TYVoices Awards: General Information
Five Categories
Enter in any or all categories (one entry per category) for a chance to win one of 15 Awards. An expert judge will select award recipients in five categories: Art, Photography, Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction.
Win Cash
At least $2,000 in cash prizes will be awarded for Art, Photos, Poetry, Fiction, or Nonfiction for Magazines by creative youth (ages 11-29) who reside in the Eastern Townships. (This is more than twice the size of the 2023 awards, thanks to generous grants from the Townshippers’ Research & Cultural Foundation and the Sherbrooke Rotary Club.)
Get Published
The winning works will be published in the Townships Sun.
TYVoices Gala
We will honour participants, including the 15 award recipients, at a public ceremony planned for the Centre Lac-Brome in Knowlton, Quebec, on April 28, 2024.
Who Can Participate?
Persons ages 11 to 29 who reside in the historical Eastern Townships in Quebec.
How Much Does It Cost? Participation is free of charge.
Submission Deadline: February 29, 2024.
THEME
What interests YOU? Submissions should relate to some aspect of life in the Eastern Townships, past, present or future.
To see the kinds of content the Townships Sun has published in the recent past, browse its website, TownshipsSun.ca, look at current issues of the magazine in your school’s library, or subscribe HERE. (An online subscription lets you review the past year’s nine issues.)
YouTube Tutorials
Watch free TYVoices Workshops on the Townships Sun Young Voices YouTube channel @TYVoices (tips and interviews about creative work for magazines).
TYVoices Eligibility Criteria (Submissions will not be considered if they do not meet the criteria.)
(1) The competition is open to anyone between the ages of 11 and 29 who resides in the historical Eastern Townships.
(2) Only one entry per person per category is permitted.
(3) Where work is co-created by a team of more than one person, the entry will be considered as a single entry in ONE category. All team members must be listed in the submission. Any prizes awarded to a team will name each team member and cash prizes will be divided accordingly.
(4) Categories are: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Art and Photography.
Fiction. Length: maximum 700 words. Creative fiction, personal story, humour…. Surprise us. We are looking for stories that draw in the readers, whose characters they can relate to, and that take them on a memorable journey.
(Do NOT insert visual works in a word-processing file. If images are attached, they must be original photos or art created by the writer.)
Nonfiction. Length: maximum 700 words. We are looking for articles, essays, interviews, or reviews with considered views, depth of research, quality of prose, a unique argument, and a strong writing voice that tells a story about a Townships issue, event, person, group, or other topic.
(Do NOT insert visual works in a word-processing file. If images are attached, they must be original photos or art created by the writer.)
Poetry. Poems should be a maximum of 40 lines, and line length 3.5 inches or less (11-point Cambria font). For concrete poetry or poems with unusual formatting, please submit the work as a pdf or jpg image, in as high resolution as possible, preferably 600 pixels per inch (ppi) or higher.
Photography & Artwork. We are looking for work with visual impact in both black-and-white and colour. Composition, content, and technical excellence will all be considered. One submission may consist of one image, or a short series of images to create a visual narrative (for example, a comic strip or a graphic story, told primarily through images).
Please give your work a title and a written description, including the year it was created. Written aspects of the submissions should be in Word or LibreOffice documents, including your bio and contact information.
All images should be in one of these file formats: jpg, tiff, pdf, or png. The images should be as high resolution as possible, preferably 600 pixels per inch (ppi) or higher, at least 3.5 inches wide.
Do NOT send visual works in word-processing files.
(5) All submissions must be in English, because the Townships Sun is a non-profit magazine published in English.
(6) The application deadline is Thursday, February 29, 2024 (before midnight). All submissions made are final and cannot be amended.
(7) All applications must be submitted via the 2024 online forms found at Townshipssun.ca/Townships-Young-Voices. (One form is for written submissions, the other is for visual submissions.)
(8) TYVoices 2024 will accept original unpublished work only. The Townships Sun will not consider work that has already appeared elsewhere in print or online, with the exception of in-house school publications.
(9) The Townships Sun will not publish any material deemed to be racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or to otherwise promote intolerance or hatred.
(10) Prizes are awarded by the Townships Sun magazine’s editorial team.
(11) Special guests may be invited to participate in the jury process for each category in the final stage of decision-making. Such special guests will be announced during the competition.
(12) Townships Young Voices Awards 2024 consists of five categories. Three prizes will be awarded per category.
(13) All winning articles will be published in the Townships Sun.
(14) All publication is subject to the participant’s completing the editorial requirements, in collaboration with the Townships Sun’s editor.
(15) Members of the jury evaluating submissions will not know the identities of the authors.
(16) In case of reasonable doubt on the part of the jury, the Townships Sun may contact entrants to verify the above information, as it sees appropriate. Failing to comply with requests for verification may result in an entry being deemed invalid.
(17) All written works will be tested for plagiarism. Please note that any attempt to submit work authored by someone else may result in interested institutions being notified.
(18) Winners – their names and the titles of their works – will be publicly acknowledged and published in the Townships Sun and via social media, and subsequently their works will be published in the Townships Sun magazine.
(19) All matters unclear or not addressed in these guidelines will be resolved by the Editor of the Townships Sun in a way that ensures the competition is fair. The Editor also holds the right to change or amend the guidelines if necessary for the proper conduct of the competition.
HOW TO SUBMIT:
Two submission forms, one for written work (Fiction, Poetry and Nonfiction), and one for Photography and Artwork, are HERE.
(1) Go to the Young Voices page on the Townships Sun website.
(2) Fill out the Form related to the category of your work.
(3) Please upload your written work here (including supporting images in separate files).
DEADLINE: February 29, 2024.
THEN WHAT?
An expert jury will review the submissions in each category on an anonymous basis. The awards are to be announced on April 28, 2024, at the Townships Sun Young Voices Awards 2024 gala planned for the Centre Lac-Brome in Knowlton.
QUESTIONS? Email us: [email protected] or [email protected].
TO DOWNLOAD A PDF OF THESE GUIDELINES, CLICK HERE
ARE YOU…
