Ekphrastic Writing Challenge: Cristobal Rojas

El Purgatorio, by Cristobal Rojas (Venezuela) 1890.

Ekphrastic Writing Challenge: Cristobal Rojas

Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished influential poets writing today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. 

Thank you to everyone who participated in our last writing challenge featuring the work of Teresa Vito, which ends today, June 28,  at midnight. Accepted responses for the Teresa Vito challenge will be published on July 5, 2019. 

The prompt this time is El Purgatorio, by Cristobal Rojas. Deadline is July 12, 2019.

We welcome Janette Schafer as guest editor for this challenge. Thank you so much to Janette for taking on the challenge of the challenge! Janette is an Ekphrastic Review contributor who has edited various anthologies, along with a wide range of writing, music, art, and performance projects. 

Note From Janette Schafer, Guest Editor
 
"The artwork I've chosen for this challenge is El Purgatorio, by Cristobal Rojas. This painting is so evocative with imagery and magical realism that I encourage poets and writers not to be bound to the religious subject matter. My goal in choosing a Venezuelan painter is to increase awareness of this vibrant culture which is now in danger because of the current humanitarian crisis." 

Janette Schafer
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The Rules

1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination.

2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything. Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF.

3. Have fun.

4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.

Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry.

5.Include CRISTOBAL ROJAS WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line in all caps please. 

6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your poem. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 

7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 

8. Deadline is midnight, July 12, 2019.

9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is.

10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline.

​11. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!

Many thanks to Janette Schafer, and to all of our guest editors who have been taking the helm for the challenges. 

Guest editor bio: Janette Schafer is a writer, nature photographer, part-time rocker, and full-time banker living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her writing and photographs have appeared in numerous journals, magazines, newspapers, and websites. She is co-editor of The Dreamers Anthology, released by Beautiful Cadaver Project Pittsburgh in April 2019. Her poem "What we want to remember about this river" was the 2019 winner of Laurie Mansell Reich/Academy of American Poets prize.