Lessons from the Greeks, the poetry collection by Gail Sidonie Šobat won the Grand Prize in Eyelands Book Awards 2020 and the prize was a Greek translation for the book. As it happens every year -the grand prize winner’s book of the unpublished EBA category is not an unpublished manuscript anymore. It was published and released in Greece in October 1st.
It is a bilingual edition, of 170 pages, the book was translated by Gregory Papadoyiannis and the cover is a product of Strangeland -strange days team work.
Lessons from the Greeks – Prologue
I was a happy adolescent when I learned women can be gods like any in the bombastic male pantheon Achilles I know little about except that he hurt his heel or his mother did when dipping him upside down in the River Styx a strawberry to chocolate as would any sensible maternal goddess Like him we limp towards mortality let us hope though as we reach our nether years that no arrow likewise pierces poisonous our heels eat, drink, be merry find another use for Trojans than making war
Gail Sidonie Sobat is a poet, a singer, and the author of 12 books. She is the creator/coordinator of YouthWrite®, camps for kids who love to write… just about anything, and an instructor in the communications programs at MacEwan University and in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. Gail has presented across Canada, including Canada’s North; Doha, Qatar; Hanoi, Vietnam; Bern, Switzerland; Helsinki, Finland; Istanbul, Turkey; and more recently at the Northeastern Modern Language Association in Baltimore, Maryland. She’s been writer-in-residence in several Canadian schools, at Queen’s University, in Doha, Qatar, at the University of Alberta through the Canadian Authors Association, for the Metro Edmonton Federation of Public Libraries, and for NorthWords in Yellowknife, NWT. Her work is published in academic and literary journals, anthologies, and has been broadcast on radio and performed on stage. Gail is a Global TV Woman of Vision and a recipient of her city’s Arts and Culture Citation Award. She’s moved 40 times in her life from Badlands to Siksika Nation Reserve to hideous suburbs to Istanbul to the Sunshine Coast to her writer’s garret in a century-old temperamental house.
*Due to the pandemic problems and restrictions of the year the award ceremony in spring of 2021 was canceled. the good news is that there will be two more books from the Eyelands Book Awards 2020. The Grand Prize for published books -Jennifer Steil’s Exile Music, (translation was offered instead of five days holidays in Athens) and Robin Martin’s Lizarmaid -the winner of Three Rock prize.
.NEW! Eyelands Awards online edition!NEW category for writers U-18
NEW! Online Certification document for every finalist!
Plus: early bird submission fee for every finalist/prize winner of past contests
Last Month’s offer: Early bird submission fee for books submitted via publishing houses
Grand prize (published books): Five-day holiday in Athens plus a special handmade ceramic designed especially for Eyelands Book Awards and publication (excerpts) online on our website.
The ceremony will take place in Athens in May 2022. Alternative prize: (in case of travel restrictions): online ceremony & translation of the prize winner book in Greek
Grand prize (unpublished books): Translation into Greek and publication from Strange Days Books
Ten more prizes, one for each category of every section, also win a special handmade ceramic designed especially for Eyelands Book Awards and a book from Strange Days books!
Certification document for every prize. Online Certification document for every finalist Final results are to be announced on December 30, 2021.
Grand Awards Judge: P.H.C. Marchesi, Gail Sidonie Šobat
Entry fee: $30 (27 euros)
Early bird submissions: $ 22 (20 euros)
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES & DATES & DETAILS
Closing: October 20, 2021 at midnight PST.
Submit your book or manuscript online $30.00 (27 euros)
Eligible submissions include: poetry, novellas, short story collections, novels, children’s books, historical fiction/memoir, graphic novels.
Multiple submissions allowed.
Early bird submission fee for every additional submission
Simultaneous submissions allowed, but please notify us if full manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
Finalists for every category to be announced on November 20, 2021
Final results are to be announced on Wednesday, December 30, 2021.
There are no restrictions regarding nationality
Participants must be 18 years old otherwise we need parents’ consent to accept the submission.
Manuscripts must be written in English.
