First Story is very excited to announce the launch of its annual National Writing Competition!
Students from state schools across the country are invited to submit 850 words or less of poetry or prose on the theme of ‘Home’ – what does home mean to them? Is it a place, a smell, a taste, a group of people?
This year we are delighted to offer the fantastic prize of a residential Arvon creative writing course for the winners. We will also publish all the shortlisted pieces in a collected anthology, and hold a special prize-giving ceremony at LSE in 2015.
The competition will be judged by five acclaimed writers: Anthony McGowan, Bernardine Evaristo, James Dawson, Kate Kingsley and Laura Dockrill.
Teachers will run the first stage of the competition within schools, and then send 3 top entries to First Story before the deadline on Friday 5th December 2014. The first 100 teachers to get 50 entries within their school will be given £100, and £30 in book tokens will be given to every school to be awarded to the top three winners within each school.
Four stories from each key stage (KS3, 4 and 5, twelve stories in total) will be selected by First Story from the final entries submitted by each school, and then the five judges will pick a winner for each key stage. One winner overall will be selected, with the results announced in a prize ceremony at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) in early 2015. The three key stage winners will each be offered a places on an Arvon residential writing course in March 2015. And on top of that, they get to invite 3 friends to come on the course too, and bring the teacher who entered their piece along with them.
Teachers can also enter themselves, in a separate contest: 4 top teacher pieces will be chosen, and a final winner, selected by the judges, will also get a place on the Arvon course.
For full details and resources please visit this page:
http://www.firststory.org.uk/2014/09/24/first-story-national-writing-competition/
