Creative Writing Opportunities
Dorothea Mackellar and Red Room Poetry Awards and more!
As we celebrate the completion of the Years 7 – 10 Assessment period, we thought this would be a good time to share some creative writing opportunities with students and parents! Our Year 7, 8 and 9 cohorts have all worked on poetry this term and may be interested in submitting work for the Dorothea Mackellar or Red Room Poetry Awards. Year 10 have completed a unit of prose writing and ‘writing about place’ – a topic which might have piqued your daughter’s interest in one of the Fiction or Creative Non-fiction awards.
In the English Department we are always impressed by the original and compelling writing of our students and we heartily encourage them to consider entering external competitions. A list of upcoming competitions is provided below; please encourage your daughter to reach out to her English teacher if she is interested in submitting work.
The Dorothea Mackellar Writing Competition is one of Australia’s most prestigious poetry awards for young people. This year’s theme is “All the beautiful things.” The school has registered an account for this competition and your daughter will be able to check with her teacher about entering before the due date of Friday 30 June. More information can be found at the website below here.
Red Room’s Poetry Forest Competition encourages students to compose poems which have a positive message on climate change. The theme of this year’s competition is “Understory” and there are a wealth of resources on the Red Room website and the competition closes on Friday 26 September. More information can be found here.
Better Read than Dead’s writing competition “Out of this World” invites students between 6 – 17 years old to submit a fantastical story or poem of no longer than 300 words. Winning entries receive book vouchers from the store and are published in their annual Kids Writing Anthology. More information can be found here.
The Insight Writing Competition is open to students in Years 7 – 12. Students are invited to compose creative pieces (short story, poem, script) of up to 1,400 words. The theme for this year is “Soulmates” This competition is open until 1 September. More information can be found here.
The Hachette Australia Prizes are yet to open for 2025, however include prizes for Creative Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction and Poetry. There are wonderful resources that can be found on their website here.
Jenny Bean
Head of English
