Ongoing writing opportunities for children in London
Online magazines for children
Aquila: Resource: http://www.aquila.co.uk/ is “a magazine for kids who enjoy challenges” and aimed at gifted and talented children aged 8-13. Each month’s issue features a particular topic (past topics include Irish myths and legends, Native Americans, the history of glass, Stars and Time) and presents cross-subject challenges to readers in every issue.
Spinebreakers: is an online magazine written by and for young writers. There are lots of competitions and opportunities to upload poetry, short stories, songs and alternative endings for books. See http://www.spinebreakers.com for more details.
Tools and resources
Creating comic strips online: Resource: Creating comic strips online can be an interesting way to engage reluctant writers, and by using preset graphics, the role of writing and storytelling is maintained rather than the artwork taking over. We recommend:
Garfield Comic Creator, http://tinyurl.com/amxtmh
Strip Generator, http://www.stripgenerator.com
Comic Brush, http://www.comicbrush.com
Creative writing prompts: A PowerPoint presentation designed to stimulate short, ten minute, creative writing tasks at Key Stage 2 to 4. The idea is to allow pupils to express their ideas freely in writing. Can be extended into longer writing tasks as and when it seems appropriate. Could also be used as a stimulus for drama-based activities. See http://www.tes.co.uk/creative-writing-prompts/ for more
e-Novella: e-Novella is a social network for creative writers. It is an online space for you to upload your work, get feedback and even perhaps get published. The site allows you to organise your work into parts and chapters and save revisions on your text so that you keep track of your own drafting process. You can publish your work to be read by other users and comment on others’ writing. For more information see http://enovella.co.uk
Fans of Anthony Horowitz: can sign up to a free newsletter at http://www.powerof5.co.uk and be kept up-to-date with all the latest news on Anthony Horowitz and his books, plus competitions and giveaways
Film Education: Are celebrating National Schools Film Week with lots of free downloads and resources.Matt Poyton (Film Education’s Primary Education Officer) offers some ideas as to how teachers can best use film in the classroom; also see http://www.filmeducation.org for lots more tips.
My Life is a Story: http://www.mylifeisastory.org - Resource: The My Life is a Story UNESCO project website features a number of powerful life stories from children aged 8 - 16 in the developing world that could act as a stimulus for cross-curricular writing projects at Key Stages 2 or 3, particularly relevant to geography and PSHE.
National Novel Writing Month: November 2009 is National Novel Writing Month, an American project that is gaining popularity in the UK. The site has tips for getting started and provides motivation and a forum for sharing work and writing a novel in 30 days. The site also has a young writer’s section filled with ideas for starting and continuing stories and some fabulous free downloadable writers journals filled with tips about story writing. http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/ and http://www.nanowrimo.org/
Pride and Premiership with Michelle Gayle: Following a worrying report that the top ambition of girls is to be a WAG, singer and actress Michelle Gayle has teamed up with us to encourage young women to think about becoming writers rather than footballers’ wives. Using today’s technology, Pride and Premiership participants will get texts of Michelle’s new novel direct to their mobiles, join innovative workshops in HeadSpaces and share their work on groupthing.
Random House Children’s Books: produce a bi-monthly e-newsletter for librarians packed with information about their new books, competitions to win proofs, photos, author event updates and much more. To sign up to receive the newsletter contact Mimi Umpleby on
Words in Public: Images of words in public art installations and advice on creating text installations, a free NAWE resource by poet Linda France. Great inspiration for an outside writing space or for any project saturating the school with language. Visit the website for more details
Writing tips: Patrick Ness was the current writer in residence at Booktrust. In May 2009 he took part in a Q&A session with pupils from Graveney Secondary School in London. Watch this video to find out more about Patrick and how his cat helped inspire The Knife of Never Letting Go. His weblog also contains excellent writing tips for Key Stage 3, 4 and AS & A Level students.
Websites publishing children’s writing
Enigma Magazine: is a creative literary platform that enables school children and teachers, students and lecturers from universities, communities, literary organisations as well as professional and casual writers to submit their written work and to be published. The magazine is online as well as print. Find out more at http://www.enigmacw.co.uk
Forward Press Teen Poets: Poems can be on any subject and up to a maximum of 30 lines. Successful entries will be published in an annual anthology. Send poems to: Forward Press Teen Poets, Remus House, Peterborough, PE2 9JX or email entries and details (full name, address, postcode, date of birth) to . See http://www.forwardpress.co.uk for more details.
Global Poetry System: : Think poetry is only in books? It’s engraved on a statue in the town square, remembered in nursery rhymes sung to us as children, spotted in a line of graffiti on our way to work in the morning. The GPS project aims to inspire people to seek out the poetry in their local area and put it together to create an interactive poetry map of Britain. As a class, collect found poetry and post it onto the GPS site, or post your own poems and see them online alongside work from other writers in your area. For more details see http://gps.southbankcentre.co.uk
Kids On The Net (KOTN): Website that encourages children’s writing. Publishes writing from children aged 6-15 at home and at school all over the world. Also includes a teacher’s portal. http://www.kidsonthenet.org.uk/index.htm
Paragraph Planet: A new website that accepts submissions of 75 word stories that can be entered online. The paragraph could be about an object, a moment, be a genuine memory, or an extract from a longer piece of fiction. What it does have to be is exactly 75 words long including the title. http://www.paragraphplanet.com
Read for the World Record: An innovative free summer reading challenge that aims to inspire children to read more over the summer holidays. For the first time, children in the UK can take part in this exciting attempt to break the summer reading world record. All children need to do is to visit the website and log the number of minutes spent reading each day over the summer. There are prizes of £100 worth of children’s books for the five schools in the UK with the most minutes logged, with a digital camera also going to the top school. £50 worth of children’s books will also be awarded to the child with the most minutes logged at the end of challenge. http://www.bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/record.
The Bodmin Bookworm: Aimed at children aged 4-18 years in the Cornwall area. It promotes creative writing with the emphasis on imagination, creativity and community. The Bookworm offers the chance for children to have their work published online as well as to read and comment on other pupils’s work in a positive way. Visit http://www.bodminbookworm.blogspot.com to see more.
txtlit.co.uk: is based on texting micro stories- stories that contain no more than 160 characters (the maximum for one text message). The theme changes monthly and texts cost £1 plus the standard network charge for a text. For more information visit http://www.txtlit.co.uk
Write Like An Author: a website that provides ideas for a writing project which children can write in response to, and submit their entries by email to be published on the site. More details >
Writers Online: The Writers Online website encourages children to write pieces of their own in response to, and in the style of, an extract from a well-known writer. These can then be submitted for inclusion on the site. See http://www.englishonline.co.uk/writers/
www.writebuzzschools.com: http://www.writebuzzschools.com is a website where under 16s can submit poetry, lyrics, short stories, scripts, words of wisdom, features, memorials, blogs, memoirs and more to be published online. There are also writing competitions to enter and the opportunity to review other work online.
Young Writer website: Children and young people can submit their writing - poetry, prose, fiction or non-fiction and book reviews - for publication on the Young Writer website by emailing submissions in Word (no longer than 2000 words) to: . For more details go to: http://www.young-writer.co.uk
Young Writers website: The Young Writers website promotes poetry and creative writing through running annual nationwide competitions. Each competition results in the publication of a collection of regional anthologies showcasing the work of today’s schoolchildren. The website also has a range of inspirational ideas and a downloadable lesson plan to promote poetry in the classroom - http://www.youngwriters.co.uk/
