“The Kenya I Live In”: Winners Profiles & Judges Comments.

Written by Kwani · March 31, 2010

Kwani Trust is pleased to introduce its newest acquaintances in the writing world and share a snippet of what the process of “The Kenya I Live In” was and how it has come to pass. Congratulations once again to all those who participated and we hope for closer relations in the future.

Writer’s Profiles:

Mehul Gohil (Farah Aideed Goes To Gulf War)

Mehul Gohil, is by day a boring white collar professional who works in the retail industry and has an undergraduate degree in International Business Administration.

However, come night time and at other times, Mehul Gohil metamorphes into Dr. Jekyll’s favourite botched experiment a.k.a. Mehul Gorilla. A relatively schizophrenic specie, he is one part chess freak (Kenya National Team), 2.4 parts obedient slave to his hero Micheal Jackson and 0.0001 parts fiction writer.

Among the Gorilla’s favourite things are Don Delillo novels.

Brenda Mukami Kunga (All In The Family )

Brenda Mukami Kunga, 24, writes between ward rounds, after theatre and before classes. Also on Sunday mornings, public holidays and randomly at 3 a.m. when the spirit moves her.

Wilson Kiriungi Wahome (The Activist)

Wilson Wahome Kiriungi was born in Meru, 1978, and grew up in Nanyuki. Drawing in his early years from the influence of such literary names as Wahome Mutahi (“Whispers”) and Meja Mwangi. He eventually went on to do a degree in Language and Literary Studies at Moi University.

Other influences include the writings of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, George Orwell, Leo Tolstoy, D.H Lawrence, all who he discovered in high school in Nanyuki.

Besides writing, he is engaged in charity work. He founded the Wahome Global Foundation (www.wahomefoundation.com) to help people get out of poverty through self reliance.

His favorite contemporary author is Arudhanti Roy. He loves to play chess.

Renée Akitelek Mboya (Brave New Worlds)

Renee is a writer. She has spent much of her adult life stalking contemporary Kenyan literati. She hopes one day they will call her back and eventually invite her to their parties.

Benjamin O. Ikaal (Chicken)

Benjamin O. Ikaal is a freelance journalist based in Bungoma. He is a graduate of the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication and holds a Diploma in Journalism.

He has travelled extensively between Kenya and Uganda and loves to play sports among them badminton, karate and handball.

Between 2007 and 2008 he wrote mostly short stories, narratives and editorials. He was among the best featured writers in the class of 2006 at K.I.M.C.

He loves to make people giggle through his writing

JUDGES COMMENTS ON THE STORIES

What we found in the rest of the 15 stories was that they achieved what they set out to do, a successful story. The stories worked well on multiple levels of character development, style, and plot. They dealt with themes about what Kenya is in an original way. We could see ourselves and our circumstances afresh. Each captured the voice of an individual while telling the national story. <!--more-->

There were many other promising stories. The need for training is clear on basic craft skills, but creativity is evident. Overall, we have regained hope for the Kenyan writing scene and Kenyan literature – the writers are there and are talented. They must be nurtured and Kwani is on the right path.

Winner: FARAH AIDEED GOES TO THE GULF WAR

• The most complex story on many levels. A love story on the surface of it, but really the love-hate relationship between the tribes of Kenya. A larger issue grappled with and seen through the prism of two young people’s thwarted love. The story also juxtaposes and yet at the same time unifies the varied neighbourhoods of Nairobi, with their sharp class differences. The language is superb, and every sentence a surprise. – Doreen Baingana

• A complex, thoughtful and beautifully written story that strips away the tensions of inter-racial relationships between Kenyan Indians and indigenous Africans, this narrative is a cultural iconoclasm that breaks verbal taboos to articulate the awkwardness and embarrassment of identity and crossing over. Raunchy and rasping as it travels across time and space, it still maintains a rare humour in its suggestively invented local idioms. – Kwamchetsi Makoha

Second: ALL IN THE FAMILY

• A very strong voice. Irony. It was quite different from the many stories showcasing issues of poverty. This one dealt with the very same issues but turned them up side down, exposing personal lives of the type of people who are the cause of this poverty, MPs, etc. It explores how corruption, like charity, begins at home. And the corrupt do not escape scott –free, they and their families are ravaged by it. – Doreen Baingana

