supervisor from Virginia, wrote. "Slim blond avatar of unreasoning womankind: who loved not the porridge itself, nor even the act of reviving it from whatever unknown animal might have been responsible for its preparation. ... "

And so his sentence continues for another 133 words until it winds down to this: "...and I can no longer remember the subject of my sentence."

Second place went to Gordon Runte of New York for his Abs Begone, Abs Begone, about an infomercial hawking pills guaranteed to give the user a midsection with "rows sexpartite and distinct one from the other" — six-pack abs.

Third went to Orange County, Calif., resident Shan Wu for his Signifying Nothing, about a shopping trip to a Target store.

Larry Wells of Oxford, Miss., is founder and co-ordinator of the Faux Faulkner contest, along with his wife, Dean Faulkner Wells, the author's niece.

Ms. Faulkner Wells said the contest is growing in popularity and drew entries from around the world, including one from a man in Kuwait.

"It was very, very mystical, true stream of consciousness — somewhere between Arabic and English," she said. "Pappy would've been, I think, amazed."

The winning entries were published in United Airlines' Hemispheres magazine.