Child Writes Competition - Deadline Sunday 28th of September, 2014 - Australia

Annual Child Writes competition 


The competition closes Sunday 28th of September, 2014 at midnight

The winners will be announced by Monday, 6th of October, 2014.

Early bird entries are welcome, especially for those of you who are simply busting to get your entry in!

If you are a child writer or illustrator, the Child Writes competition is a unique and exciting opportunity to see your name in print! The winning writer will be paired with the winning illustrator, to be mentored (by Emma Mactaggart) through the Child Writes program and to produce what we expect to be an extraordinary book! This book will be published by Boogie Books as both a hard copy publication and an ebook, and will be promoted and distributed by Child Writes. Royalties will be paid to the author and illustrator, for book sales that are generated. We want your voice to be heard, so this is a fantastic opportunity to share your thoughts, ideas and abilities in word or artistic form.



The Child Writes competition is open to all Australian primary-school aged child writers and illustrators. The judges will be looking for originality, creativity and character, as well as correct punctuation and grammar for writers and consistency of artistic skills for illustrators.



Child Writers: Submit a story suitable for a children’s picture book, no longer than 800 words. All story entries will need to be submitted by email, in Microsoft Word format.

Child Illustrators: Submit three full colour A4 sample illustrations, showcasing at least three different characters and settings. All illustration entries will need to be scanned and submitted by e-mail as PDF documents. (Please don't spend a fortune doing this - your school should have a scanner you can access or locations like OfficeWorks only charge $0.40 per a4/a3 page!)

In the case of a short list, original illustrations may be requested to be sent by post.


Entry Cost: $15 per submission.

Click here to enter the competition


Further terms and conditions can be found on the entry form.

To keep track of the progress of last year's winners, Kate McCullough (Charters Towers, QLD) and Charlotte de Laine (Balgowlah, NSW) we would love you to 'like' our Facebook page… Their book, with the working title 'The Lost Calf' is to be published in November, 2014!

(For those entrants last year who were Highly Commended… Please accept this invitation to enter as our guest! You were so close and we really wanted to encourage you to enter again! Check your emails for more information!)


Spread the Word (to download)

We would love to give children all over Australia the opportunity to uncover their writing and artistic skills through the Child Writes competition again next year. Please help us to spread the word by downloading the images below and sharing them with your school, social networks, websites, community noticeboards, or with children you think have a voice that the world needs to hear.

Thank you.

Child Writes Competition Banner. (Spread the Word)
Preview | Child Writes Competition Banner (738 KB)


Child Writes Competition Box. (Spread the Word)
Preview | Child Writes Compeition Box (320 KB)