Congratulations to the talented winners of our Creative World Wars writing competition: 1st prizes in our two age categories went to Rebekah @ReigateGrammar & Pheobe @MarsdenHeights, 2nd prizes to Millie @PenriceAcademy & William @SheringhamHigh!

A huge thank you to everyone who submitted work, which we very much enjoyed reading, and to our celebrity judge, Hilary Robinson, and the rest of the judging panel for generously giving their time. With kind permission of the authors and their parents, you can read our four winning entries here: Creative World Wars winning entries.

We were looking for creative pieces – a poem or a very short story – of no more than 750 words that deal in some way with either the First or the Second World War or the Holocaust. Stories could be set at any point in time, then and now. Our participants could write about people who fought or didn’t fight, lived or died – or they could choose to write about ways in which these events are remembered or are still important to us today. Texts could be based on real events or people, or could be completely imaginary. They could be about any country or people who were part of the two world wars, as long as they were the author’s own work.

Submissions were judged by a panel of esteemed published writers and academic experts, led by Hilary Robinson, author of Where the Poppies Now Grow (2014). Prizes were awarded in two age categories: 11–13 and 14–15. The competition was sponsored by the government-funded Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The deadline for submissions was 1 June 2018.