English Creative Writing Competition in Bulgaria

Summer is not an active period for the Bulgarian Creative Writing Competition. CORPLUS Foundation uses this period for providing some additional opportunities to the interested students to improve their writing skills and expand their view on creative writing matters.

CORPLUs partners with Elizabeth Kostoff Foundation which provides a lot of training and experience exchange opportunities for writers, wannabe writers and newbies. This summer the students had the chance to participate in a workshop “How to write for the nature” with Dimitar Kenarov who has published articles in The New Yorker, Esquire, Outside.

Another interesting opportunity provided by Elizabeth Kostoff foundation was the Magical Realism workshop for beginners. It was facilitated by the North Irish writer Jenn Carson. The students had the chance to learn how to write their own stories in this genre.

Once upon a future was another workshop offered to thestudents. It was facilitated by Diana Petrova who used the fairy tail model to provoke the students to imagine the world after the COVID-19 isolation.

All summer workshops enriched the knowledge and skills of the students and they will feel more confident to participate in the next creative writing competition in English.

The preparation for the new edition of the competition started already and the CORPLUS team works on preparing interesting and provoking prompts. The registration for the 2021 competition will start at the beginning of October and we expect thousands of students to participate next year.

Anniversaries are a great reminder to revisit the wonders of the past! As the 10^th edition of the Bulgarian Creative Writing Competition is swiftly approaching, our team has been re-reading and contemplating the winning works of all past contests.

Heated discussions about each’s artistic merits helped us select the most outstanding 30, which will soon be published as a book, The Story of an Hour!

Participants in the competition are faced with a rather singular creative challenge: a few set topics to choose from and just an hour to translate their spontaneous response to the prompt into a coherent text. Yet we have found this format unleashes, rather than constrain, their imagination.

The authors whose works were included in the volume come from different school grades and various towns and cities in Bulgaria. Some excel in creating suspenseful stories, while others rhyme effortlessly. What unites them is a keen eye for details which often escape adults’ attention, and a mastery of vivid imagery beyond their years.

Here's a sneak peak:

Life is too short to wear boring clothes

In the woods two trees loomed green.

An oak tree, tall and breathtaking

the prettiest thing a pine had seen,

so tree love was in the making.

A beautiful day in spring.

The two were so happy together.

Nothing stood in the path of their love, not a thing.

It seemed they could admire each other forever.

But days were passing by.

Autumn slowly set in.

Clouds set floating across the sky.

And things started changing.

The oak tree turned orange and yellow-ish -

his leaves began to fall.

The pine’s apparel was somewhat selfish -

it was the exact boring green as he recalled.

Not only did his clothing change

but also his way of feeling.

His thoughts got rearranged.

It was both an end and a new beginning.

The pine stood there same as ever –

she didn’t care about a change of clothes.

Frozen to be green forever

amidst the autumn’s multi-coloured robes.

A still picture of beauty and grace

yet lifeless and detached

he felt coldness in her green embrace,

her promises seemed to him far-fetched.

He sat there lonely and began to contemplate.

Why was it that she never changed?

He knew he couldn’t help her.It was too late.

She viewed his transformations as deranged.

Some are prone to new beginnings.

They know the priceless value of rebirth.

The rest are senseless to the feeling

of changing and enjoying life’s worth.

Each moment counts.And matters.

It varies from the one before.

Why don’t we make it even better

by getting rid of boring …. clothes?

 I. Svechev