introduction
Skywards - are you up to the challenge?
Pack your rucksack, buckle up your crampons and follow your imagination - the sky’s the limit!
Keep your pen gliding on paper slopes or your fingertips flying over the keys and compose your own original flash fiction on a journey to the top!
Successes and failures, lessons to be learnt, current preoccupations, experiences, aspirations, ambitions or simple stories on the slopes that have the power to shape one’s life and character - anything goes!
At times of relentless competition and an unprecedented acceleration in the pace of life, can we still connect to nature and find time to put our ear to the ground? The way upwards might not always be a safe and clearly signposted path. There are twists and turns, hurdles and bridges to cross - but isn’t there a beauty in the effort? Don’t we become wiser along the way, collecting invaluable experience? And at the end of the day is it not just the destination but the journey itself that matters the most?
As actors of change, we invite you, the students of the University of Innsbruck, to summon your powers of creativity and submit flash fiction in four different languages exploring the dramatic natural landscapes around Innsbruck and confront real or imaginary mountains on the way skywards.
Drawing from your personal preoccupations, your discipline or your field of studies, you are invited to create fresh narratives that can excite the readers’ imagination, encourage a new frame of mind and inspire a positive outlook on life.
Rearrange the pieces of the puzzle and create your own narratives that point skywards. We can do anything - the sky’s the limit!
Look at the different elements that have an effect on each other and can influence our personal development, our relationships and our society as a whole. Take a look at the interplay and the dynamics involved. Are you up to the challenge?