To subsist. To prevail. What is existing?
Honi Soit‘s 2024 writing competition wants YOU to interrogate the notion of existing, what it means to you, students or the world. Are we existing as we should? How do we draw the boundaries of what exists and what does not? How do existing things interact with threats to extinction? Draw on personal experiences, worldly fears and more. Don’t draw limits.
This competition is open to all University of Sydney students, and is divided into fiction and non-fiction categories.
NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must of an opinion genre expressing a clear argument. Re-imagine, revisit, re-examine. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.
FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words of prose or 40 lines of poetry. However, you are not restricted to write in these styles. Be as creative as you would like, and interpret the theme as broadly as you wish while still maintaining thematic links.
PRIZE MONEY (in each category):
First place – $2000
Second place – $700
Third place – $250
Editors’ choice – $50
JUDGES:
FICTION — Sara M Saleh
Sara M Saleh is a writer, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of Palestinian, Lebanese and Egyptian migrants. Her poems, essays and short stories have been published widely in English and Arabic. Her first novel Songs for the Dead and the Living (Affirm Press) and first full-length poetry collection The Flirtation of Girls/Ghazal el-Banat (UQP) were both released late 2023.
Sara made history as the first poet to win both the 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the 2020 Judith Wright Poetry Prize, she was recently shortlisted for the University of Canberra’s Vice-Chancellor’s Prize, and she is the recipient of the inaugural Affirm fellowship for Sweatshop writers, a Neilma Sidney travel grant, Varuna writers residency, and Amant writers residency in New York, amongst other honours. Sara is based on Bidjigal land (Sydney, Australia) with her partner and their four fur babies.
NON-FICTION — Naaman Zhou
Naaman Zhou is a former editor of Honi Soit. He was a reporter for Guardian Australia and is currently a copy editor at The New Yorker.
SUBMISSIONS – Entries to the 2024 Competition have closed and are now in judging
Entries are open to all USyd students and will close Sunday April 14th at 11.59pm. You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum).
Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.
Submissions for the 2024 Honi Soit Writing Competition have now closed.
