Amazing Young Writers Challenge
An Introduction to the Amazing Young Writers Challenge
Welcome to the Amazing Young Writers Challenge. If you're aged 22 or younger, you can submit creative writing in any form, including stories, poetry, non-fiction, memoir, anecdotes, comic strips, scripts, artwork - absolutely anything you like. Show us what you can do with words!
Before submitting, please read the rules. Below the rules, you will find some more information about the challenge.
Rules & How To Submit
The rules are simple but please read them carefully:
- 100 words maximum
- Any type of creative writing is accepted, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comics and all other forms of written work
- this challenge is for writers up to (and including) 25 years of age, living anywhere in the world
- 1 entry per writer
- no profanity please
- your creative writing will be published on this page and you'll receive a 'Certificate of Publication'
- by submitting, you accept the terms and conditions
- submit your story by email to chris@christopherfielden.com
- please be sure to include:
- your name (full name or first name or penname is fine)
- your age
- the country you live in
- the name of your school or the educational establishment you currently attend (this will not be made public - it's to check you are a student)
- your piece of writing (please include a title)
Submissions are welcome from teachers, parents, guardians or the writers themselves. If you are submitting on behalf of your children / students, please let me know when you submit.
Any type of writing is accepted - there is absolutely no limitation, so please let your imagination run wild!
Every writer published via this writing challenge will receive a Certificate of Publication in jpeg format. The certificates look like this:
Amazing Young Writers Challenge 'Certificate of Publication'
I reply by email to every submission I receive, letting you know your story has been published. Your certificate will be attached to the email. If you don't hear from me, please check your spam folder. If there's nothing in spam, please email me and we'll find another way of delivering your certificate 🙂
This challenge was launched in January 2021. So far, we've published 283 pieces of creative writing by amazing young writers.
The challenge is still open to submissions. I plan to run it for many years.
About the Amazing Young Writers Challenge
The Amazing Young Writers Challenge was launched after I was contacted by Mahvish Noman, an arts teacher at a school where 95% of the students are underprivileged children.
Mahvish asked me if I'd publish some poetry written by their students. After a bit of back and forth by email about the best way to do this, I decided to launch this challenge.
The Aims of the Challenge:
Experience & Encouragement
The primary aim of the challenge is to give young writers the opportunity to see their writing published and read by a global audience. I hope this will offer every young author that submits valuable experience and encouragement to keep writing and being creative throughout their lives.
Learning
The 100 word limit is educational. Having so few words to play with makes a writer consider every word they use carefully, meaning they learn the art of editing. Once learned, this skill can be applied to longer works, making them more engaging to read.
Celebrating Diversity
Anyone living in any country can submit to this challenge. I hope that means we are able to celebrate a diverse variety of voices from around the world via the challenge.
Questions
If you have any questions about the challenge, please contact me.
Amazing Stories by Amazing Writers
Due to the amount of submissions this challenge has received, the stories, poems and other pieces of creative writing are now published in batches of 100.
Here are links to the pages:
- Read Amazing Young Writers Challenge submissions 1 to 100 here
- Read Amazing Young Writers Challenge submissions 101 to 200 here
- Read Amazing Young Writers Challenge submissions 201 to 300 here [if you have been published via the challenge recently, please check this page to see your work]
Other Opportunities for Young Writers and Children
I list many other competitions, prizes and awards for young authors and students on my young writer competitions page.