Odd News
3 men win literary prize after posing as woman author
An acclaimed female author from Spain was recently revealed to be three men writing under a pseudonym.
One of Spain’s most popular crime writers, Carmen Mola, was awarded a million euros for winning the 2021 Premio Planeta literary prize. But when her name was announced at the glitzy awards ceremony on Friday, three men went onstage to receive the prize, according to news reports.
Jorge Diaz, Agustin Martinez, and Antonio Mercero are all accomplished writers in their own right. The three men, who have worked as scriptwriters for several television shows, came together to write novels under the pseudonym Carmen Mola.
The three deny that they chose a female pseudonym in order to sell more books. “We didn’t hide behind a woman, we hid behind a name,” Mr Mercero told a Spanish newspaper.
“I don’t know if a female pseudonym would sell more than a male one, I don’t have the faintest idea, but I doubt,” she said. Some critics, however, describe the authors as “scammers.”
A message in a bottle launched by visitors to Newfoundland’s Bell Island was found washed up on an Irish beach nearly 13 years later, after apparently crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Kate Gay said she was walking a Dingle Peninsula beach this week when she spotted the wine bottle with a sheet of paper inside.
Gay showed the bottle to members of Creative Ireland NeartnaMacharaí during a meeting at her house that evening, and they broke the bottle open.
The note, written by a couple named Brad and Anita, was dated Sept. 12, 2012. The letter described the couple’s day trip to Bell Island.
There was a phone number on the letter, but there was no answer when group members tried to call.
The Maharees Heritage and Conservation group posted photos of the bottleto social media on Monday, and within an hour group members were messaging with Anita.
Group member Martha Farrell said Anita reported that she and Brad had married in 2016 and are still together to this day. -upi.com
A Spanish woman who has been collecting egg cups for over 50 years earned a Guinness World Record when her collection was tallied at 15,485 items.
María José Fuster recruited two witnesses to help her tally her collection at a community center in her hometown of Campo, Spain.
Fuster’s collection includes multiple patterns, colors, designs and even novelty cups bearing the images of characters including Superman, Betty Boop and Garfield.
Fuster maintains two blogs related to her hobby — one to catalog each piece, and one to list the names of the people who have donated egg cups to her collection.
Some of her most prized egg cups, about 1,143 of them, are currently on display at a local museum.
-upi.com
