For at least 60 years the African novel has deconstructed, and even transversed, ideas and imaginaries of self, culture, society and nation across the continent. A self-reflexive continuum, shifting chameleon-like; a receptacle of letters, morphing through the cry of the griot, everyman's diatribe, madman's claim of truth or the politician's manic address. An oracle.
It is the precursor to many contemporary urban African genres and forms. From the ubiquitous FM station, the graffiti of rage, the new painter's electronic brush, the characters of transnational cable T.V. and the growing fan-tribes of European soccer. The African novel determined Us, created an autonomy of expression and became the said curse of dictators.
To celebrate the African novel and its adaptability and resilience, Kwani Trust announces a one-off new literary prize for African writing. The Kwani? Manuscript Project calls for the submission of unpublished fiction manuscripts from African writers across the continent and in the Diaspora.
Beyond the foundations laid by Soyinka, Ngugi and Mahfouz, in remembrance of Yambo Ouologuem's pre-colonial quest and Mariama Bâ's bending of form, to the urban journeys of Meja Mwangi, the precocious post-everything of Kojo Laing and the musical rhythms of Ahmadou Khrouma. This prize seeks to recognize the possibilities of form in an ongoing genre that has re-emerged in the work of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Alain Mabanckou, The Kwani? Manuscript Project is a conversation, an ill guised attempt at growing its own list. For there is no greater celebration of emergent forms than in publishing our own, thanks to those who have existed before us and helped us believe. We look forward to your submissions
The top 3 manuscripts will be awarded cash prizes:
1st Prize: 300,000 KShs
2nd Prize: 150,000 KShs
3rd Prize: 75,000 KShs
In addition Kwani? will publish manuscripts from across the shortlist and longlist, including the three winning manuscripts, as well as partnering with regional and global agents and publishing houses to create high profile international publication opportunities.
Click here for deadline details and submission guidelines
Winners will be announced in December 2012 at the Kwani? Litfest.
Submissions should be adult literary or genre fiction (in the sense of not being 'children's fiction')
The work should be in English or 'Englishes'
The manuscript must be new in the sense that it is unpublished in book form (we will accept previously published submissions if circulation has been under 500 copies and limited to one national territory)
Eligible participants should have at least one parent born in an African country who holds citizenship of the same
Please send submissions by email, attached as a WORD doc to manuscript@kwani.org.
Formatting Guidelines:
Name of author (Times New Roman, 12. Bold left justified)
Contact address, telephone number and email (Times New Roman, 12. Bold left justified)
Title of manuscript (Times New Roman 14. Bold, centered)
The manuscript should be in Times New Roman, black, size 12, justified, 1.5 line spacing
Page numbers and name of author on every page please
Word count at the end of the manuscript, bold and left justified
Please also include a cover letter providing an overview and synopsis of the manuscript, and a brief author biography.
We spent the hour this week with poet Laini Mataka. She read her poems and discussed with callers her life’s work, views on the role of artists and poetic thoughts on Afrikan identity, old folks drinking new kool-aid and much, much more!
We all know that history is written from a male perspective and nowhere is this truer than in the civil rights and black power movements of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s America. British filmmaker Pratibha Parmar‘s wonderful documentary, A Place of Rage (1991), vividly stands apart as a defiant critique of this ‘malewashing’. The film was screened recently during the LLGFF, celebrating its release on DVD which you can pre-order now.
Filmed in the early 1990s, the documentary focuses on two civil rights activists and feminists Angela Davis and June Jordan who look back on struggles encountered during the civil rights movement of the ’60s and ’70s.
While some of you may only have a vague recollection of Davis’ name, hopefully many more will recognise the iconic image of a young black woman with resplendent Afro, defiantly raising her fist in the air. Davis is a civil rights activist, philosopher, writer, academic and one time state branded ‘terrorist’ on the run. Away from the iconic image, Davis has produced hugely influential works such as Women, Race and Class (1983), which chronicles the ways in which the suffrage movement came to supersede the fight for civil rights in America. Although lesser known, June Jordan is a poet, essayist, teacher and feminist, civil rights and LGBT activist. Her powerful use of language is simply breathtaking and makes the fact that she is little known so much more woeful.
