If you are aged between 11 and 19 and interested in history and writing, the YWSP is ready to take you on an adventure!  We are the UK’s only creative writing prize specifically for budding historical fiction writers. You could win a £500 travel grant, tickets to one of the UK’s best book festivals, and the chance to see your own work in print in a special anthology. Stories must be between 800 and 2,000 words, and set in a time before you were born. You can find out more about the rules on our How To Enter page.  This year’s competition closed in October 2023, but we will be opening again later in the summer 2024 – watch this page for more details.

2023 winners announced!

The fourteen winners of our 2023 competition have now been announced. Taking first place in the 11-15 years category is Iyla Latif for her story Portrait of a Great Leader, which the judges termed “an imaginative reconstruction of an artist’s feelings as he paints a portrait of Stalin.’  The winner of the 16-19 years age category is Elise Withey, whose story Juditha Triumphans was described by the judges as “a gently sinister story of revenge woven round the tender awakening of love”. You can find out more about the winning stories and all the runners-up and highly commended writers in our news page here.  We’ll be publishing all their stories in full soon here, so keep checking back.

The shortlist of 27 brilliant stories was revealed in February, and you can read all about it here.

If you need inspiration to start writing your story, go to our Instagram feed and Inspirations page where you’ll find a wealth of tips and advice from published writers, as well as previous YWSP winners letting us in on their secrets!  And for further inspiration, why not look at the programme of Imagining History UK events here.

Ultimate Guide to Competitions for Young Writers 2023

For budding authors everywhere, we’ve compiled the Ultimate Guide to writing competitions for young people in the UK, updated for 2023.  You can find it here!