The Kootenay Literary Competition

The Kootenay Literary Competition is in the process of constructing a new Website at www.kootenaylitcomp.com. We’re still going to be associated with the Inthekoots Network (the regional news and social network serving the Kootenays)  but for the time being stay in touch with us via our Facebook Page  and let us know what you’d like to see for the upcoming 2012 competition.

Tags: 2012, inthekoots, website

This was a great year for the KLC, we had more entries than the competition, the literary talent in the Kootenays shone brighter than ever and on January  6th 2012 we’ll be hosting our awards night to announce the winners.  Here are the details:

What: The KLC Awards night! – wine, beverages, appetizers, special guests and KLC finalists, friends, family and the general public.

When:  Friday January 6th 2012  - 6pm

Where: The Hume Hotel (in Nelson)

The awards night is open to the public so if you’re a finalist bring some friends, if you’re a friend bring some more friends! Help us celebrate the best storytellers in the Kootenays and find out more about the 2012 KLC competition.

Hope to see you there!

There is “chaos” in the literary community!  The Kootenay Literary Competition is now open and the theme this year for the adult competition is “Chaos” in all its forms.

 This popular annual writing event is open to all writers in the entire Kootenay region.  This year there will be two distinct competitions: one for adults and another for youth.  Youth can enter the Grades 10-12 category or Grades 7-9 category.  Grades 10-12 should use the following first line : “It wasn’t that I meant for it to happen….” .  Young people Grades 7-9 but must include the following words in their piece: “tricks”, “seventeen cents” and “sweet.” Adults can enter in four categories: Fiction, Creative Non-fiction, Poetry and Emerging Writer.

There will be great cash prizes and an awards ceremony, winners readings, and free food.

Prizes range from $50 up to $200 depending on the category.

Competition Details

The 2011 Entry Fees are as follows:

• $35.00 for each submission in the Adult competition (4 Categories)
• $15.00 for each submission in the Youth competition (2 Age Categories)

Information, rules, category descriptions, details and entry forms are available here on this website.

Submissions 

Maximum 3,000 words in the adult competition and 2,500 in the youth competition.  Submissions must be submitted in standard competition format.  A submission format template is available on our website.  Submissions must be submitted electronically, with entry fees received by mail, before the submissions is considered.

Writers may submit in more than one category but each submission must be accompanied by a separate entry form and fee.  All submissions must be submitted to kootenaylitcomp@gmail.com no later than 5:00pm on November 15^th, 2011.   

Entry fees, with a copy of the entry form, should be mailed (or dropped off) to:

Mint Agency

Suite # 6 – 560 Baker Street

Nelson, BC V1L 4H9

 

For any additional questions email kootenaylitcomp@gmail.com or contact KLC Committee Member, Kathy Hartley at kathart@shaw.ca.

 

Winners in each of the categories will be announced at the KLC Awards Ceremony and Celebration planned for early 2012.

Have fun and get writing!

 

For media contact or interviews :

Kathy Hartley 250-352-1956

or

Morty Mint 250-352-7844

 

Presented by : the Kootenay Literary Competition Committee

In partnership with: Nelson and District Arts Council

Wear the old coat. Buy the new book! ~Anonymous Image credit: G. Linn

Nelson is my kind of town.

The planning for the 2011 competition is just starting to sputter to life, but already we’ve had some great people step forward with advice on how we can improve on last year’s success.  This isn’t just our event, it belongs to every writer out there, so if you’ve got ideas or comments, don’t hold back–your input can only help make the competition better. Email us if you’re shy, post something on our Facebook wall or comment here on our blog. Hope we hear from you!

And now, back to writing!

The Awards Ceremony and Celebration for the 2010 Kootenay Literary Competition was held this past Saturday, February 5^th at the Hume Hotel and what a wonderful evening we had!  I and my fellow volunteers on the Organizing Committee were excited to have over seventy guests at the party, including competition entrants, winners, volunteers, judges and other writers and friends from the community.  Anne DeGrace, Nelson’s 2011 Cultural Ambassador, shared some inspiring words for all the writers in attendance and our first place winners treated the crowd with readings from their winning pieces.  Congratulations to all our winners and finalists, and thanks to everyone who helped make the competition a success.

