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August 2021 Writing Contest

Cash Prizes Awarded: $100, $50, $50

 
Guidelines:
  • Email your entries to contact@hunterwriterscentre.org
  • The contest is for members only. Become a member
  • all entries, max 500 words (poems max 20 lines)
  • Max 2 submissions
  • Email subject header: August Writing Contest
  • Closes 5th September. Awards announced later in the month.

Past contests: read the wonderful submissions 
May and  February 2021 and
2020: MayJuneSeptember and November 

Write a poem, story or opinion piece about COVID-19. 

Or a piece inspired by one of the quotes or images on this page

“I had always been a great talker and teller of tales.
‘You should put a lock on that tongue of yours. It’s long enough and sharp enough to slit your own throat,’ our guardian warned me …
– Kate Forsyth, Bitter Greens

“And don’t kid yourself; when you don’t decide, that’s a decision.”
― Anh Do, The Happiest Refugee

The avalanche of bullshit in the world would drown her if she let it; the least she could do was raise her voice in anger. 
– Melissa Lucashenko, Too Much Lip

“Homesickness hits hardest in the middle of a crowd in a large, alien city.”
― Christos Tsiolkas, Barracuda

 “axle-grease, grass, toothpaste, fish-milkshake and raw horseflesh.”
― Andy Griffiths, Andypedia

 

 

the remaking of deserts, endlessly,
when sand becomes a definition
of scale or boundaries or change
like weather squeezing out lines of heat
that drives from solid midnight freeze
up into the sweat pressure of midday.
Jill Jones, poet

full poem here


It’s the water that pins

us down.
Our flighty atoms,
our fizzy ideas,
our invisible words
held, grounded.
 
Without its weight
we’d be a spectacle
of glittering particles
grey   pink   brown  gold.
– Georgina Reid, There is Nothing Heavier Than a River

full poem here

Georges de La Tour The Fortune Teller, 1630
Georges de La Tour The Fortune Teller, 1630
abstract painting: Agnes Martin, With My Back to the World, 1997
Agnes Martin, With My Back to the World, 1997
JR, 2008 Museum of Street Art, Paris,France
Photographer: JR, 2008 Museum of Street Art, Paris,France
David Diehm - Worimi Conservation Lands
giant spider sculpture titled Maman by Louise Bourgeois, , 1990
Maman, Louise Bourgeois,1990
Image of a section of the classified ads in the Manchester Guardian advertising Jewish children prior to WW2
I Seek A Kind Person - classified ads by parents of Jewish children prior to WW2 - click image to learn more
Very colourful painting by Hilma af Klint, Group X, Altarpiece, No. 1 (1915)
Hilma af Klint, Group X, Altarpiece, No. 1 (1915)
Amani Haydar mixed media titled Insert headline here. photo of Amani holding a picture of her mother who, in the picture, is holding a photo of her mother
Amani Haydar, 'Insert headline here' - click image to learn more
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We acknowledge the Awabakal and Worimi as the custodians of the lands on which we live, work and write.

Hunter Writers Centre
ABN 44 903 609 935

Postal Address:
​PO Box 494
The Junction NSW 2291 Australia

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