The ultimate guide to competitions for young writers 2022
6th April, 2022
Getting words down onto the page isn’t the hard part for many keen young writers, but making the time to polish a story or poem can be hard. That’s especially true if you’re in school and juggling other demands like exams or extracurricular activities. But entering a writing competition is a motivation to do the… Read More »
YWSP winners announced!
5th April, 2022
The winners of this year’s Young Walter Scott Prize have been announced! Taking the top spot in the 11-15 years category is Leo Wilson (left, above) from Oxfordshire for his story For the Love of the Sun, while Oliver Dhir (right, above) from Glasgow, author of A Lost Generation, has won the 16-19 years category. You can read these and the… Read More »
Meet the 2020 competition laureates
19th August, 2021
Having featured the category winners Atlas Weyland Eden and Madeleine Friedlein, we’re thrilled to publish here the stories of all those who were runners-up or highly commended in our 2020 competition. You can read the eight stories in full by clicking the links below, and listen to some of them reading their stories aloud. You… Read More »
Meet the 2020 competition winners – Madeleine Friedlein
18th August, 2021
Madeleine Friedlein won the 16-19 Years category of the 2020 Young Walter Scott Prize with her wonderful story Slaying Holofernes, which was inspired by the National Gallery’s exhibition of work by the artist Artemisia Gentileschi. She explains: ‘The title is taken from my favourite work of Artemisia Gentileschi, ‘Judith Slaying Holofernes’, completed following her rape by Agostino Tassi. The rage… Read More »
Meet the 2020 competition winners – Atlas Weyland Eden
17th August, 2021
The winners of the 2020 Young Walter Scott Prize have now been announced, and we’re delighted to publish the eleven winning stories in full, starting with the winner of the 11-15 Years category, Atlas Weyland Eden. His story, We Wolves, is set in the Ice Age and is a powerful evocation of the life of a family… Read More »
Young Walter Scott prizewinners honoured in virtual awards event
17th June, 2020
The winners of the 2019 Young Walter Scott Prize were honoured in a virtual awards event hosted on facebook live on Tuesday 16th June 2020. Category winners Ide Crawford (14), from Macclesfield and Charlotte Lee (19), from Crewe, spoke about their reaction to winning the prize for their stories The Whale’s Way and The Best Thing, and were congratulated… Read More »
YWSP opens early for young writers in lockdown
16th April, 2020
The 2020 Young Walter Scott Prize writing competition has opened a few months earlier than usual, to allow young people aged between 11 and 19 who are confined to home or not attending school or college because of the Coronavirus outbreak, to get an early start on their stories. Budding writers finding themselves with more… Read More »
The best competitions for young writers
20th February, 2020
and why you should enter Polishing a piece of creative writing is the best way to make it shine, and writing competitions give you the chance to do exactly this. So why not enter one? The Young Walter Scott Prize, which is open annually from June through October for writers aged 11 to 19,… Read More »
Congratulations young winners!
17th February, 2020
We’re delighted to announce the winners of our 2019 YWSP competition! Our category winners this year coincidentally both hail from the county of Cheshire. First prize in the 11-15 years category goes to Ide Crawford (14), from Macclesfield, for her story The Whale’s Way, and in the 16-19 years category the winner is Charlotte Lee (19), from… Read More »
All the fun of the festival
12th September, 2019
A ball was had by all when the two winners of the 2018 Young Walter Scott Prize attended the Baillie Gifford Borders Book Festival in June. Joseph Burton, from Folkestone in Kent, who took first prize in the 16-19 years category, joined Edinburgh-based 11-15 years category winner Jenny O’Gorman in Melrose, Scotland to receive their… Read More »