“nuestra palabra” Short Story Competition: 12th edition

Cari Caballero, first-place winner in the 11th edition of nuestra palabra

Cari Caballero, first-place winner in the 11th edition of nuestra palabra

Editorial nuestra palabra, AMPO, the Cervantes Institute and the Consulates of Spain and Peru are pleased to announce and invite the Hispanic community in Canada and the Hispanic-Canadian community abroad to participate in the twelfth annual edition of “nuestra palabra” Short Story Competition, aimed at encouraging the reading and writing of Spanish literary works in Canada and the promotion of the literary values of the Spanish-speaking world.

The “nuestra palabra” short story competition began in 2004 as an incentive for new writers in Spanish who were living in Canada to make themselves known, get published and be encouraged to keep writing, and for established writers to consolidate their experience and further their writing careers.

In 2009 the collection Cuentos de nuestra palabra en Canadá. Primera hornada was published, an anthology presenting a selection of 51 of the short stories submitted to the competition in its first five years (2004-2008). The book can be found in the collections of libraries across Canada that stock books in Spanish. The plan is to produce a similar selection every five years, and a second anthology appeared in October 2014, containing a selection of the stories submitted in the years 2009 to 2013.

The 2015 edition of the competition has now begun, and the rules can be found at the competition’s website (in Spanish only). Submissions will be accepted until January 30, 2016. The jury for the competition includes the award-winning Mexican writer Martha Bátiz, Cuban author and competition winner in 2011 and 2013 Francisco García Gonzalez, Chilean poet and translator Jorge Etcheverry and Peruvian-born critic and journalist Alex Zisman.

The competition is organized by the publishing house Editorial nuestra palabra and is being sponsored thus year by AMPO (Association of Peruvian Women in Ontario), the Consulate of Spain in Toronto, the Consulate of Peru in Toronto and the Cervantes Institute. The first-place winner’s story will also be published in the Montreal literary journal The Apostles Review. And last year, the translator Martin Boyd launched an initiative of translating the first-place winners in the competition into English for their publication on the Diálogos Online Forum, and the winners of the competition for the years 2004 through to 2013 have now been published online.

Guillermo Rose is the founder, director and organizer of the annual competition of nuestra palabra. He can be contacted at [email protected].

For more information, please visit the nuestra palabra website.

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