‘Women of Egypt’ is announcing the launch of its first Writing Contest for worldwide Egyptian children aged between 3 and 16. The contest starts on 15 January 2019 and closes on 15 February 2019.
For her part, Dina Al Mahdy, contest coordinator, told DNE that contest’s goal is to discover and celebrate Egyptian children’s creative writing, in English or Arabic, and to get them excited about reading and writing by encouraging them no matter what their background, education, or lack thereof.
Regarding the applications process, Al-Mahdy said that the rules of the entry include only one entry per child, and single author stories (no co-authors), adding that the story must be the child’s original work, noting that the story could be fact or fiction (short story, prose, or poetry).
She added that the text must be typed and sent as a word document by email, having said that, the children who cannot write yet may dictate their story to be typed and sent as a word document by email, elaborating that the children can also include drawings and photos in a separate JPEG or PDF file, noting that drawings and photos are optional and will not be evaluated as part of the contest.
She confirmed that invented creative spelling is accepted.
Al-Mahdy further explained that the contest will include three age groups; 3-5, 6-11 and 12-16. Nine winners will be selected for each language, three from each age group.
“The winners of the Arabic contest will be offered prizes from Dar Al Masriah Al Lubnaniah Publishing House. Diwan Bookstore will provide the prizes for the winners of the English contest. All publications of the contest will be designed by Shadi Ghonim, One Shot founder,” she added.
By asking her about the jury, she stated that the selection of the winners will be chosen by a panel of nine judges from Egypt and the US, highlighting that the judges are Samah Abou Bakr, children’s author; Mona El-Namoury, assistant professor, writer and translator; Zeinab Mobarak, fiction and play-writer and translator; Rania Amin, children’s author and translator; Myriam Rizkallah, children’s author and translator; herself Dina Al-Mahdy, writer and literary translator; Marcia Lynx Qualey, children’s author, book critic and translator; Karen Leggett Abouraya, children’s author, and Alexandra Kinias, fiction and screenplay-writer, content editor and writing coach.
Finally, she declared that the winners will be announced in June 2019, empathising that winning entries will be published in e-books in July 2019.
Noteworthy, the contest is sponsored by Diwan Bookstore and Al Dar Al Masriah Al Lubnaniah Publishing House; Art Partner, and One Shot for Photography and Advertising.
