«Antipodes»
Second Australian Festival of Russian Traditional and Experimental Literature
(November-December 2008, Sydney, Australia)

Dear friends!
Antipodes Association announces the Second Australian Festival of Russian Traditional and Experimental literature in November-December 2008 in Sydney.

The First Festival (2006) discovered a number of Australian authors writing in Russian for readers in Russia, Australia and worldwide. However the quest of Russian-speaking Australian authors still remains one of the main goals of the coming festival.

We invite everyone to send their works for the main program of the Festival. One author can submit up to five works up to 6000 characters each (or 1000 words each) in any genre: poetry, prose, plays, experimental, etc.

As a part of the festival we launch a Short Text competition. Short text, a small prosaic form popular in modern literature, requires compression of the material, condensing of the meaning, and extreme imaginative expressiveness. For the competition, we accept prosaic texts up to 400 words. The number of works from one author is not limited.

The other project that gets launched during the festival is called Three Sisters. It explores the rich field of intercultural repercussions between Tchekhov’s desperately nostalgic play Three Sisters and the Aboriginal legend of Three Sisters. Any genres are welcome, including literary works, visual, performing, conceptual arts, etc. The works will be reviewed during the festival, but Three Sisters is an independent project, which will go on after the festival, as well.

Beside public readings of the works of participants of the Festival, the festival program will include literary evenings, workshops, book presentations, matinee for kids, and some more.

The festival will run in November-December 2008. Works can be submitted until 15 October 2008 by e-mail antipodes.au@gmail.com (preferably), or by mail to Antipodes Association, 23 Belgium St NSW 2210.

All the works with literary merits will be published on the website of Antipodes Association. The works of the laureates will be recommended for the publication in Russian and Australian literary magazines.