Work Stories Contest Writing(s) Foundation

I don’t like work–no man does–but I like what is in the work–the chance to find yourself.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

John Holcroft

Work is essential in almost everyone life, because of the time we devote to it, because of the contact that we are forced to have with others, because of what it adds or deducts in our fulfillment as individuals, and because of the economic limitations that influence our life when we are not working. In this new call, we invite you again to tell us stories that have the work as a background (or those bordering areas of unemployment and training). They can be personal as well as fictional (if they have the intensity and authenticity that arises from direct and life-bound experiences). They can be your own experiences or someone else’s. Outdated or recent. Or, with a more evocative nature, about the same company or factory and its organization, or about a relevant or illuminating fact. Intimate stories that still resonate in the memory of the main character or the mind of the witness. Sometimes loving and thankful memories, but in other cases onslaughts of a shattering reality.

Work, or better, the relationship between individual and work, transits an enormous spectrum of impressions, presenting an angle that ranges from personal self-fulfillment on one extreme, to divine punishment on the other. For some, work is the space to look for life goals and to evaluate life successes and failures. A God to whom they would sacrifice everything (family, time, health, hobbies) in order to keep him content. For others, it is essentially the punishment imposed by Yahweh to Adam after finding him sinning in Paradise: “By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat.” A necessary nuisance, but that in difficult circumstances might seem, even in its more grotesque and unfair versions, a luxury, particularly for groups for whom it is more difficult (women, for example; half of the population). A spectrum then, in which all tones are suitable for storytelling — enhanced as well by the experiences, circumstances, and environments so different of all the Club members, that allow more substantial dialogues in the comments section.

Some stories that have participated in the last three years looked at the past, longing for more room for handicraft and fieldwork, or terrified by the dreadful conditions that they saw in their parents and grandparents’ trades, or that reminded them of their youth. Other participants looked at our present and its shifting scenarios, emphasizing the greater distance that the worker has with the created product and the lesser attachment to the master. Participants highlighted the presence of more ephemeral relationships due to a more superficial social life within the workplace, but also with the enthusiasm or even vertigo for the new possibilities that open up. A lot worked as an exposition, antidote, or endorsement of the predictions repeated in every economic cycle change, now that robots are meant to replace workers. On one side, stories like Ken Loach’s segregated workers, on the other, tales like the carpenter Geppetto who created his son with his own hands. On the flip side, the Golem, or any of its cybernetic replicas, that allow us to write about the relationships that we foresee in the immediate future.

Characteristics

This contest takes place in the Writing(s) Foundation platform, developed specifically for this type of competition, and always aiming to facilitate participation, interaction, and transparency. Contests announced by the Foundation are open: from the moment a participant decides to make public a text, the work is open for public reading, commenting, and recommending by any club guest. Subsequently, the work is also put to the vote by a sophisticated program system and under the supervision of rules developed to prevent misuse.

The call admits any entry allowed by the text editor: short stories, photography series, short films, and sound recordings. The basic requirements are a maximum of ten photographs, texts of a maximum of 1,000 words, and videos (hosted on YouTube or Vimeo) no longer than five minutes.

You must submit at least a family image (a photograph, a snapshot of a homemade video, a drawing, etc.)

Work Stories Dossier ⇒

Terms & conditions

1. Participation in this contest and registration in the Writing Club is free of charge. This contest is open to participants aged 16 years or over registered with the Writing(s) Club. Writers from anywhere in the world may enter. Registration is totally free of charge and does not entail any purchase commitment. It is important to register your real identity since it is the only way to ensure a one-person one-entry basis. To opt for prizes, any participant registered must facilitate their address and telephone number which, in case of doubt, will allow us to verify the identity of the participant, voter, or both and discard the work in case that the same user has been registered under different identities. Personal data are also necessary to ensure the automatic prize allocation in its different categories, that being the participant, voter, commentator, etc.

2. Participants must register with the Writing Club and upload their works in one of the suitable formats to the Family Stories call within the time limit. No work will be accepted after the deadline.

3. Every participant may submit a maximum of one work, which must be original and unpublished.

4. Participants cannot withdraw their work once the call closes. If the work includes a video, the participant must maintain it at least for one year in the platform where it was uploaded.

