Bloomsday Creative Writing Contest: Incredible Talent, Engaging Reads
We’ve been overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response to Greece’s first-ever Bloomsday Creative Writing Contest. The entries kept flooding in, with almost as many entries coming in on our last day as all the other days, proving that writers are indeed procrastinators! Thank you for your transporting reads – your stories took us on train rides and trans-Atlantic crossings, through time zones and turbulent periods in history. Here’s the lowdown on the judging process.
The final tally stands close to 200 entries! Countdown to June 16.
Meet your Judges: A panel of distinguished writers and poets will judge the winning entry, including Theo Dorgan, the Irish poet, novelist, prose writer, documentary screenwriter, editor, translator and broadcaster with a longstanding connection to and affinity with Greece, Haris Vlavianos, the Greek poet, academic, editor and translator (including of the Irish poet Michael Longley) and Sofka Zinovieff, best-selling author, whose books consistently feature in ‘essential reading for Greece’ lists.
Judging process: All entries have been painstakingly anonymised by the Irish Embassy and saved as documents with numbered names, based on the date of receipt. The judges will therefore not know whose work they are reading. We are keeping spreadsheets with the authors’ names and the number allocated to their entries.
Prizes: The winning story will be published by Athens Insider online and in its print edition in June. The winners in all categories will be announced on June 17 and stand to win some fantastic prizes, namely:
- Optima, which owns Kerrygold in Greece, has given us €1,000 to be split into three cash prizes (one for each category, €500, €300 and €200 respectively);
- Aegean Airlines is giving us a pair of return flights from Greece to Ireland (or vice versa);
- The Benaki Museum’s recently-opened Patrick & Joan Leigh Fermor House managed by Aria Hotels in Kardamyli has given us a two-night stay for a couple;
- Attica Park has given us an annual pass for a family of four (for the U. 13 age group);
- Pelion Homes has given us a two-night stay for a couple or a family (for the 13-18 age group); and
- As runner-up prizes, we have afternoon tea at the Grande Bretagne Hotel, and vouchers for the James Joyce, O’Connell’sand Molly Malone’s Irish pubs (all of which also do meals).
