International Brigade Memorial Trust
Our friends in ALBA (Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives) have announced a 5 July deadline for submissions to this year’s George Watt essay competition. The competition was established in 1998 to honour International Brigader George Watt (pictured below), a writer and lifelong activist central to the creation of the US-based ALBA.
Students from anywhere in the world are invited to submit an essay or thesis chapter about any aspect of the Spanish Civil War, the global political or cultural struggles against fascism in 1920s and 1930s, or the lifetime histories and contributions of the international volunteers who fought in support of the Spanish Republic from 1936 to 1938.
Work will be judged on the basis of originality, quality of research, and effectiveness of argument or presentation. Submissions should be emailed (as an attachment) to dmeaney@alba-valb.org with the subject line ‘2023 Watt Award’. Please indicate in which category you are submitting (see below), the title of your submission, and your educational institution.
Graduate Award
Submissions must be between 3,500 and 12,500 words. Submissions may be in Spanish or English. The applicant must currently be registered as a graduate student and work must be related to graduate studies.
Winners are expected to make a statement/presentation to the selection committee prior to award disbursement. Any work produced since 1 August 2022 is eligible for the competition.
One essay will be awarded up to $1,000
Undergraduate Award
Essays must be between 2,000 and 10,500 words. Submissions may be in Spanish or English. Submissions must have been produced to fulfil an undergraduate course or degree requirement (please specify course, degree, and institution; for thesis chapters, please add a thesis abstract).
Winners are expected to make a statement/presentation to the selection committee prior to award disbursement. Any work produced since 1 August 2022 is eligible for the competition.
One essay will be awarded up to $500
Pre-Collegiate Award
Academic, non-fiction, and fiction writing are all accepted. Poetry submissions are also accepted. No minimum page length, maximum length is 25 pages. Up to three essays will be awarded up to $250
All submissions must be formatted as a Word document or PDF.
ALBA’s Executive Committee appoints the jury. Award winners will be announced at the end of September 2023. Winning essays are published on the ALBA website and an excerpt from the entry is published in ALBA's quarterly magazine, The Volunteer.
If any submission commits plagiarism or violates copyright, the author of the essay is solely responsible for the act(s). ALBA will not take any responsibility in case of plagiarism and/or copyright infringement. If ALBA receives any concrete evidence of plagiarism and/or copyright violation after a winner is selected, then the prize shall be returned to ALBA and we will remove that work from our website
View the full submission guidelines and read past winners on the ALBA website: https://alba-valb.org/education/essays/
