WHY I DO NOT LIKE MY BOOK TO BE NOMINATED FOR THE "TOUCHSTONE" AWARD

Dimitar Anakiev

7 March 2014 at 09:59

Dimitar Anakiev
WHY I DO NOT LIKE MY BOOK TO BE NOMINATED FOR THF "TOUCHSTONE" AWARD

Dear Dimitar:

On behalf of The Haiku Foundation, let me be the first to congratulate you on having your book, Kamesan’s World Haiku Anthology on War, Violence (Kamesan Books), shortlisted for a Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for 2013. In a very short time, the Touchstone Awards have become recognized as the highest achievement of excellence in the haiku world. We are book people, and know the extensive effort and talent required to create not just a book, but one of lasting value and importance. We are very happy to recognize these accomplishments in the public sphere.

Now that it has been shortlisted, your book is eligible for consideration for a Touchstone Distinguished Book Award. In order to complete the process, the 4 judges who have not evaluated your book will need to review it, and then all 5 judges will come to an agreement on this years recipients. To that end, we request that you send 4 copies of the book to me at

Mark Harris

Dear Mark,

thank you for your kind message. Unfortunately I cannot confirm the participation in any kind of THF activity. The reason is very well know, it is because the THF do not respect international standards for cultural share in literature as regulated by International P.E.N. Even more, the THF owner is one of leading protagonist of politics of American cultural nationalism in haiku. More details you can find in my article The Taliban of Haiku Community: http://kamesanhaikublog.blogspot.com/2014/01/taliban-of-haiku-community.html
So please exclude my book from the competition. Many thanks! Dimitar