Australian arts organisation, Orana Arts is partnering with walk · listen · create, to offer a prize in the new writing competition, Neighbourhood Narratives – stories around us. An invitation has been extended to creatives, living and working in Regional New South Wales (NSW), to write about Regional NSW—a region being any town, small city or area that falls beyond the major capital cities.

Orana Arts is a not-for-profit Regional Arts Development Organisation based in Central NSW, Australia, working within the regional arts sector to elevate the status of artists and organisations beyond their local areas, extending the practices of regionally based artists and cultural organisations, and increasiing the participation of artists and cultural organisations in the creative economy.

Creatives from across Regional NSW, over the age of 16, are invited to write creative and descriptive non-fiction, about buildings, parks, streets/roads, special trees, and special views in their neighbourhoods, be they urban, suburban or rural. You might have a story about a favourite cafe, a former prison now tourist attraction—there are a few of those, the people behind landmark buildings in your town, places that are no longer visible due to time or natural disaster, a favourite piece of street art, the origins of a favourite green space…the possibilities of sharing our regional histories, stories and special places are endless.

Each non-fiction story submitted to Neighbourhood Narratives – stories around us needs to be between 250 and 350 words, and ideally about a place familiar to you. If you wish to be eligible for the Regional NSW prize in the competition, your story will need to be about a place in Regional NSW you are familiar with, and you will need to live and work in the regions of the state—anywhere but Sydney.

Judges will shortlist the stories first, with an overall prize winner and runners-up selected from the list. There are cash prizes for the winner and runners-up, and the winner will also get a specially commissioned artwork by Alban Low, who created the illustration for the competition and has illustrated several of the writing competition chapbooks published by walk · listen · create.

Additionally, there are two category prizes: one for creatives in Regional NSW and one for those writing about Bath in the UK. You could potentially win the main prize and the regional categories. Orana Arts is sponsoring the Regional NSW prize of €100 and throwing in a year’s membership to Studio Co!Lab* (valued at A$60) if you’re not already a member.

walk · listen · create will separately select submissions for inclusion on Placecloud.io. These stories will need to be produced as short audio pieces if selected. Placecloud is an open platform, so if you so choose, you can add ‘viewpoints’ (short audio pieces) to Placecloud at any time, but this is not a requirement for participation in this competition. Competition judges will make their decisions based on the written stories only.

*Studio Co!Lab is a membership-based platform for creatives managed by Orana Arts. It provides networking, professional development, grants, residencies, and professional support to creatives of all artforms, living and working in Regional NSW.

Featured image: The old Post Office in Dubbo, NSW, Australia