Hive Young Writers’ Competition 2024/25
A writing competition for 14 to 30s from or based in Yorkshire, the nearby north & midlands
Poetry | Flash Fiction | Stories
Midnight 23rd Feb 2025
Age Categories: 14 – 16 | 17 – 19 | 20 – 30
[Individual & group/classes entries welcome]
Hive Young Writers’ Competition is open to young people, aged 14 to 30, from across Yorkshire and the nearby north/midlands (By this we mean a home or term address in: Yorkshire and Humber, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Nottingham & Lincolnshire (as defined on this map) Whether stories or poetry (or both) are your thing, you can enter up to 2 pieces of work at any time before midnight 23rd Feb 2025.
There’s no set theme (the competition is completely open), we’re just looking for your best work. But we also want to offer some resources for those who might be looking for inspiration and guidance to help get you started (see below).
Inspiration
If you’re after inspiration for either competition, to get you writing or coming up with ideas, you’ll find a gallery of great photos here and lots of Get Writing Prompts & Tips to get you started and for sparking ideas in relation to them.
PRIZES
First Prizes: Kindle Fire HDs, professional feedback on work & print publication | All 2nd & 3rd Place Winners: Book vouchers, feedback & print publication | Highly Commended: Voucher & invited to submit to a coming Hive anthology
Our Judges
SHORT STORY & FLASH FICTION
David Swann is a short story writer and poet. His novella, Season of Sweet Sorrow (Ad Hoc Press, 2021), was named 2023 Rubery Book of the Year. The novella is set on Morecambe Bay, where Dave lived for several years. It was inspired by incidents he witnessed while working as a writer in residence for the Arts Council of England in HMP Nottingham, where he helped in the rehabilitation of lifers and long-term prisoners. The residency also inspired Dave’s book, The Privilege of Rain (Waterloo Press, 2011), which was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. In 2017, Dave was awarded a doctorate for his PhD about the role played by writing in the rehabilitation of offenders. David is a Senior Lecturer in English & Creative Writing at the University of Chichester.
POETRY
Suzannah Evans is an award-winning poet and writer based in Sheffield. She has published two collections of poetry, Near Future and Space Baby, with Nine Arches Press. Her first chapbook was a winner in the Poetry Business Competition 2012, and she has a second, ‘Green’, forthcoming with Bad Betty Press in June 2024. Suzannah was a Gladstone Library writer in residence in 2019, and in 2021 she received a Northern Writers’ Award for poetry. Her work asks difficult questions about the Earth, its beings, and what lies ahead for them; how do we look to the future on a planet that’s burning? How do we come to terms with our grief, and what can we believe in?
Jump to:
Get Writing Prompts & Tips – for fab writing exercises & tips
Guidelines & How to Enter
Click on the images below to view the writing inspiration photo gallery, or visit the gallery here on Flickr
Gallery images credited to respective owners, linked here