The BIBLIOPHONE 1000 Words Heard Competition for INARA
Welcome to 1000 Words Heard for INARA
If you’re a regular here you’ll know that our writing competitions don’t follow the usual formula. We like to offer a prize that’s actually useful to you as a writer. Something that develops your author platform.
And for the first time, just by entering this competition, you’ll be helping some truly vulnerable people.
What is INARA?
We’ve never charged an entry fee for our competitions before. Like everything else here at BIBLIOPHONE, we believe publishing should be free. And that includes our competitions.
This time we want to do some good though, and we hope you’d like to join us. That’s why entry to 1000 Words Heard for INARA will include a donation to charity. It’s only £4/$4/€4/AU$4/CAN$4 to enter and your donation will go to a truly worthy cause. At BIBLIOPHONE we won’t take a penny for the competition, and neither will our fabulous narrators.
Jamila lost her eye in an airstrike on her home in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria.
When a child is injured, either directly or indirectly, by the horrors of war, parents are often at a loss knowing who to go to in order to get help. INARA is there to establish links between these children and the medical support that they need.
When no one else can help them, they ensure that the child gets the treatment that will help them lead better lives. This is what INARA does.
Currently INARA focuses on providing medical assistance to children from Syria, including Palestinians, who are the group in greatest need.
And while we’re all impacted by COVID-19, there are vulnerable people in the world who were suffering long before the virus took hold. And they need our help.
Amani was burnt and lost her home in Syria
Refugee families often don’t have running water. They struggle to afford soap or other cleaning materials. They already find it hard to make ends meet, pay rent, and put food on the table. Many families are losing their only source of meagre income due to COVID-19. These families are the most vulnerable to the coronavirus. They need our help to protect themselves against COVID-19 and to eat.
Amani’s family are one of many families suffering as a result of COVID-19. Her father, Fadi, had just gotten a new job, but couldn’t start because of coronavirus restrictions; and her mother lost her work sewing clothes, also because of this virus. Fadi said: “We have been through a lot in Syria, we even lost our home and my daughter was burnt and has suffered to this day. But this is different. We really don’t know if we will make it.”
How can you help?
Just do your thing! You’re a writer and as the old adage goes: writers write. Right?
The winning stories will be narrated by a professional voice actor and published here at BIBLIOPHONE. We’ll feature them all on our homepage for at least a month and we’ll tweet them every day for at least as long.
You’re invited to include an author bio with your story and we’ll publish that too, including a link to your website, blog etc. In other words, we want to help you get some serious publicity as a writer. And if you've not had your work published in audio format before, we want to introduce a new dimension to your author platform.
All you have to do is head over to our JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bibliophone and make your donation. £4/$4/€4/AU$4/CAN$4 is the minimum donation we ask for to enter the competition. If you’d like to give more please do, but just by donating the set value you’ll be making a difference to someone’s life. Once you’ve made your donation to INARA you’re all set to enter the competition.
Just fill in the form here when you’re ready with your story. You need to enter a few details and upload your story file. Whatever name you’d like to have associated with your story is fine by us. We understand a good pseudonym. But please remember that if you use a different name to make your donation over at JustGiving, include it in the box provided just so that we know you’re eligible to enter.
You need to make your donation by midnight on Friday 24 April, and the competition closes two weeks later on Friday 8 May, so you have until then to get your story in to us.
Your story needs to be no longer than 1000 words (and yes it is a strict word limit – that is the aim of the competition after all!) and can be about anything. Tip: you want to entice the narrators to give voice to your written words, so have a think about how it might sound when it’s read aloud.
Introducing the narrators
[bios]
Thank you
Just by entering 1000 Words Heard for INARA you’ll be a winner. Like almost everyone on planet earth, your life has probably changed over the past few weeks. The chances are, you or someone you know has been impacted by COVID-19, either medically or financially. But that doesn’t mean you don’t think about others.
So thank you. Thank you for putting others first. Thank you for helping those who were already in trouble.
One last thing
As authors you are all great at marketing yourselves and your written work. If we can ask you to go one step further and spread the word across your social media platforms about the competition, we can get a real movement underway and make huge inroads into making life a little more livable for those who really need our help at this time. So please, please do all you can to shout about this writing competition. Thank you.