Their powerful testimonies are then interspersed with reflections by author and activist Alice Walker and postcolonial academic and filmmaker, Trinh T. Minh-ha.
The instrumental role women such as Davis, Jordan and Walker, to name just a few, played within America’s recent history would be almost entirely erased, were it not for groundbreaking and revisionist works such as this documentary. Indeed, we see these great women themselves paying homage to black female role models significant to them, such as Rosa Parks and the little known, yet no less important, Fannie Lou Hamer. This in itself is an act of reclaiming a herstory, forever in danger of being erased from ‘official’ chronicles.
Crucially, these black feminists were not only interrogating the ways in which racism and class exploitation were overlapping in the lives of black women, but also went on to emphasise the need to pay attention to other forms of oppression, based around gender identity and sexuality, within the black feminist movement. Parmar skillfully underscores this through the scenes in which June Jordan reads her brilliant and arresting work ‘Poem about My Rights’:
Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can’t
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can’t do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose…
Parmar allows Jordan’s commanding voice and intensely truthful vision to captivate the audience, compelling us to question how it could be that Jordan struggled to gather support for gay and lesbian rights from those in the anti-racism movement of which she was an integral part. When Jordan states that the “the sanctity of an individual’s right to love who I want” is necessarily “the same issue” as that championed by the anti-racist activists, she reminds us that racist violence and homophobia exist on the same oppressive continuum.
Both women were emphasising the importance of thinking about the various forms of oppression that simultaneously act upon an individual. They were forwarding ‘intersectionality’ well before it became something the wider feminist movement embraced – though, arguably, this is still something we struggle with.
This is a documentary that was directed and produced by two high school seniors at Francis Parker School in Chicago. Nina and Keely interned for the year at Project NIA, a grassroots organization focused on ending juvenile incarceration. They spent the year attending workshops, training, and reading about juvenile justice issues. No Place for Kids is their culminating project. The film is about 23 minutes in length. It features several people including formerly incarcerated youth, Michelle Alexander, Judge Colleen Sheehan, Bernardine Dohrn, Juliana Stratton, Juan Rivera, Alisa Montgomery-Webb, Betsy Clarke, and many more...
Crips and Bloods: Made in America is a documentary by Stacy Peralta discussing the unique circumstances and factors that led to the creation of Crips and Bloods, two of the most violent gangs in United States history. The documentary goes beyond the general background of and discusses the external factors that fueled the African American youth to turn to gangs. It also raises many questions regarding the government responses/lack thereof to such minority conflict. This film was executive produced by NBA Star Baron Davis.
British archaeologists have unearthed a slave burial ground containing an estimated 5,000 bodies on the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena. The island is part of the British overseas territory of St. Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha. The bodies belonged to slaves who were taken off ships embarking on the Middle Passage route to trade African workers and other commodities. According to the article, the slaves were taken to refugee camps as part of the British Royal Navy’s efforts to crack down on Caribbean slave trade.
The corpses were found on tiny St Helena, 1,000 miles off the coast of south-west Africa. Those who died were slaves taken off the ships of slave traders by the Royal Navy in the 1800s, when Britain was suppressing slavery in the Caribbean. Many of the captives died after being kept on the slavers’ ships in appalling conditions, and later in refugee camps when they reached the island.
According to Britain’s National Archives, between 1808 and 1869 the Royal Navy seized more than 1,600 slave ships and freed about 150,000 Africans. The dig, held in advance of the construction of a new airport on the island, revealed the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade. The Middle Passage was the name of the route taken by ships transporting slaves from Africa to the new world. It was the second leg of a triangular journey undertaken by European ships. The first leg would involve taking manufactured goods to Africa, which they would trade for slaves. After the Africans were delivered to the West Indies and Brazil (and, until the abolition slavery in 1809, the US [sic*]), the ships would take raw materials back to Europe. [*Note by Repeating Islands: the U.S. abolished slave trade in 1808 with the “Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves,” but did not abolish slavery in the country until 1865.]
