GOT GUILT? Drop off your guilt at Emma Kaufmann's guilt dump

Author Emma Kaufmann has so far received more than 2,000 entries to her GOT GUILT? competition. For the launch of her new suspense novel GUILT which deals with the guilt trips of a group of friends, Kaufmann invited potential readers to send her their guilt trips - and win a copy of the novel into the bargain.

GOT GUILT? WIN A PRIZE

The Most Unusual Guilt-Trip Contest
Webpage: http://wakeup.to/guilt

Now you can do something creative with those guilty feelings. Confess your guilty story at the Guilt Dump's "Most Unusual Guilt-Trip Contest" and you could win a prize. Winners will be selected on the basis of originality. So, if you are agonizing over something you did, or didn't do and should have, and your guilt-trip is unusual, please submit your story to guilt@emmakaufmann.net

In Emma Kaufmann's new novel Guilt, Dora feels guilty about having an affair with her mother's boyfriend Niko. Niko feels guilty about having an affair with Dora behind Gilda's back. Gilda feels guilty for neglecting her daughter Dora and Clive's life has been torn apart by a guilty secret.

They all feel guilt. Do you?

The guilt competition is happy to accept all entries, whether humorous or serious.

Because she has received such a great response, Emma has decided to call herself 'the Guilt-Trip Lady'. Below is some of the advice she offers to guilt trippers who have entered the contest:

Ally MacBeal Guilt

"I feel guilty about EVERYTHING. One of my friends summed it up well: Jews invented guilt, Catholics perfected it, and Irish Catholics turned it into an art form. Since Mom is Irish Catholic and Dad is Irish Catholic and Russian Jewish, I get it coming and going. No wonder I'm really good at it. It's in my genes.

However, I have gotten better: it isn't my fault that Ally MacBeal is still on the air."

Gil

The Guilt-Trip Lady Replies:
Dear Gil, try to focus on the positive. You no longer need to feel guilty about Ally MacBeal, now that the show is finally going to the big TV graveyard in the sky.

--------------------------------------------------

Hollywood gossip guilt

"I feel guilty for writing this when I should be studying the World's Most Boring Geology Text for my exam next week.

I feel guilty for reading about the Meg Ryan-Dennis Quaid divorce, because it's none of my business and a waste of my time.

Wow, thanks for letting me vent! I needed that.

Love, Spidermama"

The Guilt-Trip Lady Replies:
Dear Spidermama, please don't feel guilty about being curious about the Meg Ryan-Dennis Quaid divorce.

I always justify my perusal of the National Enquirer at the supermarket checkout by convincing myself that all celebrity bust-ups, divorces, love triangles and drug binges are my business and therefore good use of my time. I avoid guilt by not actually shelling out for such magazines.

The guilt kicks in when I glance up from speed reading the Enquirer to find that my toddler daughter has usually managed to grab a chocolate bar from the display and is already eating it through the foil wrapper. Sigh. Then I apologize furiously as the checkout attendant scowls as she has to scan the chocolate bar dripping in my daughter's drool.

--------------------------------------------------

Enron stock guilt

"I feel guilty about running off with my brother's wife while he is serving a life sentence for a crime that I committed. I also feel guilty that I took the money from the heist that I was supposed to pay his appellate attorney to get him out of jail and used it instead on lottery tickets and all the Enron stock I could purchase. I also feel guilty that I accidentally ran over his dog in his favorite pickup truck that I traded straight up for more Enron stock. I really feel guilty that I ate his last cookie and since he was out of milk, I suckled the breast of his wife who had just recently given birth to our love child."

Bryan Miller

The Guilt-Trip Lady Replies:
Dear Bryan, this is a tough one. On the one hand I'd like to chastise you for your poor judgment and moral bankruptcy. But on the other, I admire you for not feeling guilty about all this (although you claim to). In the future I would advise you not to make stock investments. Also, leave your girlfriend's breast alone. That milk stuff's meant for your love child.

GUILT - everyone's got it. HAVE YOU?

Write down all the things you feel guilty about (short, long, rant, humor).

Send me your entries, starting with 'I feel guilty about ...' to guilt@emmakaufmann.net. The best ones will be posted on my website (you may remain anonymous if you prefer).

The competition runs until the end of September 2002.

FIRST PRIZE: Stress buster aromatherapy basket - Close the door on the kids and create a spa experience in your own home. Includes tea tree and geranium spa salts, eucalyptus and green sea clay salt glow body scrub, and an all-natural creamy cleansing bar with shea butter and olive oil. Heaven! (includes an autographed copy of Guilt) Value $90.

SECOND PRIZE: An $80 Barnes and Noble book token & an autographed copy of Guilt.

FIVE THIRD PRIZES: Autographed copies of Guilt

Guilt by Emma Kaufmann
Available at http://www.amazon.com

Bridget Jones meets Agatha Christie - a whodunnit for the 21st century

Psychological suspense tracing the lives of Gilda and Clive, dysfunctional products of a twisted upbringing. As they try and extricate themselves from their gothic past, someone will have to be sacrificed.

Clives analyst, Dr. Gerber, watches coolly as the drama unfolds. To him, the players are dehumanized, merely case studies in psychopathology.

Will Dr. Gerber be able to stop the process from reaching its deadly conclusion? Or is it already too late?

'Guilt is a guilty pleasure to read: part soap opera, part heart-pounding cliffhanger.'

Reviewed by Pamela White, Inscriptions Magazine