Travel Writing Contest

Just learned of a competition that bloomed out of tragedy, yet celebrates life in all its glory: the Mikel Essery Travel Writing Contest. Here is an excerpt of its origin, clipped from its website:

On July 2nd, 2007, near the Mahram Bilqis Temple – the legendary Queen of Saba – in the outskirts of Ma’rib, Yemen, a young suicide bomber, allegedly a member of Al Qaeda, rammed his fully loaded lethal vehicle into a convoy of foreign tourists and local guides causing a massacre which resulted in the deaths of ten people. Mikel Essery, the trip’s Tour Guide, was one of them….. Mikel was… a great talker and conversationist as well as a listener, alien to indifference, extremely popular and socially committed; provocative, conciliatory… with his mane of blonde hair and his moustache; a bohemian snake charmer, universal, conscious of the brevity of life… On behalf of his closest circle we, hereby, make a call to writers and contributors to take part in this second edition of the Mikel Essery Travel Writing Contest 2010.

The judges seek stories “from which we could learn something, being, therefore, an invitation to travel, understood as a searching path or meeting ground.” For a shining example, read last year’s winning essay, “Keeper of the Keys,” by Jann Huizenga. Stories must be told within 6,000 words and written in either Basque, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, or English. Send to concurso@mikelmunduan.net by May 1, 2010. The top winner will receive a free holiday somewhere in the big wide world.