Competition

We are thrilled to announce the shortlist for PaperBound’s Competition for Young Writers 2022. 

We are very excited to reveal the shortlist of this year’s competition for young writers 2022. We had over double the number of entries compared to 2021 which made our decision of narrowing it down very difficult. After announcing the longlist, we have now passed all shortlisted entries to Sarah Daniels, author of The Stranded, who will be making her final decision on the winner very soon.

If you do not find your name below, please know that we enjoyed reading every single entry, and we encourage all of you to keep writing creatively (and enter again next year! We’d love to hear from you!).

Without further ado, please see the shortlist for PaperBound’s Competition for Young Writers 2022 below:

The Shortlist:

Chidi Emechebe

Omaira Hasib

Evelyn Liu

Maddison ME Maddox

Georgia Robson

Huge congratulations to these young writers. All the shortlisted stories will be featured in the summer issue of PaperBound Magazine, where the winner will also be revealed.

Thank you again to everyone who entered and stay tuned for more updates soon.

Prizes: All shortlisted entries will be printed in our summer issue in June 2022. Thanks to this year’s sponsor, Crowvus, all the shortlisted writers will also receive a small prize, and the winning entry will receive a £15 book token and other writing and book related goodies.

Judge: The shortlist will be judged by the wonderful Sarah Daniels, author of upcoming YA duology The Stranded. The first book is out this July and published by Penguin. 

Find out more about Crowvus here, and our shortlist judge, Sarah Daniels, here.

Please see all longlisted entries below. Huge congratulations to all our longlistees as well!

The Longlist

Chidi Emechebe

Omaira Hasib

Lithumi Punam Kristhombuge

Evelyn Liu

Maddison ME Maddox

Ayushi Patel

Isabel Pius

Georgia Robson

Natalie Sheppard

Arunnya Suthash

Evie Sweet

Sanchita Vijay

Ophelia White

Chloe Wood

Mathujan Yogarasa

Junye Zhao

You can read more about last year’s competition below

PaperBound’s Competition for Young Writers 2021

During 2021, we ran our first ever competition for young writers. We received so many wonderful pieces of writing and the quality of every entry was outstanding. Don’t forget, you can read all about our 2021 winners in our FREE summer 2021 issue, available on our issues page.

Huge thanks to our judge, Caroline Logan, and to our generous sponsor Cranachan Publishing for contributing prizes to all the shortlist.

You can read the winning entry here, while the entire shortlist is available to read from our Summer 2021 issue FREE here.

Below you will find a list of the longlisted and shortlisted writers, along with the winning entry. Huge thanks and congratulations to everyone who entered. We were blown away by the quality of your stories. 

2021 Longlist

A Strange Dream by Beth Cornwell

Are You There Father by Matilda Wilkins

Flowers of Hope by Livia Brain

For the Love of Egg by Emilia Shackel

Glass by Jasmine Todman

Is This The End by Sarah de Villiers

No Tomorrows for Tony by Hattie Whittington

Out of my Depth by Colette Foster

Reversing a Wish by Jude Shalaby

Send Off by Erin Bagshaw

The Dig by Daisy Whittington

The Kelpies by Simon Ezra-Jackson

The Kraken’s Song by Douglas Irons

Up High by Avantika Vinay

2021 Shortlist

A Strange Dream by Beth Cornwell

Flowers of Hope by Livia Brain

No Tomorrows for Tony by Hattie Whittington

Out of my Depth by Colette Foster

The Dig by Daisy Whittington

The Kelpies by Simon Ezra-Jackson

2021 Winner

The Dig by Daisy Whittington 

You can read 2021’s winning entry, The Dig, by Daisy Whittington here.