• What makes this story a tour de force is its innovative use of voice to deliver a brutally shocking account of life in our times using a diary. Although the language does not sparkle beyond the ordinary, the writer’s perceptiveness delivers a multi-layered story that lays bare the intricacies of the charmed life. – Kwamchetsi Makoha

Third: THE ACTIVIST

• Many of the entrants tried to write this type of story about the ‘class struggle’, riots in the city, rural poverty, etc. but fell into cliché. This writer rose above all that and created living and breathing individuals grappling with these issues. One family’s tragic rise from poverty to wealth to poverty again. The story of any successful businesswoman climbing painfully up the ladder. A cruel twist of fate thrown in that adds beautiful symmetry to the plot. The language is eloquent, memorable, vivid. This writer was in total command of the page. – Doreen Baingana

Fourth: BRAVE NEW WORLDS

• Easily an ambitious literary project delivered through detailed descriptions of scenes and episodes, this story comes closest to capturing the complexity of Kenyan society in a realistic portrait. Some scenes do not work as well as others, but on the whole, the language has beauty, the imagination has depth and the story has movement.

Fifth: CHICKEN

• A well-told story, in the tradition of ‘animal farm,’ using a non-human if anthropormophic perspective to explore existential questions of fate, life and death, power and mysticism. As told from the point of view of a chicken with every dinner hanging as a threat over its head. Surprisingly profound ending. – Wambui Mwangi

Among the top fifteen shortlisted stories the judges had some easy favourites:

Eighth: TITLE BID

• No story addresses the hot-button land issue in Kenya – the hunger, need, greed and the intrigues they fuel. The pastoral style limits the dramatic possibilities of the plot and therefore leave the narrative flat-lining. – Kwamchetsi Makoha

Tenth: GAME PLAN V2.3

• Has great potential as a transformative narrative, but still bogged down by lack of a clear and definitive plot, weak character development. – Kwamchetsi Makoha

Thirteenth: Intern-ATIONAL

• Well-written and attempts to move from scene to scene, but the characters are not sufficiently developed. – Kwamchetsi Makoha

Fifteenth: THE RAINCOAT BOY

• Beautiful romance story, a little simplistic in the plotting, but okay. – Kwamchetsi Makoha

The two following stories were not among the top 15, but they were among the top 65. They had a strength of process that will linger in the judges minds for a long time to come.

ROCK & REPUBLIC BAND

• Excellent verbiage, weak story, incomplete plot. – Kwamchetsi Makoha

EXPERIENCING LAMU

• Interesting experiment with simultaneously developing scenery and character. Not sure it completely succeeds. – Kwamchetsi Makoha

Judges overall report.

A great deal of the entries in the final shortlist for “The Kenya I Live In Kwani” short story competition are both ambitious and original in their vision of society. Many have distinctive voices that create empathy and draw the reader into the narratives, the characters and their situations. They offer detailed and textured portraits of Kenyan society in a manner at once fresh and audacious. With very few exceptions, the short stories are often a showcase of personalised idiom in elaborate and dexterous use. They are a testament to the hard work, creativity and literary talent that abounds in Kenya.

The stories often hang together in episodes and convincing plots but are sometimes undermined by flaws resulting from inexperience or insufficient revision. On the surface, there are significant language lapses at the level of spelling, grammar and diction, which are only redeemed by the writers’ determination to have their say. The clarity of the writers’ vision glazes over these minor infractions.

Few stories embrace a broad view, limiting what the majority offer to the reader to a claustrophobic snapshot of Kenyan society. Not all the stories are on the same philosophical plane, which means that the underdeveloped ones are easily a triumph of style over substance. In such cases, the verbiage is alluring and seductive by the narrative arc is incomplete and the story therefore not satisfying. Those that invest in thought and word are persuasive testimonies that deserve wider currency so their beauty is not hidden as a lamp under a bed. – Kwamchetsi

Judging the Kwani Short Story Competition was an eye-opening experience. It is clear that there is a new crop of Kenyan writers (almost) ready to take the baton from an earlier generation. There were a fair number of writers with promise and talent, and the competition was a great way of spotting them. The stories showed a deep concern for the political, social and economic issues prevailing in Kenya right now: Corruption, rural and urban poverty, unemployment, and political, tribal and racial strife. The stories that stood out dealt with these issues in intelligent and original ways, avoiding cliché. The winning stories followed the fate of individual characters rather than presenting the issues above in a generalised manner. I was pleased to read entries from all across Kenya.

