Welcome to Compete 20.10 – International Young Writers’ Meet in NRW!

Thirty years ago the first Autorentreffen NRW/ North Rhine-Westphalia Writers’ Meet took place as a competition for literary newcomers. Prizes were awarded in the three categories of prose, poetry and drama.
Held until the early 1990s, this literary competition is now to be revived in a different form. We cordially invite young people (age limit up to and including twenty-five) from all over the world to take part in the ‘Spiegelzelt’, the Marquee of Mirrors at the ’Düsseldorfer Bücherbummel’ book festival – and in the virtual space of the World Wide Web. The Bücherbummel (read ‘book crawl’) is kind of four-day flea market for books, and at which readings are also held.

The Young Writers Compete 20.10 prizes, like those of the first decade or so of the Autorentreffen event, will be awarded in different categories, however this time it is all about new and contemporary forms of writing.
The winners in the different categories will each receive 500 euros. The categories are: short text (160 characters, sent via e-mail or uploaded here), web literature (please send us the link to access your text by)) and best blog entry (uploaded here). Last but not least, the Live Award will be awarded at a Poetry Slam, approaches to this can be uploaded her, too.

Entries and Entry Dates
Please e-mail your text or texts to info@compete2010.net or upload here at the forum, stating the category for each text from the options below (one category per text only)

Sending-in / Upload dates
All e-mails/uploads (in German or English, please) from around the world must reach us between 15th April 2010 (this is when this forum went online) and Friday, 11th June 2010, 11:00 am. Following editorial screening, the entries will be presented for the duration in the Compete 20.10 Forum.

Ten texts will be selected for each of the categories (i.e., forty in all) by the “Compete 20.10” Team. The selected entries will be presented to the audience and an expert panel in a live event on 11th June (beginning at 2:00 pm). and the panel (five votes) and the audience (two majority votes) together will elect the winners. At the Poetry Slam, the final event of the day, the winner will be chosen by audience vote alone.

Please do not forget to state your address, contact details and your age – eligibility is limited to persons aged up to 25.  The judges’ decision is final.