The Department of English Literature at the University of Reading is delighted to announce its first public creative writing competition, for 11 to 14 year olds from the Reading area. This is part of the 2016 Reading Literature Festival (4-13 November) and Reading Year of Culture.
The theme for entries is “My Reading”, and submissions can take the form of poetry (up to 14 lines), a short story (up to 500 words), or creative non-fiction (up to 500 words).
Send your submission by email or post to:
Dr Nicola Abram
Department of English Literature
University of Reading
Whiteknights
PO Box 218
Reading
RG6 6AA
english-literature@reading.ac.uk
Please include your name, your date of birth, a contact number or email address, and the name of your school on your entry.
The deadline for entries is 7 October 2016.
Entries will be judged by prize-winning poet and novelist Peter Robinson and children’s author Wendy Meddour.
Prizes include book tokens and books by Two Rivers Press, and prize-winning entries will be published in the 2017 University of Reading Creative Arts Anthology.
Winners will be presented with their prizes by T.S. Eliot Prize-winning poet Alice Oswald on Friday 4 November (preceding the 2016 Finzi Lecture).
The organisers of this event, Nicola Abram and Rebecca Bullard, comment: “During our outreach activities with local schools we’ve consistently been impressed by the imagination and attention to detail that pupils put into their creative writing. Through this competition we’d like to give young people a chance to shine – and to tell the world what this town means to them.”
