The official blog of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival

Saturday, February 6, 2010
Literature Quiz

BNHS  Auditorium

Saturday, 13th February,  16:30 - 19:30

The quiz is organised and conducted by the Bombay Quiz Club.

The Literature Quiz is an open quiz, which means anyone can participate, in teams of two members each. No prior registration is necessary.

If you don’t have a quizzing partner, land up solo, and the BQC team will hook you up with someone.

Format
There will be a written preliminary round followed by a final round.
Questions will draw from literature from all parts of the world, including fiction, poetry, non-fiction, the history of writing and writers, criticism, and other topics for which we haven’t found names yet. The quiz will feature a healthy dose of audio-visual content - pictures, music, video - pertaining to, or drawn from, the world of literature.

Prizes: Rs 3000, Rs 2000, Rs 1000, sponsored by the Kala Ghoda Association.

Saturday, February 6, 2010
Poetry Slam (Contests - Writing/Performance)

This is an attempt to give performance poetry a bit of a push, to bring some new voices out into the open, to put a little more audience participation into poetry, and, not least, to have a little fun.The slam made its debut at Kala Ghoda in 2007 (the first in India, actually) to much enjoyment from the audience and the participants, and has returned in 2008 and 2009 to just as much enthusiasm and support.

Themes
There are no required themes. Since it’s St. Valentine’s Day, we suggest you bring at least one love poem.

We’re proponents of free speech, but please understand (1) that we must abide by the laws of the land, and (2) that there may be children present in the audience. Please don’t bring poems that could get the Festival in trouble with the law.

Date and Venue
6:00 p.m., Sunday, 14th February, 2010, at the David Sassoon Library Garden

Deadlines
For initial submission via email: midnight 10th February, 2010. (We may extend this deadline, but don’t count on it.)
To respond to the invitation to the Slam: noon, 13 February, 2010.
On the day of the Slam, 14th February 2010: report to the sound console at the David Sasson Library, Kala Ghoda, by 5.30 p.m, and ask to speak to one of the Literature volunteers. Please show all five of your poems to the contest organisers present.

How our Poetry Slam works
Even if you know how a conventional Slam works, please read this section. There are more than a few tweaks.

Before the Slam:

Each poet must have ready at least five poems.

To be invited to compete in the Slam, you must submit one poem via email. (See address at the bottom of this post.)

The organisers/judges will short-list poets from the entries. Selection criteria will be the quality of the writing and how well, in the judges’ opinion, those poems lend themselves to performance.

The selected poets will be informed of their selection only via email. Their participation will be confirmed only once they reply to that email and commit to performing at the Slam on the 14th February and that they will come prepared to perform five of their poems.

At the event:

Participants in each round will perform in random order.

After each round, the judges will vote, and the competitors with the lowest points in that round will be eliminated, until we have a winner. The exact number that will be eliminated in each round will be decided depending on the number of participants selected to compete in the Slam, and will be announced before the performances start.

Scoring will be cumulative. Those who survive each round will carry their points with them. Elimination in each round will be based on total scores up to that point. In case of a tie, the totals from that specific round will be used as a tie-breaker.

Rules and Conditions

Submit only one poem via email.

The contest is open to anyone, anywhere, with the exception of the jury or their family members. No, to make it absolutely clear, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been published or not, whether you’ve performed before or not.Since the main event is live on stage, selected participants must be prepared to travel to the venue (at their own expense), from wherever they are, to perform their work.

Each poem must take no longer than two minutes to perform. Time on stage will be kept strictly, and you will be cut off if you exceed the limit.

Entries must be in English.

Entries must be your own, original work.

Participants selected for the Slam can, on stage, read, recite, declaim, shout, or sing their words. They can stand still, gesture, pace, even jump and up and down. They will be judged on both the quality of the words they perform and the performance itself.

No costumes, musical accompaniment, or audio visual aids allowed.

There is no entry fee.Submissions remain the intellectual property of the entrants, but by submitting an entry, you give the the Kala Ghoda Association, the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival and its Sponsors, and Caferati permission to use your entry, with acknowledgement, but with no payment to you, in their websites, as part of Press Releases (where they may be reproduced by media organisations), and in a possible special booklet or CD featuring the best of the Festival.

The decisions of the jury are final and binding, and no correspondence will be entertained regarding the jury’s decisions.

Judges

Caferati’s editors will evaluate initial submissions.

On the event day, there will be a panel of 6 judges.

The expert panel:

(to be announced)

The Audience Panel:

Three randomly chosen members of the audience will join the experts to help judge each round.

Prizes

Prizes worth approximately Rs 3000, Rs 2000, and Rs 1000 to be won.

Winners will be announced at the end of the contest, on the evening of 14th February, 2010, at the David Sassoon Library Garden.