Experts from Bristol University led the dig. One of them, Prof Mark Horton, said: “Here we have the victims of the Middle Passage – one of the greatest crimes against humanity – not just as numbers, but as human beings. These remains are certainly some of the most moving that I have ever seen in my archaeological career.”
St Helena was the landing place for many of the slaves taken off slaver ships captured by the navy during the suppression of the trade between 1840 – when the island became the base for the squadron leading the Royal Navy’s offensive against the slavers – and 1872. About 26,000 freed slaves were brought to the island, with most being landed at a depot in Rupert’s Bay. Rupert’s Valley – an arid, shadeless and always windy tract – was also poorly suited for use as a hospital and refugee camp for such large numbers. The university archaeologists have so far unearthed 325 bodies in individual, multiple and mass graves. They estimate the site contains a total of about 5,000 bodies, but these seem likely to be left where they lie. Horton noted that the archeological excavations [that] cover only the portion of the burial area that would have been disturbed by the new road were investigated.
Only five individuals were buried in coffins – one adolescent and four stillborn or newborn babies. The others had been put directly in shallow graves before being hastily covered. In some cases mothers were buried with their children. Dr Andrew Pearson of the university said 83% of the bodies were those of children, teenagers or young adults. Youngsters were often prime material for slave traders, who sought victims with long potential working lives.
Most causes of death could not be established on the bodies as the main killers – dehydration, dysentery and smallpox – leave no pathological trace. But experts found scurvy was widespread on the skeletons and several showed indications of violence, including two older children who appeared to have been shot. The team found evidence the victims were from a rich culture, with a strong sense of ethnic and personal identity. A few had managed to retain items of jewelry such as beads and bracelets, despite the physical stripping process that would have taken place after their capture. A number of metal tags were also found on the bodies that would have identified the slaves by name or number.
Pearson, the director of the project, said: “Studies of slavery usually deal with unimaginable numbers, work on an impersonal level and, in so doing, overlook the individual victims. In Rupert’s Valley, however, the archaeology brings us quite literally face-to-face with the human consequences of the slave trade.” [Also see post below on the book by Andrew Pearson, Ben Jeffs, Annsofie Witkin, and Helen MacQuarrie: New Book: “Infernal Traffic—Excavation of a Liberated African Graveyard in Rupert’s Valley, St Helena”]
Excavated artifacts will be transferred to Liverpool for an exhibition at the International Slavery Museum in 2013. The human remains will be re-interred on St Helena.
[Many thanks to House of Nehesi Publishers for bringing this item to our attention.]
On Saturday night, in a dressing room behind one of the smaller Superdome stages at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, Christie Jourdain was ready to go. “You’ve got three minutes!” she announced to the nine other assembled musicians. The Essence Fest is a New Orleans staple and brass-band music is a New Orleans staple and the group that Jourdain leads is one too, in its own way—but this was the only time the group, the Original Pinettes Brass Band, had played Essence. And that wasn’t the only “only”: the Original Pinettes bill themselves as the world’s only all-female brass band.
“There’s a lot of female bands out there that are trying to mimic what we’re doing,” says Jourdain, “but that type of brass-band music is born and raised out here in New Orleans, Louisiana.”
The Original Pinettes were formed in 1991 by the band director at St. Mary’s Academy, the school attended by the band’s founding members. Jourdain, who plays the snare drum, was one of those girls. At an all-girls school, the gender mix of the band was a no-brainer, but the world of brass-band music—a horns-and-drums style that has grown in New Orleans for about 100 years and contributed to the birth of jazz—was largely male then and continues to be so.
“You may see a few women performing around New Orleans, but it’s very few,” says Natasha Harris, who plays saxophone with the group. Janine Waters, who plays tuba, adds that, before the Original Pinettes became well-known within the New Orleans brass-band scene, male musicians had a “whatever” attitude toward the group: “they looked at us like, ‘oh, it’s just girls,’” she says. “They know us now. They treat us like the next band. We’re like their competition.”
