This message came through the mail, so folks please respond directly to RACHEL ZADOK (phone: 072 797 6186) or via Short Story website if you’d like to participate by reading or submitting your story. Deadline is June 21, 2013 (the longest day, and shortest night of the year– a symbolic reason to celebrate both the short or long story).
Here’s the message:
As always, we need help with and sponsorships for Short Story Day
Africa. We can’t do it without your support, and you’ve all been so
wonderful in the past. I’m hoping you’re still feeling as generous in
2013. Or, if you haven’t ever participated, now is your chance.
This year, we’re cutting our competitions down and running just the two,
mainly because we have an exciting thing planned for this year and we
don’t want to spread our limited resources too thinly. We’ll be running
one adult competition and one Kids (in three age categories). Fifteen of
the best adult stories, and fifteen of the best Kids stories will be
collected in an anthology – the details of which we’ll announce as soon
as we have prize sponsorships. So, I’m putting this out there and seeing
who bites.
WE NEED READERS, JUDGES AND PRIZES!
READERS: If you have the time and can help as a reader, please
volunteer. This won’t mean you can’t enter the competition if you’re a
writer. It just means we won’t let you read your own story.
JUDGES: We need judges for both adult and the kids section. Judges will
be sent a selection from the readers. If you’re in the Kids section,
we’ll let you enter the adult, but just so you know, we’ll be reading
and judging blind, so volunteering won’t influence our decision. Being a
judge also allows you the opportunity to promote your own work through
SSDA – so if you have a book out, and want a bit of extra publicity,
here’s one way to do it.
PRIZES: Last year, Henrietta Rose-Innes and Jamal Mahjoub offered their
time and expertise as a prize, giving email feedback on a single story.
This was accompanied by vouchers from Exclusive Books. Helen Brain and
the Writers College also sponsored an online writing course for the YA
winner. Both of these are amazing prizes, and can come from any editor
or writer willing to give their time. SA Partridge also gave signed
copies of her three novels to the YA winner (she also judged the YA
competition). Book vouchers always welcome, as well as cash.
For the adult section, we need three prizes, something big for the
winner, and two smaller prizes for the two runners up.
For the Kids section, we’re looking at three big prizes for the winners
in each category, and six smaller prizes. These could be simple – age
appropriate books signed by the author, for example. Here’s another
opportunity to publicise your work.
We won’t be running the Chain Story Challenge this year, but if anyone
wishes to set it up and run with it, we’ll be happy to publicise it and
link through to the stories on your website. We just don’t have the
manpower or resources to do it as we’re focused on other things.
Please let me know what you can do to help. Hope to hear from you soon.
RACHEL ZADOK