How to enter
Email editors AT caferati DOT com with the subject line “Kala Ghoda Poetry Slam 2010

Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Results - Literature Contests

‘Finalists’ in the links below refers to the entries with the top 10 scores after the second round of judging, in random order.
‘Scores’ are for both round 1 and round 2.
Clicking on the Entry ID number in the Scores page shows you the full entry and its scores in the both rounds (if it got through to round 2, that is), plus remarks (if any).
‘Winners’ shows you all the prize-winners, their names, the scores they got on both rounds, and remarks, if any.

There are quite a few ties. We follow a simple system when that happens: we drop the next prize, and the tied contestants share the prize money for both places.
For example: a two-way tie in first place - no second place, and the tied entrants share equally the prize money for first and second place;
Another example: a three-way tie for first place - no second or third prize, and the tied entrants get an equal share of the prize money for 1st + 2nd + 3rd; and so on.
For a tie in third place, since we only have prizes for the top three, the tied winners simply share prize money for third place.

Now then.

Literature Quiz
1st place, Mahesh and Bala
2nd place, Anand & Ajith
3rd place, Girish & Aniruddha.
(ISix teams made it through the written elims into the final round. We’ll ask our quizmaster if he’d be willing to share the scores in the elims and the finals with us)

SMS Poetry
Scores - Finalists - Winners
1st place (tied): Sandeep Shete, Kanika Parab, Anitha Murthy

55-word Stories
Scores - Finalists - Winners
1st place, Nina
2nd place, Krishnakumar Sankaran
3rd place (tied), B S Keshav, Dilip D’Souza, Sandeep Shete

Flash Drama
Scores - Finalists - Winners
1st place (tied), Sandeep Shete, Chandrima Pal
3rd place, Menaka Raman

Lyric writing
Scores - Finalists - Winners
1st place (tied), Amrita Chatwal, patrick,
3rd place (tied), sheela jaywant, Raamesh Gowri Raghavan, Joshua C. Love

Poetry Slam
Finalists - Arjun Kariyal, priya shah, upasana vikram mukherjee, Ahmed Karim, Virendra Gupta, Dr. Taher Kagalwala, Swayamprava Panda, Raamesh Gowri Raghavan, Mukul Chadda, Nithya Subramanian, devesh sharma, Abhishek Kumar, patrick (Arjun Kariyal’s entry, though an edited version of his own work, was not submitted by him, which we very nicely told us. Ahmed Karim and patrick did not respond to our invitation to participate in the Slam.)
Winners -
1st place, Mukul Chadda,
2nd place, Raamesh Raghavan,
3rd place, Devesh Sharma

Thursday, February 5, 2009
Contests Night

David Sassoon Library 

15/2/2009 

19:20-21:30

The final round of the poetry slam contest will be held. In between, there will be performances that have emerged as the outcome of some of our workshops. The evening ends with the announcement of the results from all the contests.

Thursday, February 5, 2009
Literature Quiz

Elimination Round

Saturday, 14th February.

Elphinstone College Seminar Room

12.30 pm- 2.30pm  Final round

Sunday, 15th February.

National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) Auditorium

10.30 am – 12.30pm 

Quizmaster: Sumant Srivathsan

The Literature Quiz, as the name implies, is meant to cover topics related to published works of prose and poetry, including fiction, non-fiction and graphic novels, and some aspects of language, such as etymology and the history of words. The quiz will cover writings in a variety of languages and from all parts of the world.

(Click here to read the whole post)

Monday, February 2, 2009
Flash Drama (Contests - Writing)

A new contest! Are you the kind of writer who likes to have your words performed, not read on a page? You’ll like this one.

Theme

Truce

Deadline

Midnight (Indian Standard Time), 8th 10th February, 2009

(Click here to read the whole post)

Monday, February 2, 2009
Lyric writing (Contests - Writing)

A new contest! Do you think you can write a better song than all that stuff on the music channels? Come prove it.

Theme

Red

Deadline

Midnight (Indian Standard Time), 8th 10th February, 2009

(Click here to read the whole post)

Monday, February 2, 2009
55-Word stories (Contests - Writing)

Flash Fiction (also called micro-fiction or short-shorts) presents a simple challenge: tell a story with all the classical elements: a beginning, middle and end, a conflict and resolution, a credible protagonist.. but do so in a very limited number of words. Fire up your favourite web search engine. There are plenty of tutorials and guidelines available online, as well as excellent examples of the genre.

Flash Fiction is now in its fourth year at the Kala Ghoda contests, though previous contests have allowed longer submissions.

Theme

Cheating.

Deadline

Midnight (Indian Standard Time), 8th February, 2009.

(Click here to read the whole post)

Monday, February 2, 2009
SMS Poetry (Contests - Writing)

SMS Poetry has one simple guideline: The entire poem must be short enough to fit into a single 160-character SMS.

This contest is now in its fifth year at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.

Theme

Murder

Deadline

Midnight (Indian Standard Time), 8th February, 2009

(Click here to read the whole post)

Monday, February 2, 2009
Poetry Slam (Contests - Writing / Performance)

This is an attempt to give performance poetry a bit of a push, to bring some new voices out into the open, to put a little more audience participation into poetry, and, not least, to have a little fun.The slam made its debut at Kala Ghoda in 2007 (the first in India, actually) to much enjoyment from the audience and the participants, and returned in 2008 to just as much enthusiasm and support.