Getting past assumptions about their ability to play has not been the only gender-specific hurdle for the Original Pinettes. Jourdain says that male bands can shape-shift easily, swapping out one member for another, but that’s because there are so many male horn players in New Orleans. With fewer eligible musicians, the Original Pinettes have to hold tight to their core group.
That cohesion was challenged in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and scattered the Original Pinettes. Both Jourdain and Waters ended up in Texas, eventually reconnecting in Houston; another Pinette ended up as far from home as Boston. And, as the recovery began, many of those women had settled into their new homes. “Everybody was like, ‘no, I have my new life here, you all go ahead and good luck with it,’” Jourdain recalls. “We had a few members come back home but nobody wanted to do it. Everybody threw in the towel.”
Jourdain was ready to do so herself, until Waters convinced her that the two of them could handle running the band themselves, with Waters as assistant band leader—an arrangement that has held since 2006. “When the bands came back everybody was getting the gigs but us,” Jourdain says. They had one gig in 2006, at Jazz Fest, but Jourdain says that the last two years have finally seen the payoff for sticking around. “We’ve been trying to get on Essence since 2000, and when we got that call a couple of months ago…I’m still smiling,” she says. And the band has also seen successful recruitment, straying from their St. Mary’s roots. Christie, the original member, is 37 years old; the youngest member, who has been playing with the band for a little over a year, is 16. Her name (appropriately enough, although she says it doesn’t feel like fate) is Jazz Henry.
The Pinettes may be the only all-female brass band in the world—anyone can form a band at any time, so there’s no way to confirm it, but Christie Jourdain scours the Internet regularly and has not found anyone else out there—but they are not the first. In the 1880s, an African-American cornet player named Viola Allen led the “Colored Female Brass Band” in East Saginaw, Michigan. There was an all-female brass band in Indianapolis about three decades later. In the 1920s, other groups appeared in Omaha, Nashville and Brooklyn.
But Sherrie Tucker, a professor at the University of Kansas who writes about gender in jazz, says that the Original Pinettes may well be the first all-female New Orleans-style brass band—although the dominance of male-centered historical records means that there’s always a chance something else will pop up. “My job as a historian of women in jazz requires me to presume that a lot of women musicians are missing from the historical record,” she says. “Until we know more about the history, each woman who plays an instrument or style presumed to be a men’s instrument or style gets seen as the first time it’s ever happened.”
Tucker points to a study done by a historian named Susan Cavin in the 1970s, an analysis of the development of jazz in New Orleans’ Congo Square: using the same documents that earlier historians had to determine that men played instruments and women danced, Cavin found that early female jazz drummers did exist. “The gender got changed by the historians who were making particular kinds of gender assumptions about who played and who danced,” says Tucker. “This is not an unusual story in historical research of women in jazz.”
Whether or not those assumptions about the history of jazz are accurate, they have trickled down into the popular culture that surrounds the music. Brass bands and the city of New Orleans are integral to the history of jazz, says Charles Hersch, author of Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans: the racial and ethnic melting pot of the city married with the military-style marching band music prevalent at the turn of the last century to produce a new sound. And, in a city where jazz is seen on the streets and in parades rather than pay-to-enter clubs, the music remains a key part of life—but, even a century into that history, gender helps determine legitimacy. “Even today you still don’t see nearly as many female trumpet players and saxophone players as you do pianists and vocalists,” says Hersch. “I’m sure there are more than there used to be, but the horn players are still largely a male domain.”
Audience expectations about horn playing can work in the Original Pinettes’ favor, since a group of ten female musicians stands out from the pack. Bruce Boyd Raeburn, the curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University recalls that Quint Davis, the producer of Jazz Fest, found “intrinsic interest” in an all-female brass band—but Raeburn also says that uniqueness can be a challenge, raising the question of whether their success is due to tokenism or talent. He says that they must play better than other groups in order to be recognized, that the audience can demand they play just as well as the Rebirth Brass Band, one of the most famous groups on the scene, in order to win respect. “The gender biases that have been a part of jazz for a long time still exist, and the Pinettes are a great barometer of the fact that they still exist,” says Raeburn. “They have challenges ahead of them because they’re women.”