There is no restriction about the form or style of writing. We prefer the pages to be numbered. Files should be uploaded as an MS Word document or PDF. Fill the entry form, copy and paste it in the body of your email.
Eyelands gr. & Strange Days Books are glad to announce the
EYELANDS BOOK AWARDS
NEW! Eyelands Awards online edition!
NEW category for writers U-18
NEW! Online Certification document for every finalist!
Grand prize (published books): Five-day holiday in Athens plus a special handmade ceramic designed especially for Eyelands Book Awards and publication (excerpts) online on our website. The ceremony will take place in Athens in May 2022. Alternative prize: (in case of travel restrictions): online ceremony & translation of the prize winner book in Greek
Grand prize (unpublished books): Translation into Greek and publication from Strange Days Books
Ten more prizes, one for each category of every section, also win a special handmade ceramic designed especially for Eyelands Book Awards and a book from Strange Days books!
Certification document for every prize. Online Certification document for every finalist Final results are to be announced on December 30, 2021.
All prize winners
A special handmade ceramic designed especially for Eyelands Book Awards
Certification document for every prize.
A book –English edition- from Strange Days books
PLUS: An e-book edition from strange days ALL ABOUT 2021 EYELANDS BOOK AWARDS with excerpts of your winning book (limit: 500 -700 words) selected by the prize winners.
All finalists Online Certification document for every finalist
Entry fee: $30 (27 euros) Early bird submissions: $ 22 (20 euros) Submission fee for U18: 10 euros Early bird submission fee for every finalist of the previous contests!
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES & DATES & DETAILS
Opening: June 10, 2021
Closing: October 20, 2021 at midnight PST.
Submit your book or manuscript online $30.00 (27 euros)
Early bird submission $ 22 (20 euros) till September 1st, 2021.
Eligible submissions include: poetry, novellas, short story collections, novels, children’s books, historical fiction/memoir, graphic novels.
Multiple submissions allowed.
Early bird submission fee for every additional submission
Simultaneous submissions allowed, but please notify us if full manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
Finalists for every category to be announced on November 20, 2021
Final results are to be announced on Wednesday, December 30, 2021.
There are no restrictions regarding nationality
U-18 category (special discount) fee: 10 ePuros
Parents’ consent needed to cofirm the submission.
Manuscripts must be written in English.
There is no restriction about the form or style of writing. We prefer the pages to be numbered. Files should be uploaded as an MS Word document or PDF. Fill the entry form, copy and paste it in the body of your email.
Grand Prize: A five-day holiday in Athens plus a special handmade ceramic designed especially for Eyelands Book Awards and publication (excerpts) online on our website. Eyelands cover all accommodation costs for the award winner. Air tickets not included. The author must agree to participate in the EBA ceremony (which will be held in Athens) and the related publicity (interviews etc.). If for any reason the writer won’t be available to attend the ceremony the prize will be send via mail and EBA will invite the grand prize winner of the unpublished category.
Alternative prize (in case of travel restrictions): online ceremony & translation of the prize winner’s book in Greek
Grand prize (unpublished books): Translation into Greek and publication from Strange Days Books
There will be five finalists for each category.
Five more prizes, one for each category, also win a special handmade ceramic designed especially for Eyelands Book Awards
Certification document for every prize.
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Section: Unpublished books
Grand prize: Translation into Grek and publication from Strange Days Books.
Five more prizes, one in each category, also win a special handmade ceramic designed especially for Eyelands Book Awards
There will be five finalists for each category.
Certification document for every prize.
A book from Strange Days Books to every prize winner.
Online Certification document for every finalist
All prize winners
A special handmade ceramic designed especially for Eyelands Book Awards
Certification document for every prize.
A book –English edition- from Strange Days books
E-Book edition with excerpts of the prize-winning books u (limit: 500 -700 words for each ).
