16th April, 2020

YWSP opens early for young writers in lockdown

The 2020 Young Walter Scott Prize writing competition has opened a few months earlier than usual, to allow young people aged between 11 and 19 who are confined to home or not attending school or college because of the Coronavirus outbreak, to get an early start on their stories.

Budding writers finding themselves with more time on their hands now have a golden opportunity to explore the historical novelist within.  The prize challenges young people to write a piece of short fiction, set in a time before they were born.

Winners receive a £500 travel grant, and a 2-day trip to the Baillie Gifford Borders Book Festival in Melrose, Scotland, where they are presented with their prizes.  All winning and highly commended writers see their work published in a special YWSP Anthology, and runners-up in each category receive a book token.

Stories of between 800 and 2000 words can be submitted by post from now until the closing date of 31st October 2020.  Entries are judged in two age groups – 11 to 15 years and 16 to 19 years.  Any kind of fiction is accepted – prose, poetry, drama, fictional letters or reportage.  Winners will be announced in early 2021.

The judges of the YWSP are its founder the Duchess of Buccleuch, writer Elizabeth Laird, YWSP director Alan Caig Wilson, arts journalist David Robinson, and literary agent Kathryn Ross.  The Duchess said:

‘When we first had the idea of establishing a competition for young writers, there was some uncertainty about whether there was any appetite out there for writing historical fiction. But right from the start the response – which grows every year – indicated that this was an opportunity for which many young writers had been longing.  The challenge is to make the story true to its time, true to the facts of that period of history, and also appealing to a contemporary reader’.

The YWSP received a threefold increase in entries in 2019.  We’re looking forward to reading this year’s stories very much!  Full details of how to enter, and an entry form, is available here.