Playing at the Essence Fest, on the same stage where Rebirth played the night before, means reaching a milestone for the Original Pinettes, says Janine Waters. Last year, they reached another milestone by performing overseas. “It’s like we’re reaching all of our goals,” says Waters. “The next milestone would be to be full-time musicians.” For now, they hold a variety of day jobs. Waters is a student. Christie Jourdain is too, and she is also working on starting an organization to help abused children. Natasha Harris works at St. Mary’s, the school where it all started.
Another goal for the Original Pinettes is to lose their claim to fame, to encourage more women to enter the game. “I would love to see women be more involved in the music scene,” says Harris, “and for the men to understand that we as females can perform and do the same things they can at the same level.” For now, they struggle to convince the younger women they meet that playing an instrument isn’t just something you do in high school, that playing brass-band music—which is improvised and more difficult than marching band—is worth it. “Once [female musicians] finish college they’re getting into families, having kids, a lot of them don’t have the time to put into it, so they put it down—and I think some of them feel like they can’t make it,” she says. “That’s especially why we need to keep this going, to be an example and a model for the young girls coming up.”
But in the meantime, on Saturday, the goal was to put on a good show. With no pre-show ritual, just a calm hoisting of horns, the Original Pinettes Brass Band took the stage. They were three trombones, three trumpets, sax, tuba, snare and bass drum (which, on that night, was actually played by a man; the usual bass-drum player had fallen sick and there was not a female substitute). Janine Waters, balanced on bright red peep-toe wedges, let out a little warm-up bellow on her tuba. Here and there, under the blue stage lights, a polka-dot lining peeked from inside the fitted mix-and-match pinstripe outfits they wore. They were the first performance of the evening and, starting exactly on time, faced a crowd of only a few dozen people. They promptly announced themselves as the world’s only all-female brass band—but then, except for the usual stage banter, they stopped talking and played. “We’re not just up here to say it’s all females playing,” says Harris, “but that we can actually play and play well.”
Within a few minutes, the crowd had grown, filling the room. Prompted to dance and make some noise, the audience did. And when the Original Pinettes launched into one of their original songs, it was clear that they had fans who knew the material. The whole room sang along with the refrain: “Hey, don’t go nowhere! The Pinettes’re on their way!”
In 1991, St. Mary’s Academy’s band teacher Jeffrey Herbert pulled 16 young girls together to form a band. Named ‘The Pinettes’ after ‘The Pinstripes Brass Band’ for whom Herbert was a member, the band is still in existence today and widely recognized as the world’s first all women’s brass band. In that beginning class was a high school sophomore by the name of Christie Jourdain who started as an alternate snare drummer. Almost twenty years later, Jourdain is not only the band’s sole original member but is now the leader of The Pinettes Brass Band.
Born and raised in New Orleans East, Jourdain says that music has always been her passion and she was attracted to drums early in life. “I was raised on MTV and I was looking at Prince and his drummer had these flat drums - I was a tomboy, I always wanted a drum set. Then he introduced us to Sheila E. and that was it for me.” Desirous of a career in music and believing she’d have a better chance at playing drums in the band if she went to an all girls school, Jourdain chose to attend St. Mary’s College Prep Academy rather than one of the local co-ed high schools. In retrospect, that decision seems to be born of destiny.
Reflecting on the unique challenges that come from being in the only women’s group in a male-dominated music scene, Jourdain shares, “Growing up, there weren’t many women leading bands or playing drums. Back then, besides (Sheila E.), the Go Go’s and the Bangles were they only female bands out there.’ The Pinettes forged into the brass band scene, receiving what Jourdain characterizes as a “mostly lukewarm reception” by the other brass band which are nearly 100% all male ensembles. “At first...they would applaud us and tell us we were ‘cute’. Now they see we’re serious, now they look at us like we’re competition. Its hard and discouraging but we keep doing it. Besides my band director Mr. Herbert, it’s been hard to depend on men for support.”
