‘One Thousand Nights and Awakening': Capture Your Favorite Place in Words and Pictures

New Concept in Literary Awards Launched by Arabian Stories

Project “Arabian Stories”, the social initiative behind pioneering website “arabianstories.com” has announced the launch of a literary contest titled “One Thousand Nights and Awakening”. The contest is open to talents from the Arab World wishing to document places that influenced their lives in words and pictures, in a uniquely crafted approach joining the art of photography and short story writing. Interested authors should submit their stories and pictures on arabianstories.com before June 30th, 2015.

Explaining this new concept in literary awards, Rita Tapia Oregui, co-founder of Arabian Stories and Contest Curator, said: “Our goal is to create a platform for Arabic talents to express their ideas and tell their stories. Thinking of modern life media, we came up with an idea to bridge the gap between the world of writing and the art of photography, by encouraging talented individuals to tell us the stories of these places in around 300-500 words, accompanied by their own photographs of these places, thus inviting everyone to share their memories and reflections visually and metaphorically.”

Participating stories should be submitted along with some pictures of the location mentioned in the story, a location pin on Google Maps, and a disclaimer stating that the applicant is indeed the authentic author of the story and that the story has not been published before.

Regarding awards, Tapia Oregui explained that a new concept was introduced here as well. “The contest will award the first and second positions with a monetary prize directly proportional to the number of submissions. Each new submission will add $10 to the first prize, and every 25 submissions will add  $50 to the second prize, up to a maximum amount of $1500 and $500 respectively.” Tapia Oregui explained, noting that although small in amount due to the social unfunded nature of the contest, the award is of high moral value and will surely attract large numbers of participants. “Moreover,” Tapia Oregui added, “all stories will be translated to English and Spanish, and published on Arabian Stories, while the winning story will also be published in English in Sukoon Magazine.”

The jury panel for this contest is comprised of a number of esteemed figures in the modern literature scene, all of which have volunteered to sit as panelists in support of the initiative. Members are Dr. Hussein Al Duweiri, Professor of Translation and Spanish in the University of Jordan; Dr. Jihad Al-Shuaibi, Professor of Linguistics and Foreign Languages, University of Jordan; and Dr. Luis Miguel Pérez Cañada, Dean of the Toledo School of Translators, UCLM; as well as the team of the Arabian Stories project. This panel is tasked with selecting the five finalist stories, from which the two final winners will be selected by winning votes by all participants.

The contest has received an overwhelming support from Arabic and Western institutions, blogs and members of the literature community. The list of supporters can be found on arabianstories.com. Moreover, this remarkable initiative is supported by esteemed media partner Matrix Public Relations, and Arabic content specialist AL Arabic.

Arabian Stories is a not for profit social society focused on promoting Arabic story writing. Founded in 2015, the society hopes to bridge the gap between classical storytelling and modern media, via activities and contests that offer modern platforms for talented individuals to pursue their creativity and achieve their potential in today’s fast paced world.