To all who couldn’t join us, we missed you.  And to everyone who came out, we’re glad you could be part of our celebration.

The Kootenay Literary Competition

2010 Winners and Finalists

Poetry

First Place:  The Wind’s Voice – Sheila Murray-Nellis

Second Place:  Spot Beneath Time – Gord Turner

Finalists: Alone at the Hermitage – Kuya Minogue; Poems excerpted from manuscript Dead Crow and The Spirit Engine – Sean Arthur (Art) Joyce; Into Darkness – Bree Switzer

Fiction

First place:  Badlands – Brian D’Eon

Second place:  The Fridge – Jane Byers

Finalists: Sojourn – Sandra Hartline; M – Bill Macpherson; Too Long in the Gully – Amos Tanguay

Creative Non-Fiction

First place:   When the Path Is Not a Straight Line – Ellen Burt

Second place:  Without Witness – Amanda Bath

Finalists: The Hole – Wayne H. Cole; The Storm Before the Calm – Amber Murray; But, I Say Nothing – Randi Jensen

Emerging Writer

First place:  The Connections – Marie Campagne

Second place:  A Lousy Existence – Ginny McClelland

Finalists: Ivory Fortress – Rick Nixon; The Garden Rows – Tea Preville; Restart the Art of Letter Writing – Amie Osness

Youth

Winner:  The Runaways: A Story of the Indian Schools – Jenny Crakes

Finalist:  Brush Strokes of Haida Gwaii – Abigail Cowan

Kootenay Literary Competition. Image: Nic's events (Flickr Creative Commons)

A few years ago, as part of a writing class assignment, I submitted a short story to my class group for critiquing. It was the first short story I ever finished and I poured myself into the final draft, proofing it three times before I was finally satisfied. From my perspective, it had it all—fresh characters, snappy dialogue, original twists. That day in class I confidently passed around the requisite five copies to the group, certain I’d be hearing great things soon.

And sure enough, the following week my fellow writers warmly informed me they had indeed liked the story. “Great dialogue, Deb,” was a common accolade. Good, tight narrative, yup. Action and tension, spot on. And then came the kicker.

“Um, there was one thing that was missing for me,” one woman gently said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get any sense of place. I’m actually not sure at all about the setting. Where exactly is this taking place?”

Everyone else in the group nodded in agreement but I glanced down at my copy, scanning the typed lines in puzzlement. What did she mean? No idea of setting? What were she talking about? Hell, I could still see the setting in my mind as clearly as the day I’d written the opening scene. My amazing heroine with her snappy one-liners was sturdily ensconced on a mountainside, in a rough campsite surrounded by scrub and trees and rocks and—

Oh crap. She was absolutely right. I might have had a brilliant visual in my mind for my setting, but I hadn’t described any of it. In fact, the only details that had actually made it onto the page were “dirt trail” and one vague reference to a couple of trees. That was it! And because love is blind, in all that proofing, I’d never once noticed what my story was missing!

I laugh about it now, only because my fellow writers taught me things that day that remain true to the present. I am good at dialogue. It comes easy, is usually the most fun for me to write and typically needs the least tweaking when I’m at the revision stage. But description and setting? Those I still struggle with. That stuff doesn’t come easy. It’s painful and feels mechanical to the point of unnatural. The only thing that keeps me going is that thought that, little by little, I am getting better at it.

I might not see much of those classmates/writers anymore, but they all did me an invaluable service by shining light on that short story’s major weakness.

As writers, we probably all have an instinct, a knack, for doing something well. But we can also instinctively rush through (or completely avoid) those bits of writing that don’t come easy. And spotting a piece’s weak points is tough work to do on your own.

Thus, the need for a writing buddy or a writers’ group where you can put your writing to the test and find out what’s great about your story…and what isn’t.

Feedback is vital for a writer. But it’s surprisingly hard to get. Our friends and families aren’t always reliable test audiences for our writing. They love us and want to encourage us, so they’re hardly going to tell us what’s not working in a story. So it often takes other writers to tell us what we need to hear. That’s why, this year, the shortlist of finalists for our competition will be receiving critiques and comments from the judges. It meant more work for our volunteer team of judges, but they were all willing to do it because, as pros, they know the value of feedback.