There are, however, a few accomplished male mentors apart from the band’s founder who have taken an interest in helping The Pinettes develop their craft. “The first person who took me, sat me down and said ‘This is how its gonna work’ was (Rebirth Brass Band’s) Phil Frazier. He believed in us, has been helping us out since early 2000. To this day, if I call and ask him he’s there for us.” She also counts Trombone Shorty, Derrick Tabb, and Bo ‘Gerard’ Dollis as mentors. “We go way back with (Bo). We shared the same manager for a time. We all separated from that management but he told us ‘I won’t forget about y’all.’ And he didn’t. We open a lot for him at his shows.”
Jourdain’s installation as the band’s leader came at a turning point when The Pinettes broke apart immediately after the storm. Hurricane Katrina scattered the band members to six different cities and Jourdain, who was displaced in Houston, worried about the band’s survival. “The band leader at that time was Sherry Pannell who played trumpet. She told us that her new job and new responsibilities meant she wouldn’t be able to continue with the band.‘ At first, Jourdain resigned herself to the band folding up shop for good. But her bandmate encouraged her to press on. "(Pinettes sousaphonist) Janine was like, ‘We haven’t tried to run a band before. Lets just do it!’ And I didn’t want to see it die off so I came back every weekend or so for gigs. We drove back to take gigs that we didn’t even make money on just to keep the band going.”
In the aftermath of the storm, the band’s saxophone player also quit leaving Jourdain and the remaining few members to set about rebuilding their band. “We had to go find females to play with us. You know how hard it is - to find a mother, a wife to come and play with us?” Today’s reconstructed band consists of seven members: Jourdain on snare, Janine "Tuba Shorty" Waters on tuba, Cassandra French on bass drum, Dionne Harrison on trombone, Nicole Elwood on trombone, Careese McGee on trumpet, and Natasha "Saxy Lady" Harris on saxophone.
Although all the members are responsible for outreach, Jourdain gets most of the gigs for the band. At least for now, she says, they’re burned out from dealing with band managers. “We tried several managers but they all came with different demands: no drinking, no smoking; 18 page contracts with high amounts; trying to run our personal business...” Work isn’t as consistent as they’d like, but the band continues to book gigs in well-established venues and high profile festivals. For several years, they had a regular gig at the now defunct ‘Donna’s’ on Rampart. They appear annually at the French Quarter Fest, Jazz Fest, and local radio station 102.9’s ‘Old School In the Park’ events in Armstrong Park. This year has brought new opportunities for The Pinettes including regular appearance at parties sponsored by the 2010 Witch Doctor for the Zulu Club Anthony Fields and subbing for The Hot 8 Brass Band at their weekly Wolf Den shows when the latter band is on the road. Currently, The Pinettes perform at The Bar 12 on Fulton most Thursdays nights.
Despite the band’s continuous struggles to break stereo-types and build a large following the likes of some of their male peer brass bands, Jourdain remains optimistic about the future and fulfilled by her work with The Pinettes. “If you love your job, you don’t wanna quit and I love what i do. You can have a bad day but when its time to play, its fun. And I love playing music. I just love playing my drum.”
In honor of National Farmers Market Week 2012, the Farmers Market Coalition (FMC) announces the Farmers Market Inspiration Award, designed to reward and showcase the variety of ways farmers markets benefit communities across the United States. This award is conducted in concert with the American Farmland Trust’s America’s Favorite Farmers Market Contest.
We’re looking for essay submissions from all corners of the nation that depict concrete examples of farmers market impacts: on-farm biodiversity, diversity among producers and customers, or diversity in the partnerships that help your farmers markets best serve your community. This year, we are specifically looking for essays written by farmers/producers at farmers markets.
Timeframe for Entry
June 21st through August 11th, 2012
Award
$1,000 cash prize to one (1) grand prize winner; Five (5) honorable mentions will each receive a free one year membership in the Farmers Market Coalition, and a one year print subscription to Growing for Market.
What kind of submissions are we looking for?
