Creative Writing Competition: ‘Our Journeys’

Connecting Stories Black Country are delighted to launch an exciting creative writing competition, with support from authors A. M. Dassu and Benjamin Dean. We are inviting children aged 7-11 from across the Black Country to create a piece of writing based on the theme ‘Our Journeys’

We invite children and young people to write a piece of creative writing about a real or imagined journey. This can be a journey you know well, like your trip to school, the supermarket, or your local park. But a journey can also be as magical as a trip to the future, or as exciting as moving to a new neighbourhood or country. Whatever it is, we want to read about your journeys!

You can choose any format you like – a story, a poem, news article or diary entry. You can include some illustrations too.

Everyone who enters the competition will receive a certificate and will have a chance to get their work published in an anthology and displayed in a local exhibition. There will also be book prizes for the winning entries.

Winning entries will be chosen based on originality, imagination, relation to the theme and overall enjoyment.

How to enter

• Use the blank space in this booklet or a side of A4 paper to complete your piece of writing.
• Ask your parent/guardian or teacher to scan or photograph your work and enter online at www.literacytrust.org.uk/communities/connecting-stories or email it to blackcountrycs@literacytrust.org.uk. Don’t forget to include your first name and first letter of your surname, your age and school.

Privacy notice

The National Literacy Trust will need to hold and process your personal data in order to manage this competition. We will only use it for this purpose we will never pass on personal information to any other organisations unless specific consent has been given. For our full privacy policy see literacytrust.org.uk/privacy 

‘Our Journeys’: Writing prompts

Your piece of writing can be funny, heart-warming, adventurous or exciting, fiction or non-fiction, everything is welcome! In A. M. Dassu’s wonderful book Boy, Everywhere, she writes about her main character’s journey across countries and continents, but a journey can take many different forms.

Here are some ideas to inspire you if you’re feeling a bit stuck:

• Think about a journey that you take regularly. It could be your trip to school, to a friend’s house, to the shops. Try and picture the things that you see, hear and smell along the way. You could even make these things up completely!

• When you are on the journey, how do you feel? Are you excited? Scared? Happy?

• You could try to imagine something unexpected, strange or magical happening on this journey. Maybe the bus you’re in starts to float, or an angry bear is blocking the street. Maybe everyone around you starts to dance for no reason. What would make you laugh?

• You could also ask your family members about a journey that they have taken in their life, and write about what you learn from them.

• You could write a diary entry describing your journey and what happens, or even a news article reporting on your real or imagined journey.

Download the document below for additional information on rules and entry requirments.