Breathing life into the Crocodile Prize Anthology 2016
04 April 2016
PHIL FITZPATRICK
AFTER the first couple of Crocodile Prize anthologies in 2011 and 2012 I began to notice that there was some very fine and incisive writing appearing on PNG Attitude that hadn’t been entered in the literary competition.
This mostly included articles specifically written for the blog but there was also a sprinkling of material that Keith had picked up from other blogs and media and re-published, a practise he continues to this day.
In those early days the copyright rules for material on blogs were pretty fuzzy but no one seemed to object to their material being re-published, they were, after all, seeking the widest coverage.
Rather than let these non-competition articles, poems and short stories fade away, I started to include some in the annual anthology.
It surprised a few people who picked up on it. Martyn Namorong was a prime source and when he realised what I was doing he was happy to let it continue.
At the moment the entries to the Crocodile Prize competition for 2016 seem pretty patchy. So far I’ve only received a couple of small batches of entries for consideration and inclusion in the 2016 anthology.
As you might appreciate, I only select the best stuff for the anthology, so a lot of what comes in, maybe 95%, gets discarded.
In this sense I suspect that the 2016 anthology will be made up of mostly non-competition material pulled off PNG Attitude.
With that the case, and mindful that Keith plans to keep running the blog for a while yet, I’ve decided to keep publishing the anthology until he calls it a day. And I’ll continue using whatever sources are available.
At some stage I might also consider an anthology of the best writing from the Val Rivers Peace and Harmony Awards – depending on Val’s okay.
So what does this mean for PNG Attitude contributors?
Well, if you’ve got something you think is pretty good, be it a poem, short story or essay, but which you haven’t entered in the Crocodile Prize competition, there’s a good chance it might appear in the anthology.
PNG Attitude thrives on good writing from Papua New Guinean contributors, those I refer to as the PNG Attitude family in the upcoming history of the blog. There will be lots of good Papua New Guinean writing in there too by the way.
You won’t get a prize for appearing in the anthology but you’ll have the satisfaction of seeing your work in a hardcopy book.
That must be worth the effort I reckon.
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