Light Tales Competition, the games are over. Among the texts sent to The Portal of Light by July 10, there are the winners of this competition which was really born as a wager, with limited resources and expectations as well. But the results, as they say, exceeded our hopes: numbers are significant and what is more important the passion for writing - and for light – is widespread among many kinds of people. We add it is disinterested, as the Contest didn’t offer anything as a prize, save for the prospect of being read by someone else. Next time, maybe…
We already made a first screening of the over fifty compositions we took into consideration. For instance were excluded all the texts that, differently from the announcement’s provisions, had characteristics more typical of a critic essay or a journalist article than a work of imagination. And, of course, the texts where light only was a fleeting mention, instead of being the thread or the source of inspiration, at least. In the first case, the regret remains for the real interest in light that some of those works off topic reveled. It would be incorrect towards people who respected all the contest’s rules to admit them, but there’s nothing to prevent a special category next time.
The Targetti Foundation is Italian and the nationality of most authors as well. Among the “foreigners”, Europe is represented in a quite homogeneous way, with the inclusion of Turkey and the surprising absence of France: we hoped Roger Narboni – the real ‘soul’ of the Competition, having written the tale that gave the A to the initiative – ‘created a school’, but things turned out differently. A note of merit goes to the Nordic countries and especially to Denmark, whereas out of Europe the participation was practically symbolic. But the reason, in this case, is easy to be indentified and concerns the promotion activities of the Competition, that have been minimal everywhere, due to the experimental nature of the initiative, and almost absent across the ocean. We will try and do better next time.
Among the competitors for the prizes the form of tale was the prevailing form, having been largely preferred to poetry. And we register a good number of authors who, repeating the happy choice of Narboni, besides the text also realized some illustrations. As for the titles, the most curious prefigure worlds peopled by dinosaurs and “wild” men, where the night is violet and you can play under a gloomy sun. There is someone who put light into a letter and someone else who hopes in the darkness; someone who is dressed in light and someone else who, between stars and shining rays, remember a meeting or how it happened he started to see. For the jury of the Light Tales Competition, the month of August will be entirely dedicated to reading. Then, in September, a first selection will allow to reduce the list of candidates to ten; the three winners will be selected among those names by the end of the month. You can find all information on The Portal of Light, hoping that there will really be a next time!
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