The Whistler Readers and Writers Festival presented the “Creative Coaster Competition,” this week on September 11 at the Whistler Brewery on Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 6:30pm.

The Assignment: Compose a piece of proper prose, a bubbly blurb, a rambling rap, a mini-masterpiece, a pithy poem, a touching tome, a ditty, a doodle or a diatribe that could fit on the average coaster (max 500 words)

The Catch: Somewhere in the piece there must be a reference—either thematically or tangentially—to a coaster. (A beermat? A person who lives by the sea? One who coasts? Didn’t matter. We weren’t picky.)

At the end of the night Emma Taylor was crowned literary genius for this little ditty about a Coaster’s fall from grace.

The King of all Coasters

By Emma Taylor

 I’m the King of all Coasters oh aye!

Try your tipple to truly know why

I’m shiny and smooth, not tattered and torn

Impeccably groomed, no beer stains adorn

I was born in the gutter but looked to the stars

My ambition was clear: a career in bars

Not any old bars, just those for the wealthy

My strategy cunning, I knew I’d stay healthy

Residing in haunts with a fine clientele

Who’d admire my sleek contours and treat me so well

The Mallard, The Firerock, The Fifty Two 80

More the “Oh Darling!” less “G’day matey!”

The cognacs, fine brandies and mountain mojitos

Encountering sunsets on swanky patios

My surfaces graced with care and precision

Champagne glasses placed with crystal clear vision

But then the good life began to erode

Abhorred locals’ nights invaded my abode

Frequented by peasants, so bawdy, so loud

Pitchers and pints, the uncouth Kokanee crowd

The spills and the stains I could take it no more

My sorrow and scorn seeped from every pore

The law of attraction’s what happened to me

Oh! If only my head had allowed me to see

That fateful night coming and accepted my lot

My ego’s inflation drove the end that I got

Torn into shreds at the hands of frustration

By a seasonal worker on winter vacation

Every coaster’s worst nightmare had happened to me

Fate smiled as he dished out my true destiny

With a swish and a swash I was torn into shreds

As my coaster colleagues simply winked whilst

nodding their heads