Forces surround you, pinning you in from all sides. The path you have taken, or perhaps been forced down, is littered with obstacles. You are scratched, bruised and scarred. It would be so easy to succumb, to stop treading water, to collapse in exhaustion. But you hold on to hope, choose to push forward no matter the obstacle. Failure is no option, capitulation no answer. All that matters is SURVIVAL.
Welcome to SURVIVAL, Honi Soit’s 2022 writing competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: fiction and non-fiction. This year we are looking for pieces that encapsulate what it means to SURVIVE.
NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.
FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words for prose, and 400 for poetry. However, your styles are not limited to these categories. Be imaginative with your piece – the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.
PRIZE MONEY: In each category:
First place — $1000
Second place — $500
Third place — $250
People’s choice — $50
JUDGES
NON-FICTION: Eda Gunaydin
Eda is an essayist and scholar interested in class, race, and diaspora. Her academic and creative nonfiction has been published in Meanjin, Sydney Review of Books and The Lifted Brow. She has been shortlisted for a Queensland Literary Award and the Scribe Non-Fiction Prize.
Her debut essay collection Root and Branch was published this year. She is currently Contributing Editor at Sydney Review of Books.
FICTION – Madeleine Watts
Madeleine Watts is a writer of fiction, stories, and essays. Her writing has been published in Harper’s Magazine, The Believer, The White Review, Literary Hub, The Paris Review Daily, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Irish Times, Guernica, Meanjin and The Lifted Brow, among others.
Her debut novel, The Inland Sea, was shortlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing. It was published by Pushkin Press (UK/ANZ) in 2020, and in 2021 by Catapult (US). A French translation was published in 2022 by Rue de l’échiquier.
She is the winner of the 2015 Griffith Review Novella Competition.
Madeleine grew up in Sydney, and sometimes Melbourne, but she has been based in New York since 2013.
She has an MFA in Writing from Columbia University in New York, and graduated from the University of Sydney with a B.A. in English Literature.
SUBMISSIONS:
Entries are open to all Sydney University students and will close at 11:59pm on Sunday 31st July 2022.
Read the 2021 winning entries here
Entries for the 2022 Writing Competition have closed.