5. Authors whose works are selected for publication on the collective e-book waive the right to receive any monetary allowance for the royalties the book might generate.

6. The organization will not communicate with participants concerning the contest terms and conditions.

Voting system and Jury – Winners

During the voting period, all participants must score a minimum of 10 works by other participants; otherwise, the participant will not opt to any prizes or the publication in the collective e-book.

At the end of the voting period, the number of stars awarded to each work will be counted. Votes from users who did not vote the 10 works minimum will not be taken into account (the system guarantees the dropping of those votes until completing the minimum of 10 votes per user).

100 works will be preselected based on their score, and a jury will be in charge of distributing prizes according to the quality of the submissions. The Jury reserves the right to award works not included in those 100 preselected works if they consider that the quality of the texts is worth it.

Results

1. The final result of the contest and the allocation of prizes will be disclosed on [date]. Awardees will be communicated via email or telephone.

2. If the winners’ notification is returned as an invalid email or phone, the user will be disqualified.

3. Winners accept and authorize the Club to mention their names and the prizes obtained on the Writings Club website or in any other commercial, media, or publishing company that might be used by the Writing(s) Foundation to inform and make public the result of the contest. Likewise, participating works could be disseminated from the moment of submission to inform about the competition and to encourage participation.

Participants must be the rightful authors and legal owners of the texts. Should any irregularity be found, the Club will eliminate the work and ban the user from the platform.

Winners transfer their dissemination rights to Writing(s) Foundation from the moment they present the text for publication in the formats and conditions determined. This transference will not imply exclusive rights, allowing authors to disseminate their work as decided after the presentation on the contest. The right to disseminate applies worldwide, and it will apply for the maximum timespan permitted by the appropriate normative in Spain. Participants will transfer the publication rights of the chosen works to become part of a possible collective publication. This publication will have an affordable price, and its benefits will be destined to the support of activities within the Writing(s) Foundation. Any disseminations will explicitly cite the author’s name.

The organization reserves the right to withdraw from the contest any work considered in violation of the terms and conditions or reported by other users.

In relation to images and videos, the participant should be able to prove authorship or prove the right of use by the owner of the intellectual, industrial, or image rights. Explicit permission from people who appear in the photograph should be granted when necessary for its exposition or dissemination, exempting the organization of any legal responsibility.

4. Participation in the call entails the unconditional acceptance of the terms and conditions aforementioned.

Resolutions taken under unforeseen circumstances in the terms and conditions will lay solely on the contest organizer, who will resolve to the best of their ability, without any right to appeal by the participants.

5. Image and text rights will remain the authors’ despite transferring the organization the publication in the terms and conditions indicated and always citing the name of the author. Participants registering on the Foundation must use a valid email and a physical address. The automatization of the contest process requires an authentic identity and a verifiable physical address to allocate prizes.

6. Winners consent the access to their personal data (name and image) to communicate the contest result. The use of personal data will not entail any economic compensation.

7. No correspondence will be entered into from the organization side concerning the call. Due to the automated process of the Club calls, all steps are established and will be announced on the web in due course.

8. In compliance to the established law, Writing(s) Foundation informs all participants that data obtained in the microsite Writings Club will be collected by Writing(s) Foundation and Talleres de escritura Fuentetaja, or through other entities that will carry out data processing and will be accommodated to the corresponding electronic file of Writing(s) Foundation. Said data would be used to identify the participants of the Writing(s) Foundation, and also for the development of commercial campaigns (via telephone, SMS, email, and any other telematic medium), with a general or personal aim. At any time, you will be able to exercise your right of restriction, access, rectification, and cancelation of your data free of charge. To use this right, you will need to contact our Customer Service via email to info@fundacionescrituras.org

9. Participation in this contest entails the unconditional acceptance of the terms and conditions as well as the Writing(s) Foundation criteria concerning any conflict resolution.

Ethical agreement

Voters agree to comply with the Ethical agreement defined in the following link:

Ethical agreement for participants, voters, and commentators

The agreement contains fundamental concerns for the good end of the call. If you have not read it already in previous calls, it is imperative that you read them carefully now since they summarize the spirit of this Club and the basic norms of conduct that we have at heart. Disregarding this pact might exclude participants from the contest process.