Crocodile Prize launches 2019 short story and poetry contests

The last Crocodile Prize awards in 2017 were hosted by writer Martyn Namorong, himself one of the first award winners in 2011

By KEITH JACKSON - PNG Attitude

PORT MORESBY – Poets and short story writers can fire up their computers and blow the dust off their notebooks now that Crocodile Prizeorganisers have announced the launch of the 2019 awards in both these important genres of writing in Papua New Guinea.

Both awards have a tight deadline for entries of Saturday 31 August and offer large cash prizes as well as publication in the prestigious 2019 Crocodile Prize Anthology.

The winning short story will be awarded to the best original, narrative-based prose by a Papua New Guinean author.

There no strict word limit but judging will be based on quality ahead of quantity.

Contest organisers say creativity and originality are important and highly considered will be the relevance of the perspectives presented as well as style, coherence of ideas, form and structure.

Previous short story winners were Jeffrey Mani Febi (2011), Charlotte Vada (2012), Leonard Fong Roka (2013), Agnes Maineke (2014), Hazel Kutkue (2015) and Alison Kult (2016).

There was no short story award in 2017 and no Crocodile Prize contest in 2018.

The award for poetry is keenly contested and in previous years this category has always had by far the most entries.

Many exceptional poems have been written and judges have never found it easy to select the most outstanding.

Winners in previous years were Jimmy Drekore (2011), Michael Dom (2012), Lapieh Landu (2013), Diddie Kinamun Jackson (2014), Philip Kaua Gena (2015) and Wardley D Barry-Igivisa (2016) and Annie Dori (2017).

Go to this link for more: https://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2019/07/crocodile-prize-launches-2019-short-story-and-poetry-contests.html