As judges, we evaluated the stories by asking whether each one achieved what it set out to do, and weighed how well each story worked in terms of craft: character development, style, plot and narrative voice. Also, we choose stories that tackled contemporary Kenyan circumstances in fresh and revealing new ways. Each of us five judges brought different perspectives and interests to the table, but agreed on criteria that led us to choose the stories that excelled. As a Ugandan, I brought an outsider’s perspective and distance that, I think, contributed positively to the decision-making process.

Now that a pool of talented young writers has been identified, what next? Many stories revealed that writers must add skill to talent. They need training on the craft of writing; they need a deeper understanding of how language works, sentence by sentence, to form whole works of art; they need to read much more literary work; they need a writing community that would push them to excel; they need more publishing avenues. I am extremely pleased that Kwani? intends to provide some of this.

It has been a real privilege for me to contribute to this process of identifying and rewarding new talent. Thank you. – Doreen

All in all we at Kwani Trust are pleased that though this competition was a difficult process it has born fruit and enlightened us to a whole new realm of Kenya through the eyes of writers.

We look forward to hosting some great talent in the much anticipated, August launch of Kwani? 6.

Written by Kwani Filed Under Competitions, Features 

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

From Cynthia McKinney "They're White Just Like Us . . . "

 

"They're white just like us and the people they're killing . . . are Arabs."

This bit of erudition came, with a shrug of the shoulders, at the end of the first session of the newly-formed Russell Tribunal on Palestine. It was not a part of the official record because it was stated in the anteroom, just off the auditorium of the elegantly-appointed Barcelona Lawyers Building where the Tribunal was held. The person making this comment was not an official expert witness--but he was a European who understood the mindset that made Europeans complicit, not only in Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people, but also in Israel's impunity.

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine is organized by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and has local organizing committees in each of the places where sessions will be held: Europe, United Kingdom, South Africa, and the United States. The Tribunal will next venture into London, then to South Africa to ponder the peculiar institution of Israeli apartheid. And finally to the U.S. where the mother of all complicity resides.

The Tribunal stresses its independence from the influence of special interests and each Local Organizing Committee conducts fundraising activities to make each Session a success. Barcelona can be chalked up as a success that serves the Tribunal organizers well for the upcoming London Session. More information on the Barcelona proceedings can be found at http://www.russelltribunal onpalestine.net/.

The original Bertrand Russell Tribunal was seated in the mid-1960s and considered the case against the U.S. war against Vietnam. Its second seating was to deliberate on human rights abuses in Latin America. Consideration of the situation of the people of Palestine commands its third seating.

The organizers of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine scoured the globe to find people of conscience to serve as jurors who are noted for acting on their convictions. The jurors include a woman who served with Bertrand Russell on the original Tribunal and another woman whose work eventually was recognized with a Nobel Peace Prize. The Tribunal's mandate is to inform and urge action by a larger community of conscience and its urgency is the understanding that the Tribunal must act in the face of inaction by national and international authorities.

In addition, the "BRussells" Tribunal on Iraq (operating from Brussels, Belgium at http://brusselstribunal.or g/index.htm) is the brainchild of Russell Tribunal veteran François Houtart. The BRussells Tribunal was conducted in 2004 and found the United States guilty of committing an act of aggression against Iraq.

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine, Barcelona Session, convened for three days, considered the evidence presented to it, and delivered its decision in response to a series of questions that could be summed up as: "Is the E.U. complicit in Israel's crimes against Palestinians, and if so, in what way? What is the E.U.'s legal responsibility to itself and to international law?"

During the proceedings, I did pose the "Why?" question several times. However, the unofficial respondent answered the question in a way that even I was totally unprepared for: from his gut.

