Young Writers Competition awards presented at New Wimbledon Theatre

Successful writers received their awards on stage at the New Wimbledon Theatre in front of an audience of pupils from schools across South London.

For the 2024 competition, pupils were invited to submit an original poem or short story that responded to this year’s theme, ‘The Game’. Over 5000 children from 51 schools produced original writing, with our judging panel whittling submissions down to a winner in each of our 17 categories.

The winners, runners-up, and 144 highly commended writers were all published in Wimbledon Bookfest’s annual anthologies of young writing. You can read the anthologies here.

The overall winner was Justin Brown from Melrose school who won with his story ‘The Old Man’. Amy Waite, a lecturer at the University of Roehampton and chair of the judging pane, explained that “Justin’s piece was really special. Along with being a really imaginative take on ‘The Game’, it showed maturity and depth in its themes.”

Presenting the awards on behalf of the judging panel was Wimbledon Bookfest Writer in Residence, Samira Ahmed and former Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho. Both authors ran engaging and inspiring literary events, with each pupil going home with a signed copy of their books.

The Young Writers competition is part of Bookfest’s year-round schools programme which provides literary and cultural events for over 15000 children across South London, helping to put books into the hands of young people.

BookFest will welcome more authors to this year’s Autumn festival as part of its schools programme. These include poet Roger Stevens, founder of The Poetry Zone; Louie Stowell, writer of the bestselling Loki series; broadcaster and educator Jeffrey Boakye; and Hiba Noor Khan, whose recently published book Safiyyah’s War was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

You can read the 2024 Anthologies here.