Submissions now open for the 2026 BBC Young Writers’ Award!

Radio 1's Life Hacks' Lauren Layfield is joined by incredible judging panel for the 2026 BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University. Entries close at 9am (GMT), Monday 23rd March 2026. The BBC Young Writers’ Award is open to writers between the ages of 14-18 years.

Privacy notice, entry instructions and T&Cs are available here.

Submissions have now opened for the twelfth year of the BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University! If you are 14-18 and in the UK, all you need to do is write a story of up to 1,000 words – no theme, no subject: as long as it’s a story and your own work, you can submit it.

Thousands of young people have sent in their stories over the past 11 years of this prestigious award, with winning authors going on to study across the UK, win other writing competitions, and even achieve professional book deals for their writing. You’ve got until 23rd March to get your entry in, so get writing!

Award winning writers and musicians join the judging panel

Returning to chair the judging is BBC Radio 1 presenter Lauren Layfield. Lauren hosts Life Hacks each Sunday, and first chaired the Award last year. Joining Lauren are: Lily Fontaine, lead singer of Mercury Award-winning band English Teacher; and two Carnegie Medal-winning authors in David Almond and Margaret McDonald. One final judge is yet to be announced.On returning for the 2026 Award, Lauren says:

‘I’m delighted to return as Chair for this year’s BBC Young Writers Award! Last year’s entries were thrilling, surprising and many were truly exceptional pieces of writing and I can’t wait to read what this year’s entrants put to paper. Good luck!’

For inspiration, you can listen to last year’s winning entry, ‘Scouse’s Run’ by Rebecca Smith below.

You can listen to ‘Scouse’s Run’ here
A gang of teens, a stolen trolley, and a reckless bet. An emotionally charged story set in Yorkshire exploring toxic masculinity, bullying, and the violence that comes from suppressed emotions. Praised by the judges for its ‘strong voice,’ ‘tension’ and ‘undercurrent of danger and violence’.

Listen to the 2025 shortlisted stories

You’ll find all last year’s shortlisted stories on this page, as well as our resources page full of helpful tips and hints for getting started on your own short story.

The BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University

Now in its twelfth year, the BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University challenges young people in the UK aged between 14-18 years to submit stories of up to 1,000 words. Submissions for the 2026 award are open until 9am (GMT) Monday 23rd March 2026.

L-R: Lauren Layfield (credit: BBC), Lily Fontaine (credit: Concorde Media), David Almond (credit: Darren Irwin Photography), Margaret McDonald (credit: Heather Callaghan)

LAUREN LAYFIELD is a British Guyanese TV presenter, radio broadcaster, DJ, journalist and writer. She co-hosts Life Hacks and The Official Chart: First Look for BBC Radio 1, leading the conversation about issues that affect young people today before counting down the twenty biggest songs in the UK. A regular television presenter, she has also worked on The One Show, Match of the Day, Children in Need and Eurovision coverage.

Her debut teen novel ‘Indi Raye is Totally Faking It’ was published in August 2023 by Hachette UK. Lauren is an ambassador for period poverty organisation Bloody Good Period and for mental health charity Young Minds. 

LILY FONTAINE is a Yorkshire based multimedia creative known publicly as the front woman of 2024 Mercury Prize winning guitar band English Teacher, for whom she writes lyrics that blend social commentary with storytelling and absurdism. When she is not making music she can be found writing poetry and prose, creating visual art, lobbying the UK government to support grassroots music, drinking Guinness zero and reading science fiction.

DAVID ALMOND OBE FRSL grew up on a council estate on Tyneside. He is the author of Skellig, Counting Stars, The Falling Boy, Puppet, The Dam, The Tightrope Walkers, A Song for Ella Grey and many more novels, short stories, picture books, radio programmes, opera librettos and plays. His work is published and performed all around the world. He has received a series of major international literary awards including The Hans Christian Andersen Award and The Carnegie Medal. He is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. In 2021 he was awarded an OBE for services to literature. He lives with his wife, the author Julia Green, on the beautiful North East Coast.

MARGARET MCDONALD is a Scottish author from Glasgow. Her debut novel Glasgow Boys was published in May 2024. She has also been published in the poetry and prose magazines ‘The Manifest Station’, ‘In Parentheses’, ‘Breath and Shadow’, ’Page and Spine’, ‘Bandit Fiction’ and ‘Bubble Lit Mag’. She is a first-generation student and holds an MLitt with Distinction in English Literature from Glasgow University and a First-Class B.A (Hons) in Creative Writing with English Literature from Strathclyde University. She writes about the working class experience, the student experience and the Scottish healthcare system as a former NHS employee and disabled author.