"They're white just like us and the people they're killing . . . are Arabs."

This comment haunted me for the remainder of my European tour. And, it seemed that I could never escape it. In Brussels and then again in Paris; in London, I was consistently reminded of the color line and that I was traveling in places not usually broken by it: economic and political status in these places is as defined by skin color as it is in the United States, the Presidency of Barack Obama notwithstanding.

Combine my European experience with the fact of the illegal pillage of Africa by way of stoked "civil wars" and fake "rebel groups" created for the purpose of facilitating non-African Africa pillage--done since the first Berlin Conference that organized the so-called "Scramble for Africa" at the dawn of the 20th Century. Juxtapose that to the opening of the 19th Century where Africans in Haiti defeated Napoleon Bonaparte's Army. Not only was Africa robbed of its strongest human resources for centuries during slavery, it continues to be robbed of its human and natural resources even now. Africans' patrimony is being transferred, on the cheap, to Europe, the United States, and Israel.

Anyone who doubts these facts should consider the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), now suffering six million dead just since the Rwandan/Ugandan invasion in August of 1998 facilitated by the United States. The tragedy is told in the first United Nations Report on the pillage of DRC, written by Madame Ba-N-Dow, whose life was threatened by those named in the report, causing her to have to go into hiding because she told the truth. Additionally, numerous books and articles on the subject have been written by Camerounian-Parisian Charles Onana of Editions Duboiris, for those who read French, and by Wayne Madsen and Keith Harmon Snow, for those who don't.

As I looked into the faces of Europe's most recent immigrant Africans and Asians, the immigrant wars being fought today inside Europe, Israel, and the United States crystallized in the most dismal of contexts. With each glance into every face, I strained to make eye-to-eye contact to see beyond the face of the individual in order to understand the totality of the life I was encountering. Sadly, the realities all seemed the same: certain Europeans (including certain Americans and Israelis) had arrogated to themselves the right to go into any land, vilify the indigenous, denigrate their culture and dignity, steal the resources, overturn the local economy, destroy the local polities, and ignore the human rights of self-determination and resistance to occupation, and then dare the "others" to emigrate. For context today: Think the Muslim World in Africa and Asia. Think Latin America. Think Gaza.

Everywhere around Europe, as is also the case in Israel and the United States, immigration is an issue. It seems that Europeans--who have a quality of life that includes, among other things, mass transit and continental rapid rail that works, subsidized education, subsidized healthcare, and secure work and pensions--have reached their "immigrant tolerance level:" that is, more "others" are not welcome. And, as in the United States, the role of the special interest media cannot be discounted in the popularization of hate. This is especially sad when one realizes that the Europe of today exists as it does largely because of its past policies and current bondage with the United States that politically and economically wreck the countries of the "others."

For example, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Israel are all diamond trading capitals of the world, yet none of them is a major miner of diamonds. The diamonds mainly come from Africa, and the consequent diamond empire that links all of these capitals was built on slavery and theft. (Please see the film "Diamond Empire" by investigative journalist Janine Roberts, banned in the United States because of its inconvenient, name-naming content.)

Now, take a look at these diamond-producing capitals of Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, and black South Africa--even post-apartheid--and one quickly grasps the level of theft and criminality that continues still today. Please think about this the next time you are tempted to buy a beautiful sparkling diamond in your local mall jewelry store.

And, for those who have never left America's shores, one need only look inside the United States at the genocide of America's indigenous people and the continued pillage of their land to understand how today's life of largess was made possible by years of mistreatment, lawlessness, and genocide committed generations ago.

In 1948, the cycle began again when Zionists eager to wield state power were placed in control of Palestine by Europeans, Britons, and Americans and created the State of Israel on the land where Palestinians lived.

I inquired of one Israeli testifying at the Tribunal what did Operation Cast Lead tell us about the nature of Zionism. And it was through this line of questioning that I again heard something that I have heard all over the world, but never in the media: "I am an anti-Zionist Jew."

In the United States, Zionists at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) purport to speak for all Jews and they would have non-Jews believe that criticism of them or of Israel is criticism of all Jews. For many that I encounter in the world whose only previous information came from the media, their most startling discovery is that this is a lie. And I have heard some of the most impassioned critiques of Israel's policies toward Palestinians from anti-Zionist Jews. I intend to write more on this later.