All finalists Online Certification document
U-18 category (special discount) fee: 10 euros / All kinds of books eligible
ENTRY FORM
(one entry form per book):
Title:
Author:
Category:
Publisher: (for published books only)
ISBN: (for published books only)
Address:
E-Mail:
AWARD CATEGORIES (select one per entry application):
The following are eligible:
1/Full-length books of fiction (novels or novellas of any genre)
2/Collections of short stories by one author
3/Collected and selected poems
4/Historical fiction – Memoir
5/Children’s books – Graphic Novels
6/U-18 category for every kind of book (three prizes)
Any text/book from 8.000 words is eligible
Any text/poetry collection (up to 250 pages) written by a single author is eligible
Any text/book written by two or more writers is also eligible. In this case, accommodation in Athens will be shared
EBA follows the CLMP Contest Code of Ethics.
PAYMENT
Pay via paypal – See the banner on this website
Click the «buy now» button. Fill the description with: EBA
Entry fee: $30 (27 euros)
Early bird submissions: $ 22 (20 euros)
* After the payment is complete, you can send the email with your manuscript as an attachment and the entry form completed, copied and pasted in the body of your email
*An email confirmation that your entry has been received will be sent within three/four days
* We do accept simultaneous submissions
* Every writer can submit more books with the early bird payment fee of $22 for each book
*There is no fee for the first prize winners of previous Eyelands international short story contests
*All books must have been published between September 20, 2016 and September 20, 2021.
The last two of our tree prizes are ready to sail. They are the prizes for our two grand prize winners. Unfortunately there will be no awards ceremony in 2021 due to the pandemic. So we have at least to send the tree prizes to Jennifer Steil / United Kingdom (grand prize for published book) and Gail Sidonie Šobat /Canada (grand prize for unpublished book). The good news is that we are very close to get the rights for the Greek translation of Jennifer Steil’s Exile Music (it was the alternative instead of invite her in Athens to attend the ceremony). So this year we will publish both of our grand prizes plus the Three Rock Prize, Lizardmaid, by Robin Luce Martin.
You can see the last two of our tree prizes to sail. Actually they are the last trees of their kind as Constantinos Malousaris won’t make any more of them. In the background you can see the trees prizes of new contest made by the artist Irene Lakka.
All prize winners of each category will soon receive a handmade ceramic tree*, created by Constantinos Malousaris especially for Eyelands Book Awards. There are 10 tree prizes ready to ship (we keep Grand prize-trees for the award ceremony), two for each subcategory. Each one of them is unique as they are all handmade. Special Distinctions get different kind of handmade ceramics.
With Kafka’s “Art needs craft more than craft needs art” as a basic principle, I strive to find the balance between pleasure and the therapeutic quality of making, creating objects and the additional achievement of making a living and acquiring recognition through it.
Constantinos Malousaris was born in 1972 in Athens. There, he studied photolithography and graphic arts. In 1997, and along with his friend Margarita Leousi, they made the fanzine “walk in the Park”. From then until 2009, he did not stop writing texts, but did not consider it necessary to publish them. He worked for two years at the publishing house ‘Astir’. He was a key contributor to the literary magazine “Fortezza”. He participates as a publishing consultant in the publishing group “Strange Days”. Fifteen years ago he decided to live in Rethymno, Crete. A series of (at first glance) unrelated events, people and situations led him to earn his living through creating and selling ceramic objects. For more than two years, he studied with the pottery makers Giorgos and Natassa Vardaxi in Rethymnon, who taught him a lot but mainly to dare to become “self-taught”, to experiment with techniques, search for his own ways and not to be afraid to narrate stories he wanted to tell using his own hand-made ceramics instead of words. He manufactures objects mainly from stoneware clay and combines clay, oxides, paint and glass techniques to create pleasant, face-to-face, use-and-touch objects. The electric furnace and the high temperatures allow for results that he likes to call space therapy objects, always with the challenge of being able to do what inspires your imagination within the strict discipline required by pottery art.
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Tree for novel and historical fiction
*hand build ceramic items, aprox. 20 cm height and 6-8 cm diameter. Stoneware clay, hand painted with engobe colors and twice in the kiln at 1100c.
Eyelands Book Awards 