New award for SA writers announced: WGSA Muse Awards!

There's a new writers award for South African writers!

The Writers’ Guild of South Africa (WGSA) honours, celebrates and promotes the creativity, quality and writing excellence of local writers with the introduction and launching of the WGSA Muse Awards.

There are six categories for which entries will be accepted for the 2013 WGSA Muse Awards:
• Feature Film
• TV Drama
• TV Comedy
• Documentary
• Stage Plays, and
• Unproduced Script in any genre.

A panel of independent judges will be looking for excellence in writing style, story, characterisation, dialogue, and impact. Every nominee will receive a personalised Nomination Certificate, and each winner will receive a personalised Winner’s Certificate and a beautiful and specially designed WGSA Muse Trophy.

The WGSA is a registered Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) and a Public Benefit Organisation (PBO) which replaced SASWA, The South African Scriptwriters Association that was formed in 1974. It remains the only association in South Africa with the sole purpose of protecting, developing and empowering performance writers in the local film, television, radio, stage, animation and new media (internet – mobile and digital distribution, and gaming) industries. The WGSA is a key member of SASFED (The South African Screen Federation), and one of the founding members of LAMP (Language and Media Practitioners).

The judging process will take place during November and December 2013, with the nominees announced in January 2014. This will be followed by the award ceremony, which will take place early next year.

Entries open on 1 August 2013. The deadline for entries in the 2013 WGSA Muse Awards is at midnight on the 31st October 2013, and they must be submitted online. The online entry system and competition details can be found on the WGSA Muse Awards website.