Yesterday, it was announced in the English news that blacks and Asians are stopped by the police alarmingly more than whites. The study that published these findings also suggested that if such disparities are allowed to persist, then the communities of color so targeted could become increasingly disenchanted and volatile. London, Paris, and Oakland, California have all burned in recent memory as a result of persistent disparities and loss of hope for change. If unchecked now in communities of color, repression of all will surely be next.

Given my experiences and reflections during this European tour that included the Russell Tribunal; a standing-room-only meeting of Congolese who came from all over Europe to Brussels; a standing-room-only crowd of young people in "the hood" of a Paris suburb attending an event organized by rapper Joe Dalton; and several events in London that included a standing-room-only 9/11 Truth - 7/7 Tube Truth event, I find the observation of the Russell Tribunal attendee both poignant and relevant: It is still possible for people battered by propaganda and lies, covert and false flag operations, and the meanest of media blackouts to see and hear those of us who dissent and act on conscience. Our message is being received. A growing global critical mass see the humanity that binds us together despite the lies and the screens of religion, race, ethnicity, language, gender, and sexual orientation--skillfully used in the past to divide us.

The real message from my Russell Tribunal respondent is clear: Resistance to lies, injustice, war, and indignity is necessary and more people seeing that, join with us in our principled struggle.

For more information on the Barcelona proceedings, please see:

Press TV:http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=gRjG7XrpKZY

The Real news network: http://therealnews.com/t2/ index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=31&Itemid= 74&jumival=4882

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Silence is the deadliest weapon of mass destruction.

 

 

 

 

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On Jan. 12, 2010, one of the most devastating earthquakes in recorded history leveled the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. Those responsible for handling the catastrophe, including the Haitian government and the United Nations, were among the victims. FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith bears witness to the scale of the disaster and takes viewers on a searing and intimate journey into the camps, hospitals and broken neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. Featuring never-before-seen footage of the moments after the earthquake and interviews with top officials from Port-au-Prince to Washington, The Quake ultimately asks, how will the world respond?

"Beyond immediate relief efforts lies a harder task," says FRONTLINE's Smith. "The world has to decide whether to simply patch up Haiti now or to take on the far more ambitious goal of building a functional Haitian state."

The Quake explores the recent history of aid efforts in Haiti and the prospects for real change, and draws on interviews with, among others, former President Bill Clinton, special envoy to Haiti; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; and Dr. Paul Farmer, deputy special envoy to Haiti and co-founder of Partners in Health.

Haiti has more NGOs per capita than any other country in the world. For years, foreign assistance bypassed the Haitian government, leaving it weak and vulnerable. The Quake examines how, this time, things might be done differently.

"This is an opportunity to rethink how aid works and how we, the most powerful country in this part of the world, can work with our oldest neighbor," says Dr. Paul Farmer. "So I think all that possibility is built into this tragedy."

 ‘The Stranger’ Fiction Competition

1st Prize: £150

2nd Prize: £100

3rd Prize: £50

Closing Date: April 10th

Entry Fee: £3.00

To be in with a chance of winning this fiction competition, you need to be able to summon up a charismatic or strong stranger who will fit into your storyline and captivate the reader from start to finish.

Maximum word count is 2000 so take your time and bring your story to life.

Please use font Times New Roman or Ariel  – font size 12.

Ensure that the submission is well edited for obvious errors, with reasonable use of paragraphs to make the story easier to read.

Please email your story to info@creative-competitor.co.uk and state which competition you are entering in the subject line. Alternatively you can post your entry by clicking on our contact us page.

JILL SCOTT gets very candid and forward on CNN about why she does not like interracial dating. Her Essence column has a certain infamy attached to it. Yet, I can’t see why this seems so hard to grasp for some people. She does make some valid historical points. It’s not at all as racist as people are painting it. She gets into her tour with MAXWELL and Why Did I Get Married, Too with TYLER PERRY. Press play.

