News: Barbara Taylor Bradford Launches Writing Competition

Barbara Taylor Bradford OBE has joined forces with The Sunday Times to help discover the next generation of young female writers.

Barbara is an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust, an independent UK charity that transforms lives through literacy.

The Write Stuff short story competition is aimed at girls aged 11-18 and who live in the UK. It was launched nationwide on Sunday (22nd March.)

The competition has been initiated following research by National Literacy Trust of more than 14,000 girls revealing that only one in four girls aged 14 to 16 (23%) see writing as cool, and almost half prefer watching TV to reading (49%).

“I feel it’s critical to reach out to girls and young women who want to share a story they have created and inspire a new generation of female writers and readers. It’s really important that female authors like myself take the lead as role models for girls and young women and encourage them to reach their full potential,” says author, Barbara Taylor Bradford who is due to release her 30th novel, The Cavendon Women on 26th March 2015.

Barbara Taylor Bradford is asking girls to write a short, fictional story with a central theme of ‘friendship’. It should run to a maximum of 1,000 words, not including the title.

Entries need to be in by 12 noon on 3rd July 2015. One winner and two runners-ups will be awarded in each of the following age categories: 11-13 years; 14-16 years and 17-18 years.

The three overall category winners will also each receive a box of books kindly donated by HarperCollins.

A number of the final short stories will be produced in to an ebook by HarperCollins and their story published on The Sunday Times website. A number of the girls who create the best short stories will also receive an exclusive story-writing masterclass with Barbara Taylor Bradford and Eleanor Mills, Editorial Director of The Sunday Times.

The stories will be judged on:

• Overall quality of writing;
• Originality, imagination and creativity; sentence structure and language;
• The writer’s ability to tell a story, capture the reader and hold their attention.

The judges will include Barbara Taylor Bradford OBE, Eleanor Mills from The Sunday Times, Abigail Moss who is the director of National Literacy Trust, Lynne Drew from HarperCollins, Helena Coggan who, at aged 15 has had a novel published in February 2015 and Miranda Stephenson (Movellas Ambassador and who is 14 years of age.)

For full details on how to enter and information about the competition’s Terms and Conditions go to http://www.barbarataylorbradford.co.uk/thewritestuff. You can also follow The Write Stuff on Twitter: @WriteStuffUK

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Novel Kicks

About Novel Kicks/Laura...
Novel Kicks was founded in 2009 and is run by Laura who is currently living in Hampshire, and lives with husband, Chris and her cat, Buddy. She would love to be a writer. She’s trying to write the novel she thinks so much about. She’s loved reading and writing since ‘Creative Writing’ classes in primary school. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything she can get her hands on, she loves reading, dancing like a loon, and watching Project Runway and Ugly Betty (her two TV guilty pleasures.) She also has an obsession with chocolate and Jammie Dodgers.