Clancy Tucker's Blog: 15 January 2013 - 'LOVE ON THE ROAD 2013'

15 January 2013 - 'LOVE ON THE ROAD 2013' - CONTEST

'LOVE ON THE ROAD 2013'

- CONTEST -

G'day guys,

I was recently invited to be one of a few judges in a special writing contest - 'Love On The Road 2013', organised by a former guest on this blog - Sam Tranum. So, all of you budding writers out there might want to enter.

What is it?

Love on the Road 2013 will be an anthology of stories about making connections, from heartfelt ones ending in weddings, to less high-minded ones ending in beds (or wherever). Half the stories will be about travelers meeting someone far from home, and the other half about people meeting travelers passing through.You can submit your 5,000-word story to us between January 1, 2013 and March 31, 2013, along with a $10 reading fee. We will choose the best 12 stories for publication and send them to our judges. They will pick the stories that will win the cash prizes of $200, $100 and $50.

Do you hang around the tourist district in your city, hoping to pick up a good-looking traveler? Did you fall in love with your mountaineering instructor in an ice cave in the Himalayas while on vacation? Are you still dreaming about that visiting English teacher you had years ago? Did you meet and marry your soulmate while doing development work overseas?

We want funny stories, tragic stories, dangerous stories and sweet stories. We will accept both fiction and non-fiction, but not poetry. We hope to include tales from all over the world, and from a wide variety of perspectives, including from LGBT writers. There's more information here about how to submit your story.

Submissions:

So, drag out those old short stories or start penning a great yarn, then click on this link and get started.

http://loveontheroad2013.com/submit-a-story/

About the organisers and judges:

Lois Kapila is from the Fenlands of east England. She holds a BA in Russian from Oxford, and an MA in comparative politics from the London School of Economics. She has written for the Times of Central Asia, Washington City Paper, the Caspian Business Journal, Russian Life, the Christian Science Monitor, and Literary Traveler, among other places. She was a trainee defence investigator for the Washington DC Public Defender Service. She is now working as an editorial consultant for The Statesman newspaper in Kolkata. When she is not writing, she enjoys playing the guitar and singing with an affected Southern drawl, and investigating crimes for defence attorneys.

Sam Tranum is from Massachusetts in the United States. He holds a BA in social and global studies from Antioch College, and an MA in international relations from the University of Chicago. As a reporter, he has covered government and politics for the Charleston Daily Mail and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and the nuclear energy business for Nuclear Intelligence Weekly. He edited at The Statesman newspaper in Kolkata. He served as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkmenistan, and published a book about the experience, Daily Life in Turkmenbashy's Golden Age. He taught journalism at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and published a book with his students, Life at the Edge of the Empire: Oral Histories of Soviet Kyrgyzstan. He has also written a novella, U is for Murder, about a killing at a nuclear conference.

Anisha Bhaduri, who has spent more than a decade in journalism, is deputy news editor at the The Statesman newspaper in Kolkata. In 2009, she won first prize in a national literary contest for women writers organized by the British Council in India. In 2012, one of her stories, "Other People's Lives," was included in the MSN-Random House anthology She Writes: A Collection of Short Stories. She was the first Indian woman to become a Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Fellow, and has written book chapters on contemporary Indian journalism and politics for the foundation.

Jennifer Ciotta is a Contributing Editor (formerly Editorial Director) at Literary Traveler. She has lived and traveled extensively throughout the West Indies and Eastern Europe, the latter as a Peace Corps volunteer. Additionally, she is the author of I, Putin: A Novel, winner of Honorable Mentions at the New York Book Festival and Hollywood Book Festival. Currently, she holds an MA in creative writing and Russian studies from NYU, and she is an independent book manuscript editor at Pencey X Pages.

Lucas Hunt studied English and journalism at the University of Iowa, where he wrote for The Daily Iowan, and attended the Poetry Writer’s Workshop. He studied in the MFA program at Southampton College, published his first volume of poetry, Lives, and won a John Steinbeck Award. Hunt is a rights manager at the Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency. His professional interests are literary fiction, travel, and creative nonfiction. His second volume of poetry, Light on the Concrete, was published in 2011 to critical acclaim.

Clancy Tucker writes young adult fiction. He is a photographer of some merit, publisher, occasional poet, daily blogger for emerging writers, mentor to aspiring Australian writers and a lecturer to members of the University of The Third Age (U3A). Clancy is also a social justice activist and human rights campaigner, has lived in four countries, traveled widely and speaks three languages. He’s been short-listed, ‘Commended’ and ‘Highly Commended’ in writing contests, won three awards in the Australian National Literary Awards and had short stories, poetry and photographs published around the world. Clancy does not sing too often and, sadly, has forgotten how to play the guitar and trumpet. However, he does speak with a fluent Australian accent.