https://overland.org.au/2018/06/the-2018-fair-australia-prize/
Theme: new collectives, old struggles
About the prize
What does unionism mean to people today? What should be its objectives? How can we come together to make real change, now and into the future?This prize encourages artists and writers of fiction, poetry and essays to be part of setting a new agenda for our future – to imagine a just, common future, and how we might get there together.
The Fair Australia Prize is made up of 5 x $3000 prizes and 3 x $1000 union member prizes. There are prizes for:
- fiction (up to 3000 words)
- essay (up to 3000 words)
- poetry (up to 88 lines)
- cartoon or graphic (180 mm wide by 255 mm high)
- best overall entry by a migrant writer, artist or worker*, and
- three best member entries (for NUW, MEAA and NTEU members only); these $1000 prizes are awarded to member entries in any of the above categories
Entry to the Fair Australia Prize is free. Enter via one of the category links at the bottom of the page. Competition closes 11.59 pm (AEST), Monday 13 August.
Guidelines: please read and ensure eligibility before submitting.
Members of the NUW, NTEU or MEAA kindly note: there is no separate category for union member entries. Instead, simply tick the box that asks if you are a member on the entry form for your category (whether that is cartoon/graphic, fiction, poetry or essay)
*For the purposes of this competition, a ‘migrant worker, writer or artist’ defines a person living and working (temporarily or permanently) in a country where they were not born, and where they are not currently a citizen.
How the prize will be judged
In each category, submissions will be read blind by a panel of judges. Winners will be selected on the basis of their aesthetic excellence, and their engagement with the theme of a fairer future.Entrants are encouraged to respond creatively and imaginatively – the competition seeks to foster innovative thinking and expression rather than dogma or didacticism. See the full list of 2018 judges.
Ideas and starting points
In an era of increasing economic inequality and social alienation, community-building, collective political action and workers’ unions are more vital than ever. And for the first time in many years, union membership is on the rise. Unions are formal institutions, networks for activism, and driven by political principals. They’re the sites of both conflict and hope.In our work, our lives, and our communities, what are our collective goals? How will we achieve them? How does money, time, power alter our daily lives, limiting some while others rise to the ‘top’? How might we change our collective future?
Further reading
– Background material for the prize
– Previous winning entries
– Recent Overland pieces touching on similar themes:
- ‘“More than babysitting”: thinking about women’s work in early childhood’
- ‘We had Marx, they had Pauline: left organising in poor communities’
- ‘The turn to industry: what happened when left activists joined the working class’
- ‘Against a universal basic income’ and ‘The radical potential of a universal basic income: a reply to Ben Kunkler’
- ‘Rage, rage against the factory closure’
- ‘Rules made for breaking: beyond “Change the Rules”’
- ‘If we don’t make this stand, who will?’
- ‘Abortion – Ireland to Oz’