If you’re a writer not fortunate enough to receive a critique from our judges, don’t despair. Use this as an excuse to finally reach out to other writers and form that writers’ group you’ve always wanted and never found. Make a commitment to each other to meet once a week for six weeks to provide feedback on whatever pieces you’re all working on right now (you are writing, aren’t you?  Aren’t you?). Agree if you’ll meet face-to-face or do it through email. What you’ll learn about your writing will make all the organizing work worth the effort, I promise.

Keep writing!

Deb O’Keeffe
Kootenay Literary Competition

Image Credit: Frerieke, Flickr Creative Commons

Wow, it’s a new year with new challenges.  I thought I was having a tough go of it, sticking to my resolution to give up caffeine and trying to live down the Christmas spending transgressions listed on my latest Visa statement. 

And then I heard about the fire at the Kerr apartment building in Nelson and the people who lost everything.  Whew.  Reality check.

Considering the challenges our fellow Nelsonites from the Kerr are facing, I don’t want to talk in great detail about the Kootenay Literary Competition’s success.  Yes, the organizers were thrilled that we received 35 submissions—a 40% increase over last year’s entries—but we’ll get all the Competition’s good news out in a day or two.  It just doesn’t seem right to jump up and down with happiness for me and mine when there’s people without a place to sleep tonight.  So for now, I’ll just say I’ll be following the example of the many generous souls who have already acted and do what I can to help out the people from the Kerr. 

We writers know how hard it is to face our own tough challenges—writing deadlines, life’s ugly demands encroaching on our precious writing time, harsh criticism of our work.  But the coming weeks and months are going to be particularly hard for the Kerr folks.  I know many have already given (and given generously), but if you haven’t had a chance yet, please take a moment and consider doing whatever you can to help out.  There’s no such thing as “too little.”  No act of kindness and giving is ever too small to matter.

Check out the online coverage at The Nelson Post and, of course, the In the Koots network for the latest developments on the various donation and fundraising drives for the residents of the Kerr apartment building.

Best wishes, everyone.

Deb O’Keeffe
Kootenay Literary Competition

Tags: competition, writing

Kootenay Literary Competition Image Credit: D. O'Keeffe

Yes, it is the season to be writing…and submitting!  Is there really only a week to the Literary Competition’s deadline??  Jeez, things can sneak up on a gal.

Butterflies and Isolation – There’s a Connection There…

Kootenay Literary Competition, Image by Gary Linn

As many of you have probably heard, Tanna Patterson-Z, author of Butterflies in Bucaramanga, will be doing a reading at the Nelson Library on Tuesday, November 30^th and I’ve promised myself I’m going to take time out from my Kootenay Literary Competition Committee duties and get myself down to the library for this.  The real-life story behind Butterflies sounds absolutely fascinating—not only because I used to work for a company of mining engineers and have sat through my share of chilling meetings discussing kidnap-and-ransom insurance for the engineers who were doing mine clean-up work in some of the poorest, most politically unstable regions in the world, but because the story seems to strongly echo the Kootenay Literary Competition’s theme of isolation.  Imagine being torn away from all that you know and spending months wondering if or when you would ever see your family again! 

I’m very much looking forward to hearing what Patterson-Z might share about what it was like writing Butterflies.  I think anytime a writer explores the experience of being separated from the familiar, they’re headed for intense emotional territory.  Hopefully when we get together—KLC entrants, friends and volunteers alike—at the Awards Ceremony and Celebration on February 5, 2011, we’ll have our own stories to share about tackling the theme of isolation in our writing this year.  I’ll be sure to post information about the celebration party soon.

Meanwhile, I know you’re all busy working on your submissions for the competition (remember, they’re due no later than December 15, 2010), but maybe you’ll be able to take a night off and come out to the library, too.  Sounds like it’ll be a memorable evening.

Keep writing!

Deb O’Keeffe, Kootenay Literary Competition Committee

Tags: author reading, competition, writing

For Emerging Writers:  How to Outwit Your Inner Editor in Time to Enter the Kootenay Literary Competition

Hello, and welcome to our blog!  Promotion for the Kootenay Literary Competition has picked up steam, there’s been an upswing in inquiries about the competition at our email address (kootenaylitcomp@gmail.com) and now In The Koots has generously helped the Competition get its very own blog.  I’m so excited!