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RELATIONSHIP COMMENTARY

Commentary: Jill Scott Talks Interracial Dating

Friday, March 26, 2010 | 12:20 PM

by Jill Scott

You know the moment when you realize that fine, accomplished brother is with a White woman? Let's call it "the wince." Three-time Grammy Award-winning artist, writer, actress, philanthropist, mother and all-around Renaissance woman, Jill Scott gets to the root of our feelings on the matter in the April issue of ESSENCE...

My new friend is handsome, African-American, intelligent and seemingly wealthy. He is an athlete, loves his momma, and is happily married to a White woman. I admit when I saw his wedding ring, I privately hoped. But something in me just knew he didn't marry a sister. Although my guess hit the mark, when my friend told me his wife was indeed Caucasian, I felt my spirit...wince. I didn't immediately understand it. My face read happy for you. My body showed no reaction to my inner pinch, but the sting was there, quiet like a mosquito under a summer dress.

Was I jealous? Did the reality of his relationship somehow diminish his soul's credibility? The answer is not simple. One could easily dispel the wince as racist or separatist, but that's not how I was brought up. I was reared in a Jehovah's Witness household. I was taught that every man should be judged by his deeds and not his color, and I firmly stand where my grandmother left me. African people worldwide are known to be welcoming and open-minded. We share our culture sometimes to our own peril and most of us love the very notion of love. My position is that for women of color, this very common "wince" has solely to do with the African story in America.

When our people were enslaved, "Massa" placed his Caucasian woman on a pedestal. She was spoiled, revered and angelic, while the Black slave woman was overworked, beaten, raped and farmed out like cattle to be mated. She was nothing and neither was our Black man. As slavery died for the greater good of America, and the movement for equality sputtered to life, the White woman was on the cover of every American magazine. She was the dazzling jewel on every movie screen, the glory of every commercial and television show. She was unequivocally the standard of beauty for this country, firmly unattainable to anyone not of her race. We daughters of the dust were seen as ugly, nappy mammies, good for day work and unwanted children, while our men were thought to be thieving, sex-hungry animals with limited brain capacity.

We reflect on this awful past and recall that if a Black man even looked at a White woman, he would have been lynched, beaten, jailed or shot to death. In the midst of this, Black women and Black men struggled together, mourned together, starved together, braved the hoses and vicious police dogs and died untimely on southern back roads together. These harsh truths lead to what we really feel when we see a seemingly together brother with a Caucasian woman and their children. That feeling is betrayed. While we exert efforts to raise our sons and daughters to appreciate themselves and respect others, most of us end up doing this important work alone, with no fathers or like representatives, limited financial support (often court-enforced) and, on top of everything else, an empty bed. It's frustrating and it hurts!

Our minds do understand that people of all races find genuine love in many places. We dig that the world is full of amazing options. But underneath, there is a bite, no matter the ointment, that has yet to stop burning. Some may find these thoughts to be hurtful. That is not my intent. I'm just sayin'.

Jill Scott is a three-time Grammy Award-winning artist, writer, actress, philanthropist and mother.

>http://www.essence.com/relationships/commentary_3/commentary_jill_scott_talks...

The 7th Annual Gival Press Short Story Award

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Please see the Excerpts page on this website to read the winning short stories.

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Deadline:
August 8, 2010 (postmarked)
Our dates never change, if the date falls on a Sunday, then Monday becomes the default postmarked date.

Guidelines:
Submissions of a previously unpublished original (not a translation) short story in English must be approximately 5,000 to 15,000 words of high literary quality, typed, double-spaced on one side of the paper only, with word count in the upper left hand side of the first page, along with the title. The author's name should not appear on the numbered pages of the ms which should be clipped together. Author should keep a copy of the submission as it will not be returned.

Author Identification:
Submit name, address, telephone number, email address on a separate page, along with the title of the short story submitted.

A short bio should also be included.

If the short story wins, the author must make the manuscript available to Gival Press on an IBM-compatible disk or CD in Rich Text Format (RTF)—this refers to how one saves the document on one's computer disk.

Reading fee:
$25.00 (USD) by check or money order drawn on an American bank for each short story submitted. Payable to: Gival Press, LLC.

International entrants must send a check drawn on a USA bank routed through a USA address, such as Bank of America; no international money orders are acceptable.

