Image: Winners of the 2017 Crocodile Prize Competition. L-R: Iso Yawi, Peter Jokisie, Evah Banige, Louisah Enos and Jordan Dean. Source: Crocodile Prize Facebook
By Kiwiana Ngabung – EMTV Online, Port Moresby
Last week organisers, judges, writers, illustrators, sponsors along with family and friends convened at the Gateway Hotel for the awards reception of the 2017 Crocodile Prize Competition.
A total of seven winners were selected, each a winner of a category. The winners are Peter Jokisie (Writing For Children), Evah Kuamin Banige (Essays and Journalism), Jordan Dean (Heritage Writing), Iso Yawi (Short Stories), Kirsten Aria (Women In Writing), Annie Dori (Poetry), and Louisah Enos (Facebook Challenge). For Best Short Play, however, the judges did not think any of the submitted entries were worthy of a prize so there was no winner for this category.
They have all won themselves a cash prize of K5000, except for Louisah, winner of the Facebook Challenge, who has won learning aid and materials worth K5000. Their writing pieces will also be published in the Crocodile Prize 2017 Anthology.
For a few of the winners this is their first time entering the national literary competition, but for a few others like Peter Jokisie, Iso Yawi and Kirsten Aria it isn’t their first and probably not their last.
Peter Jokisie has been writing for seven years under the pseudonym J.P. Richard. He has had his work published in the 2012, 2014 and 2016 anthologies and won the competition’s 2016 Emerging Young Writer Award.
Iso Yawi said writing is his passion. He began sending in his pieces in 2014. Like Peter, he had his pieces published in the 2015 and 2016 Crocodile Prize anthologies.
Kirsten Aria, who enjoys literature, had first entered the competition in 2012, submitting a literary piece under the Heritage Writing category.
On top of awarding winners, the organising committee also launched the 8th Crocodile Prize Competition, inviting Papua New Guineans to share their creative and original work.
The 2018 competition will close on August 31, 2018.
The Crocodile Prize was established in 2010 and is currently the only national literary competition in Papua New Guinea. It encourages creative and critical writing by Papua New Guineans and the best entries have their work published in annual anthologies.
