Federation of BC Writers presents: "Who is 'The Other'?" Poetry Contest

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Tuesday, December 25th, 2018

Submissions are now open for this year’s Literary Writes poetry contest sponsored by the Federation of British Columbia Writers (FBCW). There will be two sections - a general category, judged by Fiona Tinwei Lam and a 19-and-under youth category judged by Renée Saklikar, both with the theme: “Who is ‘The Other’?”

“The Federation of British Columbia Writers is committed to supporting and inspiring writers and is very happy to be able to include an award for young poets this year,” said FBCW president Ann Graham Walker. “We’d like people to please help us by ensuring that news of this contest gets to schools and libraries in their community.”

Fiona Tinwei Lam has authored two poetry books and a children’s book. She edited The Bright Well: Canadian Poems on Facing Cancer, and co-edited Love Me True: Writers on the Ins, Outs, Ups & Downs of Marriage. She has won The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford prize and was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. Her poetry videos have screened at festivals locally and internationally. She has a new collection of poems forthcoming with Caitlin Press in 2019.

Renée Saklikar is Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey, British Columbia. Her latest book is a B.C. Bestseller: Listening to the Bees. Renee’s first book, children of air india, un/authorized exhibits and interjections, about the bombing of Air India Flight 182, won the 2014 Canadian Authors Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2014 Dorothy Livesay (BC Book Prize)

“The Federation of BC Writers is very honoured to have such outstanding writers helping us to nurture excellence through our contests,” said organizer Cynthia Sharp, a Vancouver writer on the board of the FBCW. 

The FBCW is committed to supporting excellence in writing and – with funding from the BC Arts Council -- runs three literary contests per year. In addition to the Literary Writes poetry competition in the winter, it offers the BC Short, a short story competition in the spring, and a 650-word “Flash Prose” (Fiction/Non-Fiction) contest in the Fall.
?For more information, contest guidelines, and to submit, please go to the FBCW web page: bcwriters.ca.  The entry fee is $15 per poem. FBCW Members pay $10. Entries will be handled through Submittable. The name of the entrant must not appear anywhere on the entry itself. Work must be poetry, original and not previously published, and must relate to the contest theme, “Who is ‘The Other’?”. Submissions must be in MS Word, PDF or RTF format, in Times New Roman (or equivalent) 12-point font. Electronic submissions only please. The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2019. Winners will be announced on March 1, 2019. The winning entry will be published in WordWorks, the magazine of the Federation of BC Writers. Members of the FBCW Board of Directors and their immediate family are not eligible to enter.  Since judging is blind, poems recognizable to the judges from their workshops with students will be disqualified. For further questions or help, write to [email protected].