5th Nicosia Short Story Days
Meeting of Story Writers: (15th February)
The first event of the traditional EMAA organization, 5th Nicosia Short Story Days, took place in the name of Meeting of Story Writers on 15th February 2006, Wednesday evening at İsmet.V.Güney Art Centre. Despite the small number of participants, the event went on in an intimate atmosphere, where discussions were made on issues such as this year’s story days; whether the increase in the number of stories sent to the story writing competition could also be seen as a qualitative increase in creativity; the next story days, and how their content can be shaped. On the evening, where the participants and story writers made readings of their stories, answers were sought for questions as “What is the significance of stories in our lives?”, “Why short stories?”, “What are the distinctive elements of short stories from other literary works?”, though not overlooking the expectations of readers.
Young Writers’ Short Story Contest: (24th March) The results of the Young Writers’ Short Story Contest, which is organized for the second time this year, was announced on 24th March, Friday evening at the Basın-Sen Buılding. Led by Ayşen Dağlı, M.Kansu and our precious master Oğuz Karakartal contributed to the evening with their speeches. Oğuz Karakartal shared his knowledge about short story structure by putting forward the definition of short story and giving examples about its general characteristics. Especially quoting extracts from Ferid Edgü’s stories, Karakartal talked about how a shock or impact is caused on the reader in short stories by disregarding the backdrop, moreover, blurring the backdrop, focusing on characters, and thus, unleashing the dramatic effect without being hampered by the limitations of plot. M. Kansu, who assessed the stories in the name of the jury comprised of M. Kansu (Poet, story-writer) himself; Özden Selenge (Painter, writer); Nilgün Güney (Painter, story-writer and the President of EMAA); Gürkan Uluçam (3rd Runner-up of EMAA I. Young Story-Writers’ Contest) and Oğuz Karakartal (Lecturer at ICU), highlighted the lingual problems and expositional deficiencies of the youth. Kansu, who underlined the significance of the storyline in short stories, advised the young writers to read a lot, study the masters’ works and keep writing.
The jury, who evaluated 12 stories of 9 writers, arrived to the decision to encourage the young writers by awarding a 3rd Runner-up and two honorary mentions since the stories were generally lacking the qualities in order to be rewarded at a higher degree. Therefore, the award of the 3rd Runner-up was given to Alper Günay. Günay, who entered the contest with the nickname Safalassos, drew the attention of the jury by his three stories, titled Buzlu Yamaç (Icy Slope), Cafe De Paris'te Bir Randevu (Rendezvous at Cafe de Paris)and Ekrem Balyemez’in Bir Günü (A Day of Ekrem Balyemez), and was awarded by the jury as an up-and-coming young writer. His story titled Cafe De Paris' te Bir Randevu got the highest points in the overall. Mentions went to Deniz Sonalp, aka Venüs, who joined the contest with her story titled Anlamsız (Meaningless), and to Tüge Dağaşan, aka Bufavento, for her story titled Mavi Bere (The Blue Beret).
Despite the shortcomings, EMAA is continuing to organize events. Fighting the infinite number of problems and the old ways in a country, where art receives the least investment, is wearing us down and dragging us to the edge of pessimism time after time. Against such a backdrop full of hardships, the interest shown to the event by Dear Canan Öztoprak, the Minister of National Education and Culture, was an extremely precious moral support to us.