Last year's prizes were presented by Michael Morpurgo

Following its success last year, The Chiswick Book Festival is again running the Young People's Poetry competition for children and teens aged 8 to 13 years.

Just Write It!

The Competition is free and open to young people aged between 8-13 years. Please note there will be an earlier closing date this year: 8th June 2012. You can enter via your school or individually.

Application forms and poetry writing tips will be available at the end of this month from www.chiswickbookfestival.org .

Young people are invited to set their imaginations free and write a poem at home, or at school, about whatever appeals to them.

You can see last year's six winning poems (one for each year group) at www.flickr.com/photos/chiswickbookfest/show/

Last year eleven local schools participated in the competition and organisers hope even more will get involved this year. The winning children were awarded their prizes at author Michael Morpurgo's Opening speech at The Chiswick Book Festival and all the winning and commended poems were displayed in Waterstone's Chiswick front window in September 2011.

All the competition entrants and budding young poets were invited to a creative poetry workshop at the Chiswick Book Festival which will also be repeated this year on Saturday September 15th 2012.

For more details, contact Nicola Kelly at nicky.kelly@chiswickw4.com

March 4, 2012