Themes

There are three themes:
Rock
Paper
Scissors
You must also have one more poem—your choice of theme—which we’ll call the ‘Free Poem.’

Date and Venue

6:10 p.m., 15th February, 2009, at the David Sassoon Library Garden

Deadlines

For initial submission via the web link: Midnight (Indian Standard Time), 8th February, 2009.

To respond to the invitation to the Slam: noon, 13 February, 2008.

On the day of the Slam, 15th February 2008: report to the Open Desk at the David Sasson Library, Kala Ghoda, by 5.30 p.m.

(Click here to read the whole post)

Monday, February 11, 2008
Contests Results!

Here you go:

The shortlists:
Flash Fiction
SMS Poetry
Flash Essay
Poetry Slam
(No short list for the Open Book Pitch.)

The winners and the winning entries.
Flash Fiction
SMS Poetry
Flash Essay
(The Poetry Slam final was a live event, and we don’t have recordings, alas. The top 3: 1. Mukul Chadda, 2. Tarun Durga, 3. Arka Mukhopadhyay)
Book Pitch

All scoresheets
Flash Fiction
SMS Poetry
Flash Essay
Poetry Slam Qualifying & Live Rounds
(The Book Pitch had a three-stage yes/no grading system, which would be simple enough to reproduce in a table, but all that’s really relevant is the final ‘yes,’ which is shown in the ‘winners’ list.)

Friday, January 18, 2008
Open Book Pitch (Contests - Writing)

Update (Feb 29th) The emails we referred to in the 13th Feb update were sent out on the 24th Feb. To all the selected authors, good luck and godspeed. We hope to see your name in lights soon.

Important update (Feb 13th) We’re having a little hassle with our automated emails to scouts and selected authors.
And, several of our scouts have requested more time to evaluate pitches - last week was a very heavy one for our friends in the publishing business.
So, making a virtue of necessity, we are opening up the scouting console to them up to the end of this week.
And we will send out those connecting emails on Monday, 18th February.
Please ensure that you’re subscribed to Caferati Contests for further updates.
Update ends

Have you wondered how to catch the eye of a publisher? Have you despaired of getting them to take just one look at the manuscript you’ve toiled over? We have a contest this year that will help you to do just that. And the prize? You could wind up being published. Doesn’t get simpler. Or better.

Submission method

Simple.

Go to this web form. (But puhleeze make sure you read the entire page here first.)

Fill in the following:
- The Title of your book - up to 5 words
- A Blurb, exciting enough to grab your target’s attention - up to 50 words
- An Synopsis of the book - up to 500 words
- An extract from your Manuscript - up to 5000 words
- Select one or more genres that your book fits into.

And then?

From the 4th to the 9th February, Talent Scouts from several publishing houses and a few literary agents will be checking out all the submissions.

Each scout will first see only your Title and your Blurb (so make sure that those work very hard), and the genre(s) that your book fits into.
If those catch her/his eye, s/he can then click through to the Synposis.
And if that meets with her/his approval, then s/he will click through to the manuscript Extract. Then, if your submission interests her/him, we will make the connection between that Scout and you. If more than one Scout likes your submission, then hey, you’ll hear from all of them, you lucky so-and-so! After that, it’s up to you and the Scout to take the whole thing forward.

Deadline

Midnight (Indian Standard Time), 3rd February, 2008.
(Click here to read the whole post)

Thursday, January 17, 2008
Flash Fiction (Contests - Writing)

Flash Fiction (also called micro-fiction or short-shorts) presents a simple challenge: tell a story with all the classical elements: a beginning, middle and end, a conflict and resolution, a credible protagonist.. but do so in a very limited number of words. Fire up your favourite web search engine. There are plenty of tutorials and guidelines available online, as well as excellent examples of the genre.

This contest kindly sponsored by Sulekha Blogs. Please go visit them.

Sulekha Blogs

Flash Fiction is now in its third year at the Kala Ghoda contests.

Theme

Tall story
(Click here to read the whole post)

Thursday, January 17, 2008
SMS Poetry (Contests - Writing)

SMS Poetry has one simple guideline: The entire poem must be short enough to fit into a single 160-character SMS.

This contest is now in its fourth year at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.

Theme

An Anti-Valentine
(Click here to read the whole post)

Thursday, January 17, 2008
Flash Essay (Contests - Writing)

Making its debut this year, this contest widens the genres that our Kala Ghoda contests cover. We’re looking for incisive essays that see different sides of the story, that have an opinion of their own, that are lucid and engaging, and, because we live in an information overload age where no one has time to read—and because we, the judges, have lives—essays that can make a point faster and more clearly than this convoluted sentence did.

Theme

The Death of the Essay
(Click here to read the whole post)

Next Page »