Writing Contest for Teens

FranticFrummie

Mon, Feb 25 2019, 4:30 am

I just got this in my FB alerts:

Cherna Moskowitz Jewish Short Story Contest and Creative Writing Workshop
By Mordechai Sones
In order to encourage Jewish youth to sharpen their creative writing skills, the noted, pro-Israel philanthropist, Cherna Moskowitz, of Miami Beach, is sponsoring a Jewish Short Story Contest and Creative Writing Workshop.
“Today, in the modern digital world, young people don’t develop their writing talents,” she explains. “Instead of doing their own creative thinking, they send each other ‘WhatsApps,’ ‘Smileys’ and ‘GIFs.’ If we want to combat assimilation, and encourage people to have a positive view of Israel, we have to use every tool we can. Novels like Leon Uris’s ‘Exodus,’ and movies like ‘Fiddler in the Roof’ have had a profound influence of on the lives and attitudes of millions of people. I hope the contest and workshop will stimulate more of our young people to put down their smartphones and try their hand at creative writing.”
The Jewish Short Story Contest is limited to beginning writers, ages 15-30. Deadline for entries is April 7. The short stories can be up to 3,000 words. Stories must be about Jewish Identity, Judaism, Zionism, Jewish History, and Jewish Life. The authors of the twenty top stories will be awarded the 3 novels in the Tevye in the Promised Land trilogy and invited to participate in a Creative Writing Workshop, via the Internet, under the guidance of the novelist and screenwriter, Tzvi Fishman. Ten awards will be reserved for teenage writers.
“Most people think that storytelling and drama began with the Greeks,” Fishman says. “But the Creator of the World, the Author of the Books of Books, beat them to it by a few thousand years. All of the foundations of literature and drama can be found in the drama between Adam and Eve and the Snake; and in the showdown of Moses and Pharaoh, with its thrilling clim@x at the sea.”

It sounds like a lot of fun, and Fishman is one of my favorite Jewish authors. I really love his Tevya series.