Elias Dakila Storywriting Competition

Elias Dakila Competition for Children's Storywriting on Environment
and Culture Contest Rules

1. The Elias Dakila Competition for Children's Storywriting on Environment and Culture is open to all Filipinos.

2. Entries must not have been previously published, and all entrants must warrant the
originality of their submitted entries.

3. Writers may submit only one entry, in English or Filipino, which shall be of 800 words or less. Entries that exceed this limit shall automatically be disqualified.

4. The objective of this contest is to come out with interesting, original and uplifting stories celebrating the environment and/or culture of the Philippines. Each entry must be based on, or inspired by the contest piece below, an illustration specially rendered for the contest by INK member Sergio Bumatay III.

5. The story must be suitable for a 32- to 36- page read-aloud book.

6. Entries shall be evaluated based on the following criteria:
• Relevance to Environmental/Cultural Theme (30%)
• Character Development (30%)
• Quality of Writing & Suitability for 6 to 8 year old children (30%)
• X-Factor (Judges' discretion) (10%)

7. CANVAS shall shortlist the five to ten best stories from which a panel of judges shall collectively choose the final winner. If the judges cannot come to a
consensus on the winner, they shall take a vote and the entry that gains the most
number of votes shall be declared the winner. Judges shall not see the entrant's name until winner is chosen.

8. Entries must be submitted by email, as a Microsoft Word
attachment, to canvas.ph@gmail.com with the subject heading ELIAS DAKILA STORY COMPETITION. Entrants must include a cover sheet with their name, mailing and email
address, and telephone number. Only the story title should appear on all pages of the
entry.

9. The deadline for submission of entries is 5:00 p.m. (Manila time), 31 January 2006. Entries received after the deadline, even if sent earlier, will no longer be considered for the competition.

10. CANVAS and INK shall not be responsible for entries which are not received, or which are received after the deadline, due to technical failure or for any other reason whatsoever.

11. By submitting an entry, all entrants thereby agree to authorize CANVAS and INK to post such entries on its website, as they deem fit, and free from any payments, royalties or fees whatsoever.

12. There shall be only one winner, who shall receive a cash prize of PhP 25,000.00 for his/her entry. The winner shall be responsible for all applicable taxes.

13. There is no guaranty of publication, but the winning writer shall also be entitled to five (5) free copies in the event of publication.

14. The winner shall grant and transfer to CANVAS all intellectual property and publication rights to the story, including any translations, adaptations or modifications thereto. It is therefore understood that the cash prize to be awarded to the winner shall include consideration of such intellectual property and publication rights to the story, and the writer shall not be entitled to any other royalties or fees from earnings, if any, that may result from future publication of, licensing of, or other transactions on the same.

15. CANVAS shall not retain any rights to entries that are not selected as the winner, but may enter into separate agreements with other writers for the
publishing rights to their entries.

16. CANVAS shall exercise full and exclusive editorial and artistic
control over the publication of the book.

17. While, it is the full intention of CANVAS to publish the winning entry as a full-color children's book, CANVAS reserves the right not to publish the same for any reason whatsoever.

18. The winner of the CANVAS storywriting competition will be
announced in February 2006 on the CANVAS website (www.canvas.ph). The winner will also be notified via email on the same announcement date.

19. CANVAS reserves the right not to award the top competition prize in the event that the judges decide that no entry was received that is deserving of the top prize. In such event, however, CANVAS shall have no right whatsoever over all entries that were received; and shall not publish any entry, in its website or in any other venue, without the prior written consent or agreement of the author.

20. The decision of the competition judges shall be final, and no correspondence or inquiries into the same – including requests for comments/feedback on entries – shall be entertained.

21. Employees and members of CANVAS and INK, and members of their immediate family, are disqualified from participating in the competition.