Writing competitions open for entries

30 Mar 2012

The annual South African Wine Writers Award, for wine stories published in 2011 and Elle magazine's first fiction-writing competition, are open for entries. For wine writers, the closing date for submission is Thursday 12 April 2012 and for aspiring authors, it is 20 May 2012.

Celebrating wine

The Franschhoek Wine Valley Tourist Association (FWVTA), in association with the Franschhoek Literary Festival, presents the annual Wine Writers award, initiated in 2009 in acknowledgement and celebration of wine writing in South Africa. It has a R25 000 cash prize and a custom-made artwork.

Articles written during 2011 and published in South Africa or on a recognized South African website, will be considered. An independent panel of local and international judges will anonymously judge the articles. The organisers choose the panel and this year it includes John Platter (founder of Platter's South African Wine Guide), Matthew Jukes (wine columnist, voted the UK's most influential wine writer in 2011) and Bruce Jack (Flagstone Winery cellarmaster and winner of Wine of the Month Club's Winemaker of the Year award in 2011).

Journalists may submit one article and it will be evaluated on both technical accuracy and literary quality. Articles should be submitted in the original language of publication and, if necessary, will be translated into English for judging purposes.

The articles will be forwarded anonymously to the panel of judges in an electronic PDF format.
After all three judges have agreed on a winner, he or she will be announced at the Franschhoek Literary Festival over the weekend of 11-13 May this year.

Entries need to be submitted in MS Word format to az.oc.aedisuomafeht@yllig.

Mike Nicol to judge short story

The Elle short story competition is being held in association with trade publisher Random House Struik (RHS) and GetSmarter.

To enter, readers must submit an original short story of 900-1500 words long. Award-winning South African author Mike Nicol will select the winner and the winning story will be published in Elle magazine.

The winner will receive a RHS Creative Writing course presented by online education company GetSmarter and convened by Nicol. Aspirant writers who complete this 10-week part-time writing course have the chance to submit work for consideration by eKhaya, an imprint of RHS. The winner will also be guided and mentored by Mike Nicol on fiction and non-fiction writing techniques.

More details are in the April issue of the magazine or online at www.elle.co.za. Entries must be emailed to az.oc.gamelle@ezilenna.