Ah, fleeting fame!
 
The "writealike" winner was me, Chaz Nicol.  Doubtless Gene would have won had he entered, but he was one of the judges and helped put up the fortune in prize money, so it might have looked suspicious.  I believe Brian Boyd was the other judge and philanthropist. 
 
The contest had two steps:  first, the judges narrowed down the entries and mixed them with some actual unpublished VN  prose, and then the rest of the Society voted for the "real" Nabokov.  Since everybody who voted, voted for me, I beat out the Original of Vladimir.  If you would like to read 200 more words adding to the adventures of Timofey Pnin, please turn to, um, I think, the June 1999 or 2000 issue of the Nabokovian;  the winner was announced in the following December issue.  
ps:  My episode is about Pnin learning to drive (which puts him up one on his original author).  What I didn't say there was that I believe he ended up driving a 1948 Studebaker, a car that resembed an Easter egg equipped with the nose of a B-29.
 
Chaz

--- On Tue, 7/20/10, Don Johnson <chtodel@COX.NET> wrote:

From: Don Johnson <chtodel@COX.NET>
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov "writealikes"
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 6:34 PM

As a footnote to the amusing thread on computerated VN writealikes, I mention the The Nabokovian ran a contest some years ago on the best VN style imitations from members of the International Nabokov Society--a small but well-informed group. I don't have the issue at hand but perhaps someone can fill us in. As I recall Gene Barabtarlo was the winner but some runner-up entries were also published in the newsletter. 
 
 
It might be amusing to run both some VN texts and "writealikes" through the program that confuse VN's and Dan Brown's writing.
 
Don Johnson
     
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Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal"
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All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.