Fourth Annual Urban Omnibus Writing Competition Focuses On Performance And Reality In Cities

Fort Greene and Clinton Hill are not short on writers, so if this essay contest sounds like something you’re interested in entering, start brainstorming and writing those first drafts now.

The fourth annual Urban Omnibus writing contest — co-sponsored this year by Fort Greene’s own Greenlight Bookstore and New York Writers Coalition — is here; the deadline is 11:59pm on Monday, October 19 (that gives us a week and a half to send in submissions); prizes include cash ($1,000 for first prize, $250 for two second place winners), publication, and a reading slot at Greenlight; and the topic is “As Seen On [  ].”

Urban Omnibus is the online publication of the Architectural League, so submissions are encouraged “to explore the changing relationship between performance, audience, and the physical city through narrative, theory, history, or humor.”

Cities, to many, are synonymous with performance. Their landmark theaters loom large as civic architectures, while their role in incubating artistic communities is well recognized. But the greatest concentration of performers and their work has long taken place outside the proscenium arch — on the streets, sidewalks, plazas, piers, parks, esplanades, transit, and atria that make up the public realm.

. . .  Though the clearly critical role performance (broadly defined) plays in the urban public realm remains a constant, the relationship between spaces, performers, and spectators is increasingly in flux. Whether you want to be watched or not, urban public space almost guarantees you an audience. . . The public performance — formal or informal, intended or unintended, a conscious or unconscious exercise in free speech and assembly — is thus a medium through which to understand and experience the city, first-hand and from afar.

With this writing competition, Urban Omnibus invites writers to explore this changing relationship between performance, audience, and the physical city through narrative, theory, history, or humor. Feel free to riff on concepts like typecasting, roleplaying, scripting, and stagecraft. And remember, we’re a publication about how the city is made, so don’t forget all that built context.