The 2025 Young Wild Writers Competition will be launched on Skydancer Day
Join children’s author Gill Lewis on our Skydancer Day live broadcast on YouTube on Saturday 10th May to watch her launch the 2025 Young Wild Writers Competition, and announce the theme for this year.
As with previous years, the competition will be open to children and young people from 5-16 years, and prizes will be awarded in each of 3 categories – Young (5-8), Junior (9-12) and Senior (13-16).
Discover all of last year’s winners, and enjoy reading the overall winning entry – eight-year-old Aedan Garvey’s powerful story of The Last Axolotl – here. All the winning entries were announced live on stage by Gill Lewis at Action for Wildlife Day last year.
Skydancer Day is Hen Harrier Action’s flagship annual live broadcast, which this year will be coming from Malham Cove in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales.
Gill Lewis is an award-winning children’s author, with the much-loved Willow Wildthing and Puppy Academy series for younger readers to her name, alongside celebrated and best-selling books for older children including Moon Bear, Gorilla Dawn, Skydancer and Eagle Warrior among her published works.
Once again this year, we are delighted that Gill has agreed to judge the creative writing entries to the competition, and we thank her for her commitment.
A former vet, wildlife enthusiast and environmental campaigner, Gill loves to read the entries that flood in for the Young Wild Writers competition – almost 350 last year – and is a passionate advocate for the power of words and books to fuel the imagination of young readers and instil a lifelong love of nature and the environment.
And if your skills are more visual than written, why not enter our new Young Wild Photographer Competition instead? Or you could enter both!
This year’s new-look Young Wild Photographer contest shares the same age categories as Young Wild Writer, and there are prizes on offer in each of the three categories – Young, Junior and Senior.
The theme for the competition will also be announced on Skydancer Day.
The 2024 Young Wild Writers Competition
Award-winning author Gill Lewis launched the 2024 Young Wild Writers Competition
The 2024 Young Wild Writers competition was launched live on Skydancer Day by children’s author Gill Lewis, and winners were announced by Gill at Action for Wildlife Day.
There were three categories:
– Young 5-8 Years
– Junior 9-12 Years
– Senior 13-16 Years
As Gill puts it, “Words have the power to change hearts and minds; they inform, engage, enrage and empower people. Young voices calling for change need to be heard. The future ecologists, town planners, politicians, and scientists must have the natural world at the core of all their decision making”.
You can find details of all the 2024 winners here and watch Gill announce the winners and talk about the exceptional creative writing of their winning entries on our website here.
Young voices for nature need to be heard.
Each year, Hen Harrier Action hosts a competition to find the UK’s best Young Wild Writers. This year’s competition was launched on Skydancer Day by author Gill Lewis, and the theme Gill has chosen for 2024 is Human Impact.
Wildlife, nature and the environment is increasingly threatened by the actions of us, the human species. Whether by small incremental impacts – littering, disturbance of nesting birds, the use of toxic chemicals in our gardens – or by big environmental changes – the intensification of agriculture, the relentless encroachment of new housing on natural landscapes, the discharging of sewage and chemicals into our rivers and seas.
All these things have devastating consequences for our birds, plants, mammals and fish. There is no let-up in the decline of the UK’s wildlife, according to the State of Nature Report 2023. We want our young entrants this year to think about the effect of Human Impact on our landscapes, riverscapes and seascapes.
Entrants can write stories, poems, articles, prose or letters up to 500 words, but they must be related in some way to Human Impact.
The closing date for entries was midnight on Sunday the 7th July, with the winners in each category to be announced by Gill at Action for Wildlife Day on the 10th August.
The prizes for 2024 include RSPB Puffin binoculars, £50 book tokens and other goodies, and are featured on our website.
The Rules
Word count: Up to 500 words (excluding title)
Subject: Human Impact
Writing Style: Any writing style (e.g. letter, prose, poem, story)
No illustrations please: accompanying illustrations will not be considered
Judging criteria: Originality, underlying ideas, how the writer engages and communicates, fresh views on a subject; entries will not be judged on spelling and grammar
One entry per person only
Entries must be the original work of the entrant and must not have been entered in or won any other writing competition
Deadline for submissions: midnight on Sunday 7th July 2024
Winners announcement: 10th August 2024 at Action for Wildlife Day
Late entries will not be considered
The judges’ decisions are final
Entrants shall be not less than, or no more or less than, their age categories on the 10th August 2024. For example, if an entrant turns 9 years old on the 10th August, they should enter the Junior (9-12) category
Prizes:
Overall winner: RSPB Puffin Binoculars, £50 book voucher and online author visit to the winner’s school*
Winner of each age category: RSPB Puffin Binoculars, £50 book voucher
Two runners-up in each age category: £20 book voucher
(*If the entrant is home-schooled, then an alternative online tutorial will be offered)
Entry for the Competition has now closed
Download the Competition Poster for Your School or Youth Group Here
We welcome support from schools, and we’d be delighted to receive entries from Primary, Junior and Secondary schoolchildren, aged 5-16 years.
Along with individual prizes for students, the overall winner will earn an online author visit to their school by children’s author Gill Lewis.
For Teachers:
Why not download our competition entry poster to print and post on your school or classroom notice board?
Discover the Winners of our Young Wild Writers Competition at Action for Wildlife Day on the 10th August
As featured in:
2023 Winners Announced
See the Full List of Winners Here
Read All the Winning and Commended Entries Here
Read 2022's Winning Entries
Junior Category: 9-12 years
Winner – Henry Gill – Age 11
We Run
The judges loved Henry’s piece of writing about wolves. Henry effectively uses all the wolfs’ senses to help us imagine what it is to be a wolf and understand the threats they face from humans. The short sentence structure built the tension, as we ran with the wolves, stopping and listening, stopping and watching.
Writing that helps us build empathy with animals helps to change the narrative around
animals, especially those, like wolves, that have been demonised in literature.
There’s more inspiration on our YouTube channel.
Watch as Gill Lewis launched the competition live with Megan McCubbin and Indy Kiemel Greene on Skydancer Day 2023:
And discover how one young writer’s winning entry – My Patch of Green, by Neha Narne – helped save a much-loved allotment from the developer’s bulldozers.