“Alma littera” publishing house does not stop looking for new talents. The winners of the 2024 adult and children’s and youth literature contests have been selected and announced. At the same time, a new literary competition for 2025 is announced. Manuscripts are expected at the publishing house until April 16, and the winners will be announced exactly one year later – in October 2025.
Works are evaluated anonymously
This year, the works submitted to the children’s and youth literature competition were judged by Eglė Baliutavičiūtė, head of children’s literature publications of “Alma littera”, literary critic Lina Buividavičiūtė, psychologist Monika Skėrytė-Kazlauskienė, teacher Alius Avčininkė, educationalist Austėja Landsbergienė, literary critic Vitalija Maksvytė, literary expert Edita Valintėlienė.
“We received works of various genres,” said V. Maksvytė, one of the members of the competition commission, literary expert. – Among the fifteen manuscripts were picture books for children, several literary fairy tales for elementary school children, adventure, fantasy, magic stories for older children, as well as one literary fairy tale-interpretation of Lithuanian history. We evaluated the works anonymously – without the name of the author. We miss the quality and consistency in the works for the little ones. We saw interesting, unique illustrations, but found the text to be insufficiently developed and coherent. Or, on the contrary, the idea is interesting, and the illustrations are extremely amateurish.”
According to the judging panel, this year’s authors presented really interesting and engaging stories about emotions, even using specific tools such as breathing practices. The stories offered by different authors perfectly met the needs of developing emotional intelligence, but they lacked artistic quality, a deeper understanding of how to control the language intended for young readers.
As in previous years, ecology is a popular theme. “Again, the topic is relevant, but the plot, the characters are artificial, they lack life, naturalness, playfulness. And, I’m sure, the little readers wouldn’t forgive the author”, said V. Maksvytė.
The winning book is about the fact that there are no limits
Strong, interesting, original works appeared among the books for older teenagers. “I heard there was talk in the children’s and teen writers’ community about the fact that teen authors have no chance of winning when the Alma littera publishing house combined children’s and teen literature contests into one. It’s nice that we once again proved that good, interesting, qualitatively written works can win the competition, and it doesn’t matter what age reader they were created for,” said E.Baliutavičiūtė, chairperson of the evaluation committee, after the competition. She was happy that the competition was won by a piece intended for an audience of 16 years and older. There are almost no such works by Lithuanian authors.
“Alma littera” photo/Eglė Baliutavičiūtė
The winner of this year’s children’s and youth literature competition is Justina Kapeckaitė and her work “Sono electrum”. Using a virtual reality game as a starting point, the author of the book plays with the concepts of “real” and “fictional”, “real” and “unreal”. “There are no limits, we create them ourselves”, – this is how the main idea of the book is defined by its author, doctor J. Kapeckaitė.
“The work tells about the dark side of virtual reality, the world of illegal games that young people are involved in or are involved in. The author of the story managed to include the members of the commission in the work, forcing them to discuss and raise questions”, said V. Maksvytė.
The chairman of the commission, E.Baliutavičiūtė, added that the publishing house takes care of the quality of the books it publishes, and the employees always tend to help new and promising authors to polish their work like a diamond. “Therefore, not only a language editor, but also an experienced creative editor will work with J. Kapeckaitė’s work,” said E. Baliutavičiūtė.
Manuscripts for adults include fiction and traumatic experiences
56 manuscripts were submitted to the adult literature competition this year. According to the head of the judging panel, Ugnė Giese, the head of publications of the publishing house “Alma littera”, it is clear that the competition is dominated by the genre of fiction, in which various branches of the fantasy novel spread: dystopia, science fiction, historical fiction, fiction with elements of Baltic, Scandinavian mythology and the like. The influence of scientific literature on fiction is clearly felt, from quantum mechanics to the theory of hereditary trauma.
Another trend of this year is that the works, regardless of the genre, have a particularly prominent theme of trauma, life after trauma, historical trauma, historical memory, and the desire to testify to the traumatic experiences of the Soviet era. There is also a strong feeling of insecurity in the world – questions about global warming, the future of the world, and the meaning of life.
“Alma littera” photo/Ugnė Giesė
Even several works of different genres emphasize LGBTQ issues, integrate this topic into literature no longer as a marginal, niche, but as an equal part of living reality
U.Giesė said that the commission was surprised by the fact that some genres were almost not submitted – only a few manuscripts were received, in which the authors try the genres of detective, thriller, and horror literature.
The commission was impressed by the unique idea, the energy of the work and the unexpected plot
The works were evaluated by a commission consisting of Rūta Elijošaitytė-Kaikarė, executive director of the Lithuanian Publishers’ Association, book expert, literary reviewer Audrius Ožalas, comedian, TV presenter and reader Paulius Ambrazevičius, literary critic V. Maksvytė, author of the book blog “Fantastic book rats” Lina Girčytė- Juškė Tomas Venckevičius and his novel Bad Manners captured the sympathy of all the commission members.
“It was a manuscript that, as soon as I started reading it, I said to myself – well, here it is! Finally! With pleasure and free will, and not because I needed to read it, I rushed to open the manuscript every night and could not understand where its magic lay. “Bad Manners” was bribed with energy, mood, and an unexpected plot,” said U.Giesė.
The work of the winner of the competition, T.Venckevičius, tells the story of a seventeen-year-old boy, Jonas, who grows into an independent man with character after shocking life experiences.
“The work aims to make readers turn page after page for four hours and be unable to stop, happy, worried, angry, surprised, in denial, reconciled, in love, lustful, have several erections (or their female equivalents), nervously bite their nails up to their elbows, disgusted until of vimdymo, would be afraid so that the hair on his hands would stand on end, would be indignant, would be shocked, would experience the pleasure of a long-sought victory and the relief that after a lot of tension, everything ended not so badly”, – this is how the author presents his work submitted for the competition.
“The commission selected the winner taking into account many criteria: the uniqueness of the idea, the engaging, developed plot, the quality of the language and artistry. The winning manuscript “Bad Manners” appeared exceptional to all members of the commission. We noticed a certain irony created by the narrator, a joke, even elements of black humor, the author’s ability to look at everyday events from a different perspective, a detective line, a light erotic spice. All this gave not only the pleasure of reading, but also made me remember the work, even speculate, and what author could have created such an exceptional text?” – said the literary expert V. Maksvytė about the commission’s work.
On October 24, the winners of the children’s and teenagers’ and adults’ literature contest will be awarded 2,000 euros in cash prizes. “Alma littera” publishing house announces new 2025 contests for adult fiction and children’s and youth literature. We invite writers and artists, groups of creators and authors to participate in the contests. The manuscript publishing house is waiting until April 16, 2024.
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