Current competitions for children
SLAMBassadors - The Poetry Society’s Online Slam: Young people aged 12-18 in London or Liverpool are invited to submit a video of themselves performing spoken word (poetry or rap) around the theme of ‘Respect and/or Identity’ online here. 12 London and 12 Liverpool young poets/rappers will be selected by the judges to perform at a live event in either city in early 2009. During these semi final events, the judges will then choose 4 artists from each city that can be mentored in creating professional spoken word sets. These sets will be showcased in April 2009 alongside sets by established poets. More information can be found on http://slam.poetrysociety.org.uk/
The T S Eliot Prize Shadowing Scheme: A-Level students are invited to enter the competition to write a 500-word rationale justifying their choice of winning poetry collection for the 2008 T S Eliot Prize. 3 poems from each of the shortlisted collections are available here. The winning student will receive tickets to the T S Eliot Prize Readings and the award ceremony in January, the opportunity to meet the T S Eliot prize-winner and more. The deadline for submitting competition entries and voting on the online poll is 8th December. The winner of the A-Level student competition will be announced at the award ceremony in London on 12th January 2009.
Closing date 8th Dec 2008
The Pound a Poem Poetry Competition: is for children aged 5 to 11. The theme is Healthy Eating - every child is invited to write at least one poem about fruit and vegetables and pay £1 to enter their poem into the competition. All of the money raised will go to Rays of Sunshine, a charity granting wishes to terminally and seriously ill children. Entries should come from teachers and the website has lots of useful resources and lesson plans. http://www.poundapoem.co.uk/ Closing date 12th Dec 2008
National Year of Reading: Cool Caption Competition: As the temperature plummets and winter is heading this way quickly, the NYR team is launching their coolest competition yet, to win a signed piece of Monkey Nuts artwork and subscription to ace weekly comic The DFC. Have a look at http://www.yearofreading.org.uk/captioncompetition Closing date 20th Dec 2008
National Year of Reading Autumn Challenge: Make the most of the cooler months of 2008 and develop reading for pleasure in your school by taking on the National Year of Reading Challenge and you could be in with a chance of winning £2,000 worth of Oxford University Press reading materials for your school. More details here. Closing date 20th Dec 2008
The Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award: is for a manuscript that celebrates cultural diversity in the widest possible sense, either in terms of its story or in terms of the ethnic and cultural origins of its author. Work need to be unpublished fiction for 8-to-12-year-olds by a writer, aged 16 years or over, who has not previously published a novel for children. For entry forms contact or Helena McConnell at Seven Stories on 0845 271 0777. Closing date 30th Jan 2009