Opportunities for Teenage Writers
Got the writing bug?
We have put together a list of competitions and opportunities run by other organisations that you might like to get involved with.
If there are any other competitions that aren’t listed here that we should know about, please send them to us at teen@scottishbooktrust.com.
Annual Competitions
If you're S1 or S2 you could attend, along with 9 other young writers, a five-day creative writing course at the Arvon Foundation Writers’ Centre near Inverness.
Closing date: 2012 entry deadline TBC
BBC Radio2 was 500 word stories from children aged 12 and under. The 2012 competition will launch in January.
Closing date: TBC in January 2012
Monthly Competitions
247tales
A monthly competition run by Bloomsbury that challenges you to write short stories using 247 words or fewer. You must be between 8 and 16 to enter.
Closing date: Near the end of each month.
Txt Lit
Write a 160 character microstory on your mobile phone and then text it in. It costs £1 to text a story though, so choose your words very very carefully!
Closing date: The last day of every month.
Other Writing Opportunities
Arts Action Fund from Young Scot
If you have an artistic, creative or cultural idea that you need a bit of cash to set up, and you are a member of Young Scot (aged between 11 and 26), then you can apply to the Arts Action Fund. They can award up to £200 for individuals and £750 to groups of young people, so go and check it out!
NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program
Not a competition, but certainly a challenge! NaNoWriMo challenges you to write an entire novel in the month of November. You get to set your own word count and there are excellent ideas works book to download!
Spinebreakers
Spinebreakers is a cool Penguin teen website full of fantastic content for book-loving teens. You can send in your creative writing (or anything else creative) and they might just end up online! They often run competitions so keep an eye on the site.
World’s longest poem
Help poet Gez Walsh create the world’s longest poem!
Kids on the Net
Submit your writing and it may go up on the website
Rifsters!
The Rifsters area of the Reading Is Fundamental website is for under 19s to get involved with regular competitions, book reviews, quizzes and submitting your own writing and pictures.
Writers Online
The Writers Online website encourages children to write pieces of their own in response to, and in the style of, an extract from a well-known writer.
BookCrossing
You can submit an article to BookCrossing, and if it is accepted, you could see it featured in their newsletter. You can write anything about books, reading, or BookCrossing - tutorials, release and catch stories, well-travelled book stories or funny BookCrossing experience stories.
Nadette is a Year 5 pupil (ages 8-10) at Our Lady of Lourdes RC Primary School in Stonebridge, London. She and her classmates were in the live audience for Authors Live with David Walliams earlier this month. She tells us what it was like to come to Broadcasting House to see someone so famous...