The awards night was held on Saturday, August 30 at the CWA Hall in Benalla, but the competition had been launched on March 21 to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
In the short story competition, entrants were asked to write a diary entry about the day after a pandemic that has caused people to forget everything about racism.
Fluffy Penguin Virus (FPV) arrived in Philip Island in February, and had changed the world in a very short time.
By July 1, everyone in the world had recovered from the virus, but could not remember racism or make sense of it.
This is where the writers were challenged to pen a diary entry from a fictional character on that day.
How does the world seem now that racism no longer exists?
The judging panel were given a big task – to pick the winners from 16 creative entries.
The way FPV affected the world of each character played out in very different ways.
The winning story, written by Chris Marcic, was centred on a confused conversation between friends in Benalla.
Without the framework of racism to understand earlier events, suddenly the friends were left to figure out why they did things they no longer understood.
In second place, Kezia Pettitt entered a story that richly described evolving relations between neighbours as the world forgot racism.
Laura McKenna wove together a story about housing troubles and workloads changing.
The local award, for Benalla entrants, went to Amanda Fita, whose story about emotional anguish as the world changed and racism diminished caught the judges’ attention.
While most writers attended the event via Zoom, a couple of entrants were able to make it in person.
One, who came in person for the awards, was Ruža Bučak-Dabić from Melbourne.
She is an author who has published poetry in her first language, Croatian, as well as English.
Ruža brought along a copy of her latest work to share with BMA members.
BMA president Puna Gunaratne, said he was looking forward to developing this event into the future.
“This is the first time a literature event has been held to mark International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in north-east Victoria,” Cr Gunaratne said.
“We expect that this will become an annual event that will contribute to the development of our cultural landscape in this region.”
The winning entries will be available to read via benallamigrants.org.au/
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