This year, the House of Poetry is organizing the 31st open mike competition for young literature.
The open mike promotes young literary talent and offers young authors a stage, brings them into contact with the literary public, and serves to build networks. The open mike provides sustainable support for young talents and helps them to develop their own literary voice.
The 31st open mike is endowed with a total of 7,500,- €.
Participation requirements according to the statutes
1. The open mike is open to young authors who are no older than 35 (deadline June 4, 2023) and who have neither published an independent literary book (including e-books) nor signed a contract with a publishing house for a book publication.
2. Submissions may be either prose (e.g. short prose, narrative or a self-contained novel excerpt) or poetry, in each case in German or translated into German (see also point 4).
3. The texts must not have been published, this includes publications on the internet, as e-book, in magazines, anthologies and publications of any kind, and must not have been successfully submitted to another competition or scholarship.
4. Authors who do not write in German and who live in German-speaking countries may submit their text to the competition together with a translator in a translation into German, provided that both the original text and the translation are unpublished.
Submission
1. The length of the submitted texts (poetry or prose, not both together) should correspond to a 15-minute reading time. Submissions that are clearly too long or too short will be excluded from the competition. Neither the sender's name nor a password may appear on the manuscript pages.
2. Each entrant may submit only one entry. Entries must be submitted online between April 17 and June 4, 2023 23:59 (CET) over the application form.
Competition procedure
Round 1: Selection by the preliminary jury
1. An independent preliminary jury consisting of editors from the publishing house will select up to 20 texts from the anonymous submissions for the final. The selected applicants will receive a personal invitation by the end of September 2023. The names of the finalists will also be announced on www.haus-fuer-poesie.org.
2. The invited authors will be reimbursed for travel expenses (DB 2nd class) of up to 150,-€ upon submission of receipts and invoices. (This does not apply to authors from Berlin).
Round 2: Public final
1. The final will take the form of a public reading on the weekend of November 3-5, 2023, at Heimathafen Neukölln in Berlin. Each finalist will have exactly 15 minutes of reading time to present the text and convince the jury and the audience.
2. The jury will select three winners and award prizes totaling 7,500,- €. At least one prize will be awarded for poetry. The jury will decide on the distribution of the prize money. In addition, the taz audience jury awards an audience prize consisting of a print of the winning text in the daily newspaper. Deutschlandradio Kultur has been producing a feature about the competition for years.
The open mike on the net
www.openmikederblog.de
www.facebook.com/openmikeberlin
Contact
Theresa Mattusch
t.mattusch@haus-fuer-poesie.org
The open mike is an event of Haus für Poesie in cooperation with Heimathafen Neukölln.