This first post is directed at all the emerging writers out there who are telling themselves “the entry deadline is only a month away, there isn’t enough time to write something for the competition.”  The maximum word count for an entry is only 5,000 words.  It is do-able, I promise!  And one emerging writer to another, I’ll even give you some hints on how you might be able to pull off a first draft in the next seven days.

I’m currently up to my neck in Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) which means I’m writing a minimum of 1,667 words a day, every day, for the entire month of November.  And this year I’m using a sure-fire method to help reach that daily goal.  And no, it doesn’t involve abusing the triple-strong espresso setting on my coffee maker, having my main character recite the dictionary or begging writing buddies to agree that Facebook status updates count towards my daily word goal.

What it does involve is Word Wars.  Word Wars could get you a first draft of your Kootenay Literary Competition short story in a week.  All you need to successfully participate in a Word War is a timer and your own permission to write some truly terrible stuff.

The object of this word battle is to write without stopping, without overthinking, without editing.  You do this by forcing yourself to get as many words written as possible within a set time period.  So fetch the egg timer out of the kitchen, log onto some free online site like http://www.online-stopwatch.com/ or grab your cell phone and set the alarm.  Set the thing for 15 minutes from now.  Then start writing.  Don’t think.  Just write.  Type away.  Get the pen moving.  Can’t think of a name for your character?  Call her Jane.  Can’t figure out Jane’s facial expression when her stockbroker boyfriend announces he’s moving them both to rural Saskatchewan to pursue his dream of iguana farming?  Just say she frowned.  Doesn’t matter if she frowns eighteen times in a row.  Don’t pause to think up something better.  Just say she frowned.  Again and again.  Keep writing until the timer goes off.

Whew!  Okay.  Take one minute to make sure the kids are okay and the house isn’t on fire.  Then set the timer for another fifteen minutes.  And go again.

When I engage in Word Wars, I can end up with five hundred words per timed session.  Do two sessions every day for five days and you could have the first draft of your competition entry within a week!

Before you scoff, I assure you this crazed approach to writing a first draft works.  It took me three years to let go of my hang-ups and prejudices and embrace the idea, and I’d trade all my hardcover Diana Gabaldons to get those years back.  This is what the pros are talking about when they say “turn off your inner editor.”  You outwit your inner editor by outrunning her.  For me, this approach is the difference between writing a plot-advancing scene and floundering around for three hours, rewriting things in my head ten times before finally committing them to paper…and still ending up with something fractured and unusable.

Now, I’m not saying that at the end of those timed sessions I’ve written something great.  In fact, I can guarantee it’s gloriously awful.  Characters wind up with the same names as cartoon fish.  Setting description is limited to phrases like “smelly room.”  But the scene is complete, from start to finish.  I know how many warm bodies are in that room, the basics of what the characters need to say and I have a decent idea of what each character is (or isn’t) going to get from one another before all they flee for fresher scented environments.   Which means I can move on to the next scene, then the next, and the next…until I finish the story and have a complete first draft.

A novelist I admire once said “I can revise a bad first draft, but I can’t revise a blank page.”  Truer words were never spoken.  I urge you to be brave enough to write first, fix later.  Crank out that first draft, scene by scene, from start to finish.  There’ll be time later to go back over it and give Jane a better name, more facial expressions and clearer motivation for finally dumping her iguana-loving boyfriend (if that whole lizard thing isn’t enough…shudder). But you can’t fix what isn’t there.

If you want to enter the Kootenay Literary Competition but think there isn’t time, I beg to differ.  A first draft could be a week away.  It just involves you, a timer and a willingness to go to war with your inner editor.  Don’t worry, you and she can get together for peace talks next week.  After you’ve finished your first draft.

Happy writing!

Deb O’Keeffe, Kootenay Literary Competition Committee

Questions?  Contact: kootenaylitcomp@gmail. The Kootenay Literary Competition is organized and run by volunteers.  The KLC gratefully acknowledges our sponsor Nelson and District Arts Council and thanks In The Koots for their wonderful support and assistance.

Tags: categories, competition, prizes