We are looking for concise, imaginative, striking essays that reflect agricultural producers’ perspectives about the people, products, or partnerships that make selling at farmers markets valuable. While our top award will be chosen based on how compelling and clearly they depicts this general theme, honorable mentions will also be chosen for publication. We’ve offered some ideas, but this is just to get your imagination going!
How do I tell my farmers market story?
Start by asking yourself: Why do I sell at farmers markets? What challenges, major or minor, are involved in selling at farmers markets? What priceless relationships have I formed at markets? How has my business changed since I began selling at farmers markets? What have I learned from my customers? How have I built my product mix around the unique assets of the land I use? What advice would I give new and beginning producers? What humorous or humbling lessons have you learned there surprises or innovations? We suggest that you choose one specific example rather than attempt to cover everything. Be creative, be specific, and have fun!
Who can enter?
Submissions will be accepted by agricultural producers actively selling at farmers markets in the United States. Entries from current or past paid staff of Farmers Market Coalition or American Farmland Trust will not be considered eligible.
When is the deadline for entries?
The deadline for entries is 5 p.m. Eastern August 11, 2012. Judging will take place in August, with the winning entry to be announced August 31st, 2012, in conjunction with the America’s Favorite Farmers Market Contest.
Who will judge the submissions?
The panel of judges will consist of Farmers Market Coalition Board of Directors, as well as representatives from American Farmland Trust, and Growing for Market editorial staff.
What happens with the winning essays?
The judges will choose, from all submissions, one winning award, which will appear in the October issue of Growing for Market as well as on the FMC web site. Honorable mentions will be chosen and published by FMC or in other print or online publications.
All essays, both winning and non-winning, may also be published in all Farmers Market Coalition print and electronic publications, and may, with the contestant submission, also be published in partnering organization blogs, print publications, or FMC partner web sites.
What are the rules for entry?
Entries must be received by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on August 11, 2012.
Entries should tell one story that responds to the question, “How has selling at farmers markets affected you, your farm, your family, or your community?”
Essay Criteria:
Your essay should be no longer than 1,200 words.
Your essay should focus on a specific example that illustrates the value of farmers markets to your business, not just a summary about your business. You can even focus on one crop, one customer, one interaction, one lesson learned, or one market day.
Your essay should include at least one quote from a fellow farmer, customer, market manager or community partner.
Your essay should include at least three pieces of measurable data that strengthen the story you have to tell, for example: number of acres in production, number of crops/varieties, income earned at farmers markets, number of employees and/or family members supported by farmers market sales, number of regular customers, number of pounds donated annually to social service agencies in your market’s community.
Supporting documentation: Each entry will not be considered complete without submission of a photograph of the submitter (or another representative from their business) at their market booth. A one sentence caption is required.
By entering the contest, you give Farmers Market Coalition program the right to publish your essay and/or photos in any of its publications, as well as submit on your behalf to other like-minded organizations and on-line publications. Furthermore, we will assume that future credited use of your writing and photos in Farmers Market Coalition publications is possible unless you specify otherwise.
We reserve the right to excerpt from essays and crop images as we see fit.
Entries must be your own work, and all information factual. A fact check will be conducted before the grand prize is awarded.
Entries should not have won previous competitions, and should not have been published elsewhere.
No responsibility is accepted for ineligible entries or entries made fraudulently.
By entering this competition you are accepting these rules and agree to be bound by them.
Current or past paid Farmers Market Coalition staff board members are not eligible to win the Farmers Market Inspirations Award.
ANY OBJECTIONS? Glasgay 2012 is seeking 10-Minute plays from around the world for reading & discussion at the festival. Themes are acts of union, marriage equality, and LGBT civil rights.
From full, equal, legal status to the total denial of the presence of homosexuality within their borders, LGBT Marriage Equality means different things in different countries. What does it mean in yours? Snapshot the LGBT experience in your native country and submit your 10-minute play to AnyObjectionsSubmissions@rlbrody.com
Winning entries will be performed during Glasgay 2012, the UK’s biggest LGBT arts festival, as part of a rotating program presented between 23-28 October, 2012 in Glasgow, Scotland. Writers may also be awarded a small honorarium for their work. Requests for anonymity will be respected.
