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BTA/Anglo Platinum Short Story Competition 2006Press release
Start writing an exciting, gripping and original South African story of approximately 4500 to 5000 words in English and enter it in the BTA/Anglo Platinum Short Story Competition 2006. Not only will you have the chance of being published but to qualify for some of the prize money totalling R65 000. The story can be typed or handwritten, and this competition does not disqualify writers for imperfect grammar or spelling as long as the story is interesting. Deadline
There is a severe shortage of locally produced writing in South Africa, and one solution would be to encourage people to put pen to paper to write their own stories. Imagine finding a way to inspire the nation to write its stories: young and old, black and white, from the streets of Hillbrow to the villages of Limpopo. The BTA/Anglo Platinum Short Story Competition, now in its 12th year, has found a way to do just that, and over 10 000 stories have flowed in from all nine provinces of South Africa and beyond. What makes this competition unique is that people are not restricted to writing good English or spelling perfectly, so entries come from all walks of life, spread across Southern Africa, with some handwritten stories arriving on toilet paper or even the back of a breakfast cereal box. The competition received 2600 entries in 2005, making it one of the most entered writing competitions in the world. In addition, the prize monies for the competition are among the highest for any short story competition. This is the 7th year that Anglo Platinum is sponsoring this competition. This year the prize monies go up to a total of R65 000.00, (R25 000 1st prize, R15 000 2nd prize, R12 000 3rd prize and R8 000 4th prize, with R5 000 being awarded for the best Children’s story). Once again, a piece of jewellery from the Djadji range will also be given away as a special prize. This should encourage more people to enter than in previous years. We launch this competition annually during the week commemorating World Book Day (23 April) and ask people to join in countrywide celebrations by starting to write an exciting, gripping and original story of approximately 4500 to 5000 words. The competition’s winning stories are printed as part of the Million Books Campaign and distributed free of charge. The Million Books Campaign is a crucial next step in promoting literacy and provides an incredible opportunity for marketing companies and corporate sponsors to build upon the success of the Short Story Competition. To date, 40 000 books have been printed and distributed as part of the campaign to schools in the Northwest and Limpopo and through media partners. In 2005, it took 18 dedicated readers to narrow the entries down to 10 finalists for the judges. Mostly, people want to tell their own story: what happened to them and what they did about it, often, how they overcame many of the hard blows that life dealt them. At the very least the competition provides a cathartic opportunity for ordinary people to express what they hold dearest in their hearts and know that someone out there will read it and be moved by it, even if they know they all can't win. The entries provide a litmus test of how ordinary South Africa is feeling about life. And more often than not stories are about drug abuse, family abuse, poverty and the hope of something better. The readers really do have the toughest job along the chain of activities that makes this unique competition such a resounding success. On the judging panel last year was Greg Maloka, general manager of Y-FM; Alison Lowry, CEO of Penguin Publishers South Africa; Ferial Haffajee, Editor of Mail & Guardian; Terence Tryon, Senior Manager in Government Liaison – Anglo Platinum; and Zane Meas, well known television actor. The judges chose as their winner for 2005 Arno Smith for his story Ripples, written from his cell at Mangaung prison in Bloemfontein where he is serving a life sentence for murder. Ripples describes the way in which we are all interconnected as a society. The other winners for 2005 were Sibusiso Zitha for ‘The Box Derby,” Dirk Johannes van der Merwe for “Tickey-Line,” Rebone Samantha Makgato for “The Journey,” and Zandile Faith Zulu for “My Platinum Ring.” Anglo Platinum is committed to supporting the development of education in South Africa and does much towards building schools and infrastructure. The short story competition is its special creative project: “We are very pleased to be associated with this noble project, which is all about promoting reading and writing in our society. As part of our corporate social responsibility and commitment to promoting adult basic education and training (ABET) within our company and society in general, we believe our association with BTA is crucial and has, thus far, contributed immensely to promoting reading among the young and old. The number of entries we received last year and the phone calls that regularly come through all year long indicate that the South African public takes this competition seriously, and it can only get better and better,” says Pumlani Tyali, Group SED Consultant at Anglo Platinum. The deadline for submitted stories is 30th June 2006
and the prize giving will take place in September, during International Literacy
Week. For more information, rules and regulations, go to, www.angloplatshortstory.co.za.
