Blacktown Mayoral Writing Prize 2024
Welcome to the Mayoral Creative Writing Prize 2024.
It is open to adults and children (aged 8 to 17 years) who live in Blacktown city. The poems and short stories must be works of fiction.
All entries can be either poetry or short stories. They will be judged in the following age categories:
- 8 – 11 years,
- 12 – 14 years,
- 15 – 17 years
- adult (18+)
Theme: To the point
Weave your ideas, experiences and imaginings based on this theme into your short story or poem.
Prizes
The total prize pool is $2,400. Winners aged 17 or younger will receive $200. The school they attend will receive a corresponding $100 as an incentive to encourage the budding authors of our local area. Adult winners will receive $300. All winners and highly commended writers will have their work published in 2024 Blacktown Mayoral Anthology by WestWords.
Announcement of the prize winners
The presentation ceremony will take place on Thursday 5 December 2024, at 6 pm at Max Webber Library. All winners and highly commended recipients will be invited to attend.
This program is proudly supported by Blacktown City Council and WestWords.
Submission criteria
1. The work must be original and completed in the last 6 months.
Entries can be either:
• poem, maximum of 25 lines
• short story, maximum of 500 words.
2. Only one entry per person is permitted in each category.
3. Each entry must have one entry per online form.
4. The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
5. All participants will receive a letter acknowledging the receipt of their entry and their participation. A presentation ceremony will be held on Thursday 5 December 2024, where the winners will be announced.
6. Submit entries with a completed entry form online via this link.
Judging
Your work will be judged on how original it is, how you have constructed your story or poem, the use of language, (including creative expression, grammar, sentence structure, punctuation and spelling), the way you have developed characters, atmosphere, or setting or used words in a creative way and how it relates to the theme.
It is critical that this work is original and not copied in any way, and must not have been created using any generative AI tools. Copied work will be disqualified. Short stories exceeding the 500 words limit, or poems longer than 25 lines will also be disqualified.
An independent judging panel will assess all submissions.
For more information, please contact WestWords: Western Sydney’s Literature Development Organisation, on
1800 WestWords (1800 937 896)
or by email: admin@westwords.com.au