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.
