In celebration of our upcoming 10th anniversary, Robin and I thought it would be fun to ask some of our longtime writers and supporters to help us come up with the 2008 sentences. Of all the great entries we received, we chose the following:

Summer 2008: Nick had considered himself a lucky guy, until now. (Written by Simon Wood.)

Here's Simon's note about how he came up with the sentence:

I have a fascination about luck -- mainly because I rarely have any. My luck tends to be of the Hail Mary kind where if it weren't for a last minute break, I'd be broken. So I like stories about changes in fortunes. For the line about Nick and his luck, I'm interested what people can do with it and what they can do to Nick.

Simon Wood is the Anthony Award winning author of six books, as well as over 150 published stories and articles. He writes thrillers and mysteries and horror fiction under the name of Simon Janus. His previous books include Working Stiffs (Blue Cubicle Press), Accidents Waiting to Happen, and Paying the Piper. His next books are the thriller We All Fall Down and his first Simon Janus book, The Scrubs.

Spring 2008: Sometimes the name they give you is all wrong. (Written by Caroline Taylor.)

Here's Caroline's note about how she came up with the sentence:

There's a famous Texas story, reputed to be true, of a man by the name of Hogg who named his two daughters Ima and Ura. How did they handle it? It's not unusual to dislike the name you were given, but some names carry more baggage than others. Imagine having to live up to a name like Joy or Constance -- especially if your natural tendency is to be morose or flighty. Boys named Basil or Leslie can get by with nicknamed like Baz or Les, but what if a boy were named Marion, as happened to John Wayne? Then there are all those legacies of the Summer of Love-children saddled with names like Honesty and Feather, Freedom and Dakota. Do you eventually become what your name suggests, or do you spend your life striving for the opposite?

Caroline Taylor's stories have appeared in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine and The First Line.

Fall 2008: Roy owned the only drive-thru funeral business in Maine. (Written by Margaret Davidson.)

Winter 2008: While not the intended effect, the outcome was surprisingly satisfying. (Written by Matt McHugh.)

After each issue is published, we'll tell you a little bit about the sentence writer and let them tell you how they came up with their beginnings.