English. Short Story Writing Competition 2014 (Macmillan Readers)

 Lots of people love sports. And lots of people love to write! That’s why this year we’re running a creative writing competition with the theme ‘Sport’.

This competition is open to everyone: it is for young and old. It doesn’t matter which language level you are at: we are challenging you to put your creative writing cap on and submit your story!

For those of you who prefer drawing to writing, you can also send in your best sport drawing. You can also send in your story and drawing at the same time. The best drawing will feature on the cover of this competition’s short story collection!

Tell us, what’s your favourite sport? Do you play it, watch it on TV, or both? Why not write a short story about it? You can, for example, write about sports like football and swimming, but also rock climbing, skiing or cycling. You can write about a winning team or someone who travels around the world to meet their favourite sports hero… anything is possible!

The prizes:

• The 10 best submissions will win their story in printed form as part of a short story collection, featuring all 10 stories. (If any of the winning entries is a school, the class will receive 30 printed copies of the collection.)
• The overall winner of the best story (1 entry) will win a Kindle.
• The winning drawing will be featured on the cover of the short story collection and that person will win a selection of 5 Macmillan Readers of their choice.

How the competition works:

• This writing competition is open to both individuals and schools, for all ages.
• Your story needs to be a work of fiction
• Your story should be between 500-1000 words long
• Your story should be sent to us in a Word document and include: your full name, country of residence, email address, age, name of school (if applicable) and of course your story.
• All entries must be received by midnight (GMT) on Sunday 13 July 2014 and winners will be notified by 29 August 2014.
• All entries must be sent to social.media@macmillan.com with ‘Short Story Writing Competition 2014’ in the subject line.
• From all submitted entries, a panel of judges will select the 10 most creative and original entries that reflect the theme ‘sport’. The judges will also choose one overall winner from the 10 selected stories.
• The 10 best stories will be made available to the public for free in PDF format for download on www.macmillanreaders.com and in print form for publicity purposes.
• All participants will receive a digital participation certificate at the end of the competition.

Please carefully read our Terms & Conditions before entering as this contains important information about the competition.

Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Download our creative writing activities to help you start your story. You can use these activities in class, but you can also do these activities on your own or with a friend!

2. Interested in reading short stories? Check out these Perfect Short Reads and Perfect Sport Reads.

3. Last year we ran a Cultural Readers writing competition. Have a look at the winning entry Ukraine for some writing and drawing inspiration.