Ekphrastic Challenge #1 2025: ‘Beach’ by Anne Franks [submissions close on Sun 23 Feb 2025]

Two children - one a girl of about 8 and the other a younger boy - holding their clothes around their knees face a pristine empty beach as a shallow wave recedes from a sandy expanse of beach.
                                           Beach (photo by Anne Franks)

You are invited to join in the Ekphrastic Experience!

We are inviting everyone – members and non-members alike – to participate.

Use this image (Beach, by Anne Franks) as a prompt to write a poem or piece of prose (fiction or non-fiction) specifically written for the image presented, using up to 300 words.

We invite:

  • writing that connects with the image or springs from it
  • writing that has been written for the specific purpose of being published on the Geelong Writers Ekphrastic Challenge webpage
  • only one submission per person

Please provide a title for your response to the image and please check your work for errors

Be bold, be creative, and let the image provoke your imagination.

And, most importantly, have fun!

When selecting submissions for publication, we look for original responses to the image, rather than responses to any factors other than the image (e.g. the title). We collate submissions for publication so that we can showcase how the challenge has provoked wide-ranging, inventive responses which all clearly reference the image.

Please email your work to ekphrastic@geelongwriters.org.au with BEACH in the subject line by Sunday 23 February 2025.

If you are submitting any work that has unusual indents or forms such as shape poems, please send them as an image, for example in .jpg format.

Please do not send PDFs. Due to the nature of our publishing software, we may be unable to include any submissions using PDF in our published selection.

If you are under 18 please confirm that you have permission from a parent, guardian or teacher (if the challenge is being written as part of a school activity), to have your work published online.

A selection of the best responses will be published online by Sunday 2 March.

Previous submissions to the Geelong Writers Ekphrastic Challenges are available published here:

Geelong Writers Ekphrastic Writing

 

We strongly encourage you to read the examples there, as well as those listed in the links below.

The Ekphrastic Review archives

Ogunquit Museum of American Art

Rattle Ekphrastic Challenges

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