Equivocality

I think travel is good. I think writing is good. I think it is important that writers travel.

Not so they can do travel writing, necessarily. In fact I think travel writing is pretty well served, as a category. There are lots of good books about far away places. (They are probably only read by people who would be likely to visit such places anyway, but no matter.) And the world certainly doesn’t need another travelouge or guidebook. Rather, I think I like what travel does to a person. The sense of perspective it gives. There are some things about oneself, and one’s home and home culture, that can only really be learned by comparison. Plus, travel, real honest-to-god, get-out-there-and-see-what-the-world-has-to-offer travel, makes for good adventures and therefore good stories.

Call it research.

So, I want to make this happen for one worthy writer. I am sponsoring a writing contest. The prize is a round-trip ticket to anywhere in the world — anywhere that you haven’t been before, that is.

It works like this:
- Applicants must submit a short piece. Let’s say, 10,000 words maximum. Fiction, non-fiction, whatever, on any topic, but let’s keep it to prose simply because I don’t feel competent to evaluate poetry.
- Also tell me a little about yourself, where you would go with your free ticket, for how long, and why. You can’t ever have been to that country before. You don’t have to write about your destination. I just want to know what about it inspires you to go through the considerable effort required to actually travel there.
- Email entries to jonathan (at) equivocality (dot) net by September 1st 2005. They will be judged by myself and my writer friends, the winner to be announced on September 15th 2005.
- Entries must be previously unpublished, decisions are final, and the ticket is limited to $2000 US. The idea is also to fund a developing writer who might not otherwise be able to afford to travel, so please keep this in mind when considering whether to apply. I have no funding, no committees, no mandate. I’m doing this just because I think it’s a good idea, so let’s keep it simple.

This should be fun. Hopefully I’ll get to read some good writing, and hopefully more good writing will come of it. We’ll post the winning entry on the site and such. And maybe do it again next year.

Good luck!