CALL: REKU REKU STORYTELLING FESTIVAL

Description of the call: 3 authors are invited to participate in the official programme of Reku Reku Storytelling Festival to be celebrated in Novo Mesto (Slovenia) from the 27 to the 29 August 2025. 

Opening date: 17/01/2025

Deadline date: 31/03/2025 

CALL ORGANISATION: ZALOZBA GOGA, ZAVOD ZA ZALOZNISKO IN UMETNISKO DEJAVNOST (ZALOZBA GOGA), PIC 947746940

Address: GLAVNI TRG 6, NOVO MESTO 8000, Slovenia

Theme for the proposal: Authors will participate in a storytelling session titled “Nobody speaks my language”. The session pretends to emphasize the importance of mother tongues and the value of multilingualism. Proposals have to reinforce the value of smaller languages in literature and education. 

Grant: Each author participating will receive a grant of 1000 € as expenses for their participation. These expenses will be paid after their participation in the festival. 

Process of application: submitting CV and letter of candidature to any partner participating in Lit-Up or by email to litupproject@gmail.com.  

Process of selection: after applications closure a committee integrated by representatives of Zalozva Goga Publishing House will evaluate candidates and select 3 authors to participate in the event. 

Once made the selection, authors will receive the invitation to participate in the festival and will sign an agreement with GOGA. In this agreement, it will be registered all the obligations that participants will have with the organiser and with the project following what is stated in the LIT-UP Grant Agreement (101056062)

The Festival: 

The Reku Reku Festival is an annual storytelling event organized by Založba Goga, a prominent Slovenian publishing house based in Novo mesto. The festival has its roots in the Novo mesto Short festival, which celebrated short stories and literary works. Over time, Reku Reku has evolved to focus on the art of oral storytelling, bringing together storytellers from Slovenia and abroad to share narratives that resonate with diverse audiences. Part of the festival takes place throughout the year, from January to May, when Goga organizes monthly storytelling evenings. At each of these evenings, one story is selected as the winner. The five winners of these monthly sessions then perform on the first evening of the festival in August, opening the program and representing the local storytelling community.

The festival was established in 2016 to honour and promote short Slovenian literature. 

Festival objectives are: 

  • Promoting Oral Storytelling. 
  • Cultural Exchange. 
  • Community Engagement. 

Festival Activities include storytelling evenings and cultural activities, and it attracts around 300 to 400 visitors to each evening. 

Website: Reku Reku Storytelling Festival

LIT-UP project: 

LIT-UP is a Creative Europe project aiming at defining and implementing competitive strategies to empower publishers and authors working with less used languages in front of big players in a global context. Strategies defined will try to help them, via activities and trainings, to compete with real opportunities of survival against big languages and players working in their own markets.

LIT-UP addresses directly to the objective of safeguarding, developing and promoting European cultural and linguistic diversity and heritage as it will help the publishing sector working with lesser-used languages to improve their skills, competences and capacity to sell translation rights abroad and to promote works in international markets.

LIT-UP has developed a range of activities including trainings and workshops around Europe to boost liaisons between authors, publishers, public administrations at local, national and European level.

To achieve this networking strength, LIT-UP base this methodology in these three steps:

  • Promote publishers and authors skills and competences
  • Increase their expertise and relationships
  • Develop robust strategies to leverage the market impact

With a duration of 42 months between 1st June 2022 and 30th November 2025 and the participation of 8 partners from 5 EU countries, LIT-UP has received funding from the Creative Europe Culture Cooperation Projects (CREA-CULT-2021-COOP)  

More information in: https://litup-project.eu/