Or phone Stephanie at Creative Media on 011 888 3104. Beulah Thumbadoo: Profile of a Reading Activist Recently referred to as “Ms Reading” of South Africa by the Editor of the Mail and Guardian, Beulah Thumbadoo has made it her life’s work to get South Africa to read. Growing up in a home full of books with a story-telling mother, Beulah found that stories helped her to make sense of her life and experiences and wanted others to have that opportunity as well. Beulah’s interest in reading led her to an editorial job at Penguin Books after graduating from college. While working there, she realized that the publishing industry caters to a very specific audience, one that is already convinced of the value of books and reading. She longed to do more for the majority of the population without any reading material and left the publishing industry to involve herself in the literacy arena. “I’ve always advocated taking the reading matter to where the people are and, while I support the profit pillar on which publishing is built, I still believe there are people in our country who must be seduced into the pleasure and benefits of reading,” Beulah says. As part of her aim to seduce new readers, Beulah joined the ERA (Easy Reading for Adults) initiative in 1991 as its first full-time employee on a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The ERA Initiative, initially based at Wits University but which became an independent organization in 1995, launched the first incarnation of what was to become the very successful BTA/Anglo Platinum Short Story Competition: a multi-lingual short story competition which produced over 800 stories in 11 languages. As ERA program coordinator, Beulah created the “ERA Book Box,” a portable library of easy to read texts for youth and adults that was sold to corporations running ABET programs, prisons, community based organizations and non-governmental organizations. In response to the need for literature in South Africa’s indigenous languages, Beulah developed an African Language Series with 40 stories for adults in ten languages. Strongly believing in the need for an active national reading campaign to adequately represent both the developmental needs and the range of reading and writing interests in South Africa, Beulah helped transform the ERA into the Everyone’s Reading in Africa initiative. Under this new, broader ERA, Beulah organized a national conference of key stakeholders including writers, illustrators, booksellers, publishers, library services, language specialists, government departments, and other key reading organizations in order to lobby government to support a National Decade of Reading in South Africa. Her efforts resulted in the National Minister of Education declaring the year 2001 the “Year of the Reader,” and in the launch of Masifunde Sonke, a national reading campaign. In 2000, Beulah’s work as a reading activist was recognized by Ashoka Innovators for the Public, an organization that seeks out and invests in “social entrepreneurs,” people who have the same skills as business entrepreneurs but whose innovative ideas drive social change. Ashoka invests in people rather than ideas or organizations out of the belief that it is an individual who is behind each great social change/movement. For literacy in South Africa, Beulah is just such a person. Beulah has worked with the Education Rights Project, SETA’s and social movements, and in 2004 she was asked to research and write a reading strategy for schools for the Department of Education. Beulah continues to work with the Ashoka Global Fellowship to further the field of social entrepreneurship. Additionally, in 2005, inspired by the aims of the University of Pretoria Business School’s Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Beulah branched out to help build up a knowledge base on social entrepreneurship for GIBS (Gordon Institute of Business Science) and continues this pioneering work in 2006. Also in 2005, Beulah was recruited as part-time lead consultant/coordinator of the Working Group for Books and Learning Materials of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) www.adeanet.org. In this capacity she has just published Making Reading Matter, guidelines for selecting, developing and disseminating easy readers for adults, within the series Perspectives on African Book Development. Beulah’s keen and sustained interest over many years in providing books for newly literate adults landed her an invitation to UNESCO's first LIFE (Literacy Initiative for Empowerment) meeting in Paris in July 2005. She has since been drawn into the roll out plans of LIFE in Niger, Mali, Senegal and Nigeria. LIFE has rekindled her dream of Everyone Reading in Africa (ERA) and she hopes to fundraise to publish easy readers in African Languages to support the LIFE programme. This varied and strategic portfolio is testimony to her growing flexibility and maturity as both an educational worker and a social entrepreneur. Individuals like Beulah, who are not satisfied in building just one library
or even to teach people how to set up a library system, but who have the vision
to change the way an entire nation values books and reading, are invaluable
to changing the state of illiteracy in South Africa.
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