Please note that Gival Press can also accept the entry free by major credit card; however, we only take credit card information by phone (703.351.0079).

Mail to:
Robert L. Giron, Editor
Gival Press Short Story Award
Gival Press, LLC
PO Box 3812
Arlington, VA 22203.

Notification of the Winner:
Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) for notification of the winner or visit our website (http://www.givalpress.com), where the winner and finalists will be announced.

We try our best to announce the winner in the fall of the same year. Unfortunately it takes time to read and judge the entries and to contact the individuals involved.

Prize:
Author will receive $1,000.00 and the winning story will be published on the Gival Press website and in a future anthology of short stories.

Judging:
Short stories will be judged anonymously and the decision of the judge will be final. The winner for the previous award will be the judge for the following year.

Discount Offered to Entrants:
Anyone who has entered a Gival Press contest may purchase any books published or distributed by Gival Press at a 20% discount off the retail price, with free shipment. Credit cards are preferred. Kindly either call us (703.351.0079 - leave a message if we can't answer when you call and we will call you back) or send us an email with your phone number and we will call you, as we only accept the credit card information by phone.

The 9th Annual Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award

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"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."—Oscar Wilde

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Deadline:
June 27, 2010 (postmarked)
Our dates never change. If the date falls on a Sunday, then Monday becomes the default postmarked date.

Focus:
This award will be given to the best previously unpublished original poem written in English (of any length, in any style, typed, double spaced on one side only), which best relates gay / lesbian / bisexual / transgender life by a poet who is 18 or older.

Submittal:
Entrants are asked to submit their poems in the following manner: (1) without any kind of identification, with the exception of the title, and (2) with a separate cover page with the following information: name, address (street, city, and state with zip code), telephone number, email address, if available, and the title of the poem submitted. (3) A short bio should also be included.

Poems will not be returned, so poets should keep copies of their poems.

A short bio may also be included.

Reading Fee:
Poets must submit a reading fee of $5.00 (USD) for each individual poem submitted, regardless of the length. Checks or money orders drawn on American banks, routed through a USA address, such as Bank of America, should be made payable to Gival Press, LLC. Overseas money orders are not acceptable.

Mail to:
Robert L. Giron, Editor
Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award
Gival Press, LLC
P.O. Box 3812
Arlington, VA 22203.

Notification of the Winner:
Include a self-addressed, stamped envelop (SASE) for notification of the winner or visit our website (http://www.givalpress.com), where the winner and finalists will be announced.

The winner is usually announced on or before September 1.

Prize:
The winner will receive $100.00 (USD), and the poem, along with information about the poet, will be published on the website of Gival Press (http://www.givalpress.com). The winner will be asked to sign a release form for payment.

In addition, Gival Press hopes to publish an anthology of the winners of this award along with the best poems submitted to the contest over a period of several years.

Judging
Poems will be judged anonymously by the previous winner of the award. The decision made by the judge will be final.

Discount Offered to Entrants:
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Trailer – “On The Other Side of Life” (Between Tradition & Modernity)

By Tambay, on March 4th, 2010

Trailer for the documentary On the Other Side of Life, directed by Stefanie Brockhaus, which will screen at SXSW later this month.

Synopsis: Lucky and Bongani pretend to be cool and in the know. To survive in a Cape Town township, they learned their lessons early: where to get drugs, where to get money, how to pick up girls and how to get rid of them.

Their mother does not pay much attention to her sons, but at least their grandmother is on their side. The two brothers share everything: the bed, the food and now even an accusation of murder. The first thing they get in prison is an unmistakable lesson about the rules there. No question, newcomers are always at the bottom of the hierarchy. They must learn quickly who may be attacked and who must be served. A matter of survival in jail.

Out on bail, something special awaits them – an initiation of a different kind.

The brothers move through three cultures, each of which calls for its own gestures and rituals. The deep rift between the generations becomes painfully obvious. The old people still have the sense of Honor of African tradition; their successors have only a tiny chance of escaping the squalid suburbs. What will be their package in life?

Through a clever dramatic narrative structure, the film rises above a social environment study to become a far-ranging discourse about the future of an Africa ground to pieces between tradition